TEAM BUILDING, TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

MBH402
MBA 4th Semester

UNIT 3

How to set goals for your team

You know you need goals to be productive, but establishing the right ones is tricky. They
have to motivate your team, fit individual roles, and be aligned with company
objectives.
Research shows that setting specific and challenging goals leads to higher performance.
In order for them to be effective, there should be alignment between those of the
organization, the team's, and individual ones. Everyone should be working towards the
same outcome and understand how their work is contributing to the bigger picture.

Here are 7 steps to set goals for your team and ensure they're as effective as
possible.

1. Know what you want to achieve

Before you communicate to your team, think about why you want to set goals and what you
hope to achieve with them. If the wider team goal is completed, what are the implications?
How will it benefit your organization? An important part of goal-setting is measurement, so
ensure you know how you will track and evaluate progress as well as completion, and how
this impacts what you want to achieve.

2. Set goals at the team level

Once you've determined what you want to achieve, start by setting goals for the team. When
teams have challenging, meaningful goals to work towards, they come together as a more
effective and collaborative unit. It helps them be aligned and have a common focus, rather
than trying to outperform each another. Of course, team goals can (and should) be broken
down into individual ones.
Once you've identified them, write down your goals. Research indicates that writing down
goals makes for an 80% higher chance of achieving them.
’The more you can involve your employees in setting goals for themselves and the group, the
more committed to those goals they are likely to be."

3. Let After determining team goals, give people the autonomy to develop their own goals -
sitting underneath team ones. Based on their function, they should be able to determine key
initiatives and goals that will support the greater team objectives.
 Make sure you are available to provide support: help them learn how to develop meaningful
and achievable goals by using a framework such as SMART goals. Guide them so they are
aligned with the team (and organizational) goals, and ensure they understand the importance
of measurement.

4. Set deadlines

Deadlines help the team develop accountability - both to you and with themselves, making
the goals more meaningful. A goal with no deadline won't serve its purpose as it could end up
constantly pushed back and never achieved. If people start to feel the goals aren't being taken
as a serious assignment, they will become discouraged people develop their own goals and
disengaged.
Commonly people work by quarters so you could set goals on a quarterly basis. This is a
relatively long period of time during which to run projects allowing you to set bigger goals,
yet short enough to change course if need be. It also means that you can work on a bigger
variety of initiatives throughout the year that support company objectives.
If quarters don't work for you, you could try setting project-based goals for example.

5. Track progress on goals

As mentioned previously, goals should be tangible and measurable so you can determine
success.
Help your team stay focused by tracking progress. Checking in will allow you to know where
to course correct, which initiatives are going faster than planned, and therefore help you re-
allocate resources if need be.
Tracking goals also helps teams stay motivated when they see progress, and when they're
getting close to completion. Knowing you've achieved something you set out to do, coupled
with the sense of accomplishment, are very strong motivators for your people.

6. Help people meet their goals

As a manager and team leader, it's your responsibility to help your people achieve their goals
in addition to giving the team direction. There are several ways you can do this:

 Help them understand how to define an achievable goal

 Have regular 1-on-1s to see how things are going
 Show your team that you're open to questions and to giving guidance
 Support them with advice on how to achieve their initiatives
 Help your team define milestones as they work towards team or individual goals
 Give your team regular feedback so they know what's going well, and what could be
improved

7. Learn from your mistakes

Not all goals are going to be met. Some may have been set too high on purpose, some may
not have been realistic (in hindsight), and some may suffer from unpredictable changes
throughout the quarter. That's just the reality of work and the unknowns you have to contend
with.
Make sure the team understands it's ok to fail; the goal shouldn't be the be all and end all, it's
a way of guiding people's work. Being open to the possibility of failure doesn't mean
accepting mediocrity; or that goals don't matter. It simply means no one can guarantee things
will succeed. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes: what will we do differently
next time? Is there a way this could have been prevented? And move on to do better things.

Definition Of Team Dynamics

Team dynamics are the unconscious, psychological forces that influence the direction of a
team’s behaviour and performance.  They are like undercurrents in the sea, which can carry
boats in a different direction to the one they intend to sail.
Team dynamics are created by the nature of the team’s work, the personalities within the
team, their working relationships with other people, and the environment in which the team
works.
Team dynamics can be good - for example, when they improve overall team performance
and/or get the best out of individual team members.  They can also be bad - for example,
when they cause unproductive conflict, demotivation, and prevent the team from achieving its
goals.

