MODULE-5

Inter-Growth InterventionsTeam Building

With good team-building skills, you can unite employees around a common goal and generate greater productivity. Without them, you limit yourself and the staff to the effort each individual can make alone.

Team building is an ongoing process that helps a work group evolve into a cohesive unit. The team members not only share expectations for accomplishing group tasks, but trust and support one another and respect one another's individual differences. Your role as a team builder is to lead your team toward cohesiveness and productivity. A team takes on a life of its own and you have to regularly nurture and maintain it, just as you do for individual employees. Your Development & Training Organization Development Consultant can advise and help you.

Managing diversity well can enhance team-building; Managing Diversity in the Workplace, offers information and resources in this important area.

Guiding Principles Other Resources Steps to Building an Effective Team Symptoms that Signal a Need for Team Building

Guiding Principles

Team building can lead to:

Good communications with participants as team members and individuals

Increased department productivity and creativity

Team members motivated to achieve goals

A climate of cooperation and collaborative problem-solving

Higher levels of job satisfaction and commitment

Higher levels of trust and support

Diverse co-workers working well together

Clear work objectives

Better operating policies and procedures

Other Resources

Organization Development Specialists in Development & Training

Don Diettinger - 6-4841

Joseph Dos Ramos - 6-4278

Steps to Building an Effective Team

The first rule of team building is an obvious one: to lead a team effectively, you must first establish your leadership with each team member. Remember that the most effective team leaders build their relationships of trust and loyalty, rather than fear or the power of their positions.

Consider each employee's ideas as valuable. Remember that there is no such thing as a stupid idea.

Be aware of employees' unspoken feelings. Set an example to team members by being open with employees and sensitive to their moods and feelings.

Act as a harmonizing influence. Look for chances to mediate and resolve minor disputes; point continually toward the team's higher goals.

Be clear when communicating. Be careful to clarify directives.

Encourage trust and cooperation among employees on your team. Remember that the relationships team members establish among themselves are every bit as important as those you establish with them. As the team begins to take shape, pay close attention to the ways in which team members work together and take steps to improve communication, cooperation, trust, and respect in those relationships.

Encourage team members to share information. Emphasize the importance of each team member's contribution and demonstrate how all of their jobs operate together to move the entire team closer to its goal.

Delegate problem-solving tasks to the team. Let the team work on creative solutions together.

Facilitate communication. Remember that communication is the single most important factor in successful teamwork. Facilitating communication does not mean holding meetings all the time. Instead it means setting an example by remaining open to suggestions and concerns, by asking questions and offering help, and by doing everything you can to avoid confusion in your own communication.

Establish team values and goals; evaluate team performance. Be sure to talk with members about the progress they are making toward established goals so that employees get a sense both of their success and of the challenges that lie ahead. Address teamwork in performance standards. Discuss with your team:

What do we really care about in performing our job?

What does the word success mean to this team?

What actions can we take to live up to our stated values?

Make sure that you have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish; that you know what your standards for success are going to be; that you have established clear time frames; and that team members understand their responsibilities.

Use consensus. Set objectives, solve problems, and plan for action. While it takes much longer to establish consensus, this method ultimately provides better decisions and greater productivity because it secures every employee's commitment to all phases of the work.

Set ground rules for the team. These are the norms that you and the team establish to ensure efficiency and success. They can be simple directives (Team members are to be punctual for meetings) or general guidelines (Every team member has the right to offer ideas and suggestions), but you should make sure that the team creates these ground rules by consensus and commits to them, both as a group and as individuals.

Establish a method for arriving at a consensus. You may want to conduct open debate about the pros and cons of proposals, or establish research committees to investigate issues and deliver reports.

Encourage listening and brainstorming. As supervisor, your first priority in creating consensus is to stimulate debate. Remember that employees are often afraid to disagree with one another and that this fear can lead your team to make mediocre decisions. When you encourage debate you inspire creativity and that's how you'll spur your team on to better results.

Establish the parameters of consensus-building sessions. Be sensitive to the frustration that can mount when the team is not achieving consensus. At the outset of your meeting, establish time limits, and work with the team to achieve consensus within those parameters. Watch out for false consensus; if an agreement is struck too quickly, be careful to probe individual team members to discover their real feelings about the proposed solution.

