Introduction
to Teams
Week 4
What we’ll talk about:
§
Teams
–
What
ARE teams?
–
Attributes
of successful teams
–
Keys
to success
<
e.g., TRUST
–
Diversity
and teams
–
TQM
and teams
–
Your
OWN in-class teams
–
Your
first team assignment
Essential Team Ingredients
§
Understanding
of common objectives
§
Team
mission
§
Team
people who want to WORK as a team
§
Rules,
regulations
§
Rewards
§
Sense
of ownership, responsibility to each other.
Meet the Brockport Eagles
§
Joan
§
Mike
§
Paula
§
Kurt
Joan
Joan
§
Works
full time during day
§
Spare/
Leisure time with 3 children
§
Going
back to school after earning associate degree ten years ago
§
GPA
last semester: 3.0 (Macro
Economics)
§
Shy,
worried about work ethic of “kids”
§
Limited
access to libraries, limited time for out-of-class team meetings
Kurt
§
Full
time student
§
3.35
GPA
§
Lives
off campus
§
Works
internship (+) 20-hour week job
§
Horrible
team experiences in past
–
Got
stuck doing all work
–
Doesn’t
trust people easily
Mike
§
Full
time student, no in-class team experience, but very personable
§
Misses
class to play baseball
§
Officer
of Greek organization
§
Lives
on campus
§
Goes
out average of (2) nights a week
§
GPA
of 2.1
§
Works
as landscaper during summer
Paula
Paula
§
Full
time student, on campus
§
3.78
GPA
§
Works
retail 30 hours/week, tutors, RA
§
Many
team experiences
–
Tolerates
others’ weaknesses, intent to pull more than her own weight to get job done
§
Very
computer literate
§
Unskilled
in presentations
What’s the matter with The Brockport
Eagles?
We
observe that…
§
They’re
different
§
Their
time availability is constrained
§
They
come from different backgrounds
§
They
have different experiences
§
They
have different motivations
§
They
wouldn’t necessarily gravitate towards one another naturally
Guess what !
§
Nothing’s
the matter with the Brockport Eagles.
§
Very
typical of what one finds in work teams
–
Exception:
Self-directed teams hire people MOST LIKE THEM
The Eagles have a job to do.
What should they do now?
§
Work
on getting to know each other
–
Human
Resource Audit
§
Work
on setting the TONE of their work together
§
Set
the stage for MANAGING the team
–
Rules
of working (Being on time, etc.)
–
Mission,
Objectives
–
Punitive
measures
§
Decide
on ROLES to assume
Why Teams?
§
Outperform
individuals when tasks require
–
Multiple
skills
–
Judgment
–
Experience
§
Better
utilize employee talents
§
More
flexible and responsive
§
Easier
to assemble, deploy, refocus, disband
§
Facilitate
employee participation
§
Increase
employee motivation
What Is a Work Team?
Group
whose individual efforts
result in performance
greater than the sum
of individual inputs
Types of Teams
§
Problem
solving
§
Self-managed
§
Cross
functional
Flexible Work Team
§
Responsible
for performing all operations required to complete particular stage in
production process.
§
Self-managed:
–
Jointly
assign tasks,
–
Transfer
members from one task to another.
Quality Circle:
§
What
is a quality circle?
§
Group
of workers who get together to talk about how to improve quality
§
Team
trains new members, is responsible for hiring
Work team culture is end product
Attributes
of
High Performance Teams
§
Optimal
size: less than 12 members
§
Abilities:
–
Technical
expertise
–
Problem
solving skills
–
Interpersonal
skills
§
Clearly
allocated roles
Features
of
High Performance Teams
§
Commitment
to common purpose
§
Specific
goals
§
Leadership
and structure
§
Individual
and joint accountability
§
Appropriate
evaluation and reward systems
§
High
mutual trust
You know you’re on an EFFECTIVE team
when...
§
Atmosphere
is informal, relaxed.
§
Everyone
participates in discussion.
§
Tasks
are understood, accepted.
§
Members
listen to each other.
§
Team
accepts disagreement, doesn’t avoid it, avoids tyranny.
§
Consensus
§
All
are free to express opinions.
§
Clear
assignments are made after decisions are.
§
Leader
doesn’t dominate.
§
Team
is self-conscious about how it functions, and will FOCUS on process as it
performs.
Dimensions
of Trust
Team Players Must Be
§
Selected
–
(I
do that for you here.)
–
What
criteria would you use “outside”?
§
Trained
–
Process,
rules and regulations
§
Rewarded
–
Motivations,
compensation, “hot button”
Advantages
and Disadvantages of
Team Diversity
§
Advantages
–
Multiple
Perspectives
–
Greater
openness to new ideas
–
Multiple
interpretations
–
Increased
creativity
–
Increased
problem-solving skills
§
Disadvantages
–
Ambiguity
–
Complexity
–
Confusion
–
Miscommunication
–
Difficulty
in reaching single agreement
–
Difficulty
in agreeing on specific solutions
Time to think…
§
HOW
does one begin to build a team, according to the Teambuilding Toolkit?
§
WHAT,
specifically should you do now?
–
Decisions
to make?
First
Team Presentation =
Develop a team plan and protocol
–
Rules
and Regulations, rules of engagement
–
Helpful
behaviors, hindrance behaviors
–
Roles
-- e.g., facilitator, scribe, leader, tiimekeeper, ALL-MEMBER roles and
responsibilities
–
Human
resource audit, division of labor
–
Time
line for completing ALL team assignments, presentations.
–
Need
to present me with hard copy version.
<
MAKE IT
CLEAR TO ME WHAT YOUR PRESENTATION ORGANIZATION WILL BE!
We’ll learn more about this soon.
–
Prepare
presenation with props, visual aids.
–
Team
philosophy