Roles and Responsibilities of Team Members in a Team:

Roles and Responsibilities of Team Members
Teams are usually selected or authorized by the Quality Council. A team normally consists of
Team leader, Facilitator, Recorder, Timekeeper and Members. Each and every member have
their own responsibilities. They play their role for the welfare of the team. Some of the roles
and responsibilities of team members are briefly explained below.

1. Role and Responsibilities of Team leader

A team leader is selected by the quality council, sponsor or the team itself.

1. Team leader ensures smooth and effective operations of the team.

2. He ensures that all members participate during the meetings and he prevents members
from dominating the proceedings unnecessarily.

3. He serves as a mediator between the team and the Quality Council.

4. He implements the changes recommended by the team.

5. He prepares the agenda of all meetings and ensure necessary resources are available for the
meeting.

6. Team leader ensures that team decisions are taken by consensus rather than unilaterally.

2. Role and Responsibilities of Facilitator

Facilitator is not a member of the team. Yet his role in the team is indispensable.

1. Facilitator supports the leader for facilitating the team during initial stages of the team.

2. He focuses on team process.

3. He acts as resource to the team

4. He provides feed back to the team concerning the effectiveness of the team process.

3. Role and Responsibilities of Team Recorder

1. Team recorder is selected by the team leader or by the team and may be rotated on a
periodic basis.

2. He documents the main ideas of the team’s discussion.

3. He presents the documents for the team to review during the meeting and distribute them
as ‘minutes of the meeting‘ afterwards.

4. He participates as a team member.

4. Role and Responsibilities of Time keeper

1. Time keeper is selected by the leader or by the team and may be rotated on a periodic
basis.

2. He monitors the time to maintain the schedule as per agenda.

3. He participates as a team member.

5. Role and Responsibilities of Individual Member

1. Team member is selected by the leader, sponsor, or quality council (or) is a member of a
natural work team.

2. He should actively, participate in meetings and shares knowledge, expertise, ideas and
information.

3. He should respect others’ contribution.

4. He should listen carefully and ask questions.

5. He should be enthusiastic.

6. He should work for consensus on decisions.

7. He should be committed to team objectives.

8. He should carry out assignments between meetings such as collecting data, observing
processes, charting data and writing reports.

What is leadership?
A simple definition is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward
achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can mean directing workers and
colleagues with a strategy to meet the company's needs.

Team Leadership Model: Lead with Style and Focus!

Team leadership models can help you think through how you may need to change your
leadership approach for  different stages of a team’s development. Teams are one of the most
important situations in which leaders need to adapt different styles. There are numerous
leadership theories each focused on a different situation or contingency, they help leaders
think through how decisions are made or how to adapt a style dependent on an individual’s
confidence and competence. Few consider style applied to teams.

Team Leadership Model – Focus on leading teams with style

Our approach brings together a team stages view with possible leadership styles for each
stage. There are a wide range of team stage models  and they all broadly follow a team from
inception through to performing well.

Here we will use the following stages:

 Creating a new team

 Developing a team
 Performing and achieving results with a team
 Sustaining team performance

Different stages of team development are likely to require different styles of leadership. In
the following section we will consider a team leadership model with four styles for each of
the stages of team development:
 Steering
 Supporting
 Stimulating
 Synergising

Alongside this model for teams we have also developed a really helpful model for
determining where your focus as a leader needs to be. We explain this in our article: leading
teams: where’s your focus?

A Team Leadership Model: Styles and stages:

STAGE: Creating a team – a new team tends to want clarity and direction. Questions about
what the team is trying to do, and how individuals fit in to the team mean that leaders need to
provide clear direction. Teams tend to form more quickly when there is a clear purpose and
goal to achieve. In this context a leader will often need to provide a directive approach.

STYLE: Steering – starting a team tends to require a steering style, one where the leader
provides direction without being overly directive.

STAGE: Developing a team – moving a team from start-up to where it is developing into a

team is one of the most important and most difficult of the stages. It is all too easy for a group
of people to remain as a loose group and never really begin to function as an effective team.

STYLE: Supporting – helping a team come together needs a supporting style of leadership.