Symptoms that Signal a Need for Team Building

Decreased productivity

Conflicts or hostility among staff members

Confusion about assignments, missed signals, and unclear relationships

Decisions misunderstood or not carried through properly

Apathy and lack of involvement

Lack of initiation, imagination, innovation; routine actions taken for solving complex problems

Complaints of discrimination or favoritism

Ineffective staff meetings, low participation, minimally effective decisions

Negative reactions to the manager

Complaints about quality of serviceLikerts Management SystemsThese are management styles developed byRensis Likertin the 1960s. He outlined four systems of management to describe the relationship, involvement, and roles of managers and subordinates in industrial settings. He based the systems on studies of highly productive supervisors and their team members of an American Insurance Company. Later, he and Jane G. Likert revised the systems to apply to educational settings. They initially intended to spell out the roles of principals, students, and teachers; eventually others such as superintendents, administrators, and parents were included.[2]Rensis Likert and his associates studied the patterns and styles of managers for three decades at the University of Michigan, USA, and identified a four-fold model of management systems. The model was developed on the basis of a questionnaire administered to managers in over 200 organizations and research into the performance characteristics of different types of organizations. The four systems of management system or the four leadership styles identified by Likert are: System 1 - Exploitative Authoritative:Responsibility lies in the hands of the people at the upper echelons of the hierarchy. The superior has no trust and confidence in subordinates. The decisions are imposed on subordinates and they do not feel free at all to discuss things about the job with their superior. The teamwork or communication is very little and the motivation is based on threats.

System 2 - Benevolent Authoritative:The responsibility lies at the managerial levels but not at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. The superior has condescending confidence and trust in subordinates (master-servant relationship). Here again, the subordinates do not feel free to discuss things about the job with their superior. The teamwork or communication is very little and motivation is based on a system of rewards.

System 3 - Consultative:Responsibility is spread widely through the organizational hierarchy. The superior has substantial but not complete confidence in subordinates. Some amount of discussion about job related things takes place between the superior and subordinates. There is a fair amount of teamwork, and communication takes place vertically and horizontally. The motivation is based on rewards and involvement in the job.

System 4 - Participative:Responsibility for achieving the organizational goals is widespread throughout the organizational hierarchy. There is a high level of confidence that the superior has in his subordinates. There is a high level of teamwork, communication, and participation.

The nature of these four management systems has been described by Likert through a profile of organizational characteristics. In this profile, the four management systems have been compared with one another on the basis of certain organizational variables which are: Leadership processes

Motivational forces

Communication process

Interaction-influence process

Decision-making process

Goal-setting or ordering

Control processes

On the basis of this profile, Likert administered a questionnaire to several employees belonging to different organizations and from different managerial positions (both line and staff). His studies confirmed that the departments or units employing management practices within Systems 1 and 2 were the lease productive, and the departments or units employing management practices within Systems 3 and 4 were the most productive.

Advantages

With the help of the profile developed by Likert, it became possible to quantify the results of the work done in the field of group dynamics. Likert theory also facilitated the measurement of the soft areas of management, such as trust and communication.

Conclusion

According to Rensis Likert, the nearer the behavioral characteristics of an organization approach System 4 (Participative), the more likely this will lead to long-term improvementin staff turnover and high productivity, low scrap, low costs, and high earnings.if an organization wants to achieve optimum effectiveness, then the ideal system

GRID ODGrid training is an outgrowth of the managerial grid approach to leadership (Blacke and Mouton, 1978). It is an instrumental approach to laboratory training. Sensitivity training is supplemented with self-administered instruments (Benny, Bradford and Lippitt, 1964). The analysis of these instruments helps in group development and in the learning of group members. This technique is widely used and has proved effective.