A leader supports individuals to recognise each others strengths and how they can
complement each other. Where differences begin to surface a leader supports the team in
resolving any tensions.

STAGE: Performing and achieving results – When teams are clear on their purpose and
work well together they begin to perform.

STYLE: Stimulating – the leader can now help individuals to develop their strengths for the
benefit of the team. The leader prompts, encourages and challenges individuals to excel and
stimulates the team to improve what they do.

STAGE: Sustaining team performance – it is hard enough to reach the point where a  team
is really performing, but performance in the short term whilst valuable is not sufficent. Team
need to be able to sustain their performance.

STYLE: Synergising –  for a team to achieve sustained performance leaders need to be

synergistic. They need to bring together ideas, individuals, opportunities and situations so 
that they combine in ways that mean they deliver more than if they were apart.

What is Contingency Theory of Leadership?

Contingency Theory of Leadership is a very special kind of approach which states that the
success of a leader does not only depend on his abilities.
There are many other factors relating to the work environment, company culture and employees
which impact a manager’s success in the process of leadership.

Hence, his success is contingent on his roles.  This model is given by Fiedler.

That is why, many times, it is called as ‘Fiedler Contingency Model of Leadership’.

What Is Situational Leadership

Situational Leadership is flexible. It adapts to the existing work environment and the needs of
the organization. Situational Leadership is not based on a specific skill of the leader; instead,
he or she modifies the style of management to suit the requirements of the organization.
One of the keys to Situational Leadership is adaptability. Leaders must be able to move from
one leadership style to another to meet the changing needs of an organization and its
employees. These leaders must have the insight to understand when to change their
management style and what leadership strategy fits each new paradigm.

What is transformational leadership?

Transformational leadership is a leadership style in which leaders encourage, inspire and

motivate employees to innovate and create change that will help grow and shape the future
success of the company. This is accomplished by setting an example at the executive level
through a strong sense of corporate culture, employee ownership and independence in the
workplace.

Transformational leaders inspire and motivate their workforce without micromanaging —

they trust trained employees to take authority over decisions in their assigned jobs. It’s a
management style that’s designed to give employees more room to be creative, look to the
future and find new solutions to old problems. Employees on the leadership track will also be
prepared to become transformational leaders themselves through mentorship and training.

LEADERSHIP AND DECISION MAKING

how should leaders in top positions of power balance the need to drive
decisions, catalyze action and command respect with the challenge of keeping
team members engage

Here are a 7 tips for how to effectively approach decision-making as a leader of

a team:

1. Consider Timing and Deadlines: Leaders can gauge how directive or

democratic to be dependent on the situation. Times of stress, extreme pressure or
tight deadlines typically benefit from leaders who are prepared to make a quick,
firm and unilateral decision. In these settings, team members can actually prefer
to be told what to do, as it enables them to quickly and successfully address the
need at hand. However, if the situation is one that allows for time and planning,
 it can benefit from a more democratic approach – one that incorporates
participation and dialogue. d and involved?