Grid training for OD is completed in six phases. They are:

laboratory-seminar training, which aims at acquainting participants with concepts and material used in grid training;

a team development phase, involving the coming together of members from the same department to chart out as to how they will attain a 9 x 9 position on the grid;

inter-group development aims at overall OD. During this phase, conflict situations between groups are identified and analysed;

organization goal setting is based on participative management, where participants contribute to and agree upon important goals for the organization;

goal attainment aims at achieving goals which were set during the phase of organizational goal setting; and

stabilization involves the evaluation of the overall programme and making suggestions for changes if appropriate.

Understanding the ModelThe Managerial Grid is based on two behavioral dimensions:

Concern for People This is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

Concern for Production This is the degree to which a leader emphasizes concrete objectives, organizational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

Using the axis to plot leadership concerns for production versus concerns for people, Blake and Mouton defined the following five leadership styles:

Country Club Leadership High People/Low Production -This style of leader is most concerned about the needs and feelings of members of his/her team. These people operate under the assumption that as long as team members are happy and secure then they will work hard. What tends to result is a work environment that is very relaxed and fun but where production suffers due to lack of direction and control.

Produce or Perish Leadership High Production/Low People -Also known as Authoritarian or Compliance Leaders, people in this category believe that employees are simply a means to an end. Employee needs are always secondary to the need for efficient and productive workplaces. This type of leader is very autocratic, has strict work rules, policies, and procedures, and views punishment as the most effective means to motivate employees.

Impoverished Leadership Low Production/Low People-This leader is mostly ineffective. He/she has neither a high regard for creating systems for getting the job done, nor for creating a work environment that is satisfying and motivating. The result is a place of disorganization, dissatisfaction and disharmony.

Middle-of-the-Road Leadership Medium Production/Medium People-This style seems to be a balance of the two competing concerns. It may at first appear to be an ideal compromise. Therein lies the problem, though: When you compromise, you necessarily give away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are fully met. Leaders who use this style settle for average performance and often believe that this is the most anyone can expect.

Team Leadership High Production/High People-According to the Blake Mouton model, this is the pinnacle of managerial style. These leaders stress production needs and the needs of the people equally highly. The premise here is that employees are involved in understanding organizational purpose and determining production needs. When employees are committed to, and have a stake in the organizations success, their needs and production needs coincide. This creates a team environment based on trust and respect, which leads to high satisfaction and motivation and, as a result, high production.

Applying the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid

Being aware of the various approaches is the first step in understanding and improving how well you perform as a manager. It is important to understand how you currently operate, so that you can then identify ways of becoming competent in both realms.

Step One: Identify your leadership style

Think of some recent situations where you were the leader. For each of these situations, place yourself in the grid according to where you believe you fit.

Step Two: Identify areas of improvement and develop your leadership skills

Look at your current leadership method and critically analyze its effectiveness.

Look at ways you can improve. Are you settling for middle of the road because it is easier than reaching for more?

Identify ways to get the skills you need to reach the Team Leadership position. These may include involving others inproblem solvingor improving how you communicatewith them, if you feel you are too task-oriented. Or it may mean becoming clearer aboutschedulingormonitoring project progressif you tend to focus too much on people.

Continually monitor your performance and watch for situations when you slip back into bad old habits.

Step Three: Put the Grid in Context

It is important to recognize that the Team Leadership style isnt always the most effective approach in every situation. While the benefits of democratic and participative management are universally accepted, there are times that call for more attention in one area than another. If your company is in the midst of a merger or some other significant change, it is often acceptable to place a higher emphasis on people than on production. Likewise, when faced with an economic hardship or physical risk, people concerns may be placed on the back burner, for the short-term at least, to achieve high productivity and efficiency.

Note:Theories of leadership have moved on a certain amount since the Blake Mouton Grid was originally proposed. In particular, the context in which leadership occurs is now seen as an important driver of the leadership style used.

And in many situations, the "Team Leader" as an ideal has moved to the ideal of the "Transformational Leader": Someone who, according to leadership researcher Bernard Bass:

Is a model of integrity and fairness.

Sets clear goals.

Has high expectations.

Encourages.

Provides support and recognition.

Stirs people's emotions.

Gets people to look beyond their self-interest.

Inspires people to reach for the improbable.

So use Blake Mouton as a helpful model, but don't treat it as an "eternal truth".

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