2. Factor-In the Weight and Impact of the Decision:  Some decisions will
have a deep impact across every person or customer tied to an organization.
These decisions naturally involve high levels of risk. Other decisions are
low-risk, and may only affect a small number of people or processes.
Depending on this context, a leader may need to be more or less involved in
owning a decision and making a “final call.” That said, leaders shouldn’t
assume that all low-risk decisions could be handed off or that they
themselves should handle all high-risk decisions. There are strategic reasons
to involve others in shared decision-making on both ends of the spectrum.
3. When You Can, Empower Others: Whenever a leader can empower
individuals and teams to own or participate in a decision-making process, it will
create higher levels of engagement. As Daniel Pink  describes in his book on
motivation entitled “Drive ,” a crucial aspect of creating intrinsically driven
employees is to give them greater autonomy and ownership.
4. Co-Design a Decision-Making Framework: One way to ensure buy-in and
participation is to co-design and clarify a decision-making framework for your
team. This means having a deliberate conversation about what an effective
decision-making process would look like. What are the steps involved? What
role does information gathering play? What type of information is most
valuable? Who should be involved in what decisions? How important is
consensus? Having this discussion will itself become an engagement tool, and
can create more awareness and clarity about how and why certain decisions are
made in certain ways.
5. Understand What Information Is Important for Decision Making: When time allows,
gathering information can be an important part of the decision making process.
It can also be a never-ending endeavor, especially in today’s “information age”
of big data. The key is to understand what type of information is most important
for a particular decision, and how much of it is needed. Ask yourself these
questions as a starting point: Will this decision benefit from detailed quantitative
figures, or would qualitative or anecdotal feedback be more appropriate? How
do we want to slice-and-dice and display the data? Who else will need to see it,
and what is their preferred way of consuming it? What time limits do we want to
set on the information-gathering phase of the process?  
5. Create an Open Space for Exchange and Discussion:  Some leaders may
feel that soliciting the input of others is a sign of weakness or indecisiveness.
This doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, making the time and space for
gathering feedback from team members – if done deliberately, confidently and
genuinely – will actually strengthen a leader’s influence and increase the trust
and buy-in present among the team. Creating an open exchange of perspectives
ultimately leads to better decisions, as more input can be considered in the mix.
The word “open” is important, as team members need to feel comfortable
expressing differing views without judgment or threat of punishment.
7. Know When to Drive the Process Towards Finality : Decisions can’t hang
in the balance forever. There’s a point at which team members can become more
stressed due to ongoing ambiguity and the inability to act, especially if deadlines
are looming. This is the time for a leader to drive the process to conclusion.    If
 there’s no clear consensus from the group, it’s the leader’s role to make the final
call. If they’ve effectively gathered information and solicited feedback during
the process, others will respect the leader’s decision that much more.

The Key to Being an Effective Leader in Times of Change

The value of good leadership in any organization cannot be understated. Leaders steer the
ship, inspire employees, champion growth culture and make far-reaching decisions that affect
the welfare of everyone involved. So it should come as no surprise that sound leadership is
especially important through times of change. Change is hard, and whether positive or
negative, it’s a challenging time for any organization to navigate.

The key to being an effective leader in times of changes is to cultivate a climate of trust.

Trust in leadership during times of change outweighs all other factors. If there is a climate of
trust, there is a sense of hope for the future. And without that sense of hope, things could
easily fall apart. Productivity could come to a halt and employees could disengage and stop
functioning altogether.

Trust in leadership means employees will expect a certain amount of disruption through the
change and accept it as necessary, without panicking. They’ll expect clear communication
from you, effective and confident decision making and they’ll perceive you as supportive,
concerned and committed to the welfare of the entire organization. They will give the benefit
of the doubt, assuming you have their best interest, and the best interest of the organization at
heart. They’ll also be more understanding of tough decisions and necessary evils.

In order to build this climate of trust, you must focus on three areas long before difficult
changes arises:

1. Building a strong team.

As a leader you are only as strong as the people you surround yourself with. Create a
dependable team of thoughtful, passionate people. Seasoned experts with unique experience
to fill your own knowledge gaps. Supportive folks that help you stay on top of your own
game. And outstanding employees who think outside the box. Those with a growth mindset
in the habit of questioning the status quo. You want a team that together, will be much
stronger, wiser and capable than you could ever be on your own.

2. Cultivate self-awareness.

Self-awareness in a leader is crucial. Not only because you’ll need to know your own
weaknesses to build a complementary team around you, but because accurate self assessment
is integral to growth. If you aren’t willing to take feedback, try new things and go through the
discomfort and awkwardness of change yourself, how can you ask your organization to?

3. Do not pretend to have all the answers.  

The biggest rookie mistake in leadership is pretending to have all the answers. Due to fear of
looking ignorant or ineffective, many new leaders pretend that they do. But learning to be
vulnerable and open to new ideas, to admit what you don’t know, is what brings the genius
out of those around you. When you show them that you sweat it out in the trenches as well,
that you toil over decisions and need the input of the qualified and passionate people around
you, you embolden them to take charge, think outside the box and be vulnerable themselves.
A strong leader doesn’t have to have all of the answers. A strong leader has to cultivate a
team and culture where problems are solved effectively, for the benefit of all involved.

In order to be an effective leader through times of change, you have to be an effective leader
long before the change comes around. A climate of trust is the foundation on which your
organization succeeds and you can create it by building the strongest team that you possibly
can, cultivating your own self-awareness and being inclusive and vulnerable instead of the
only voice in the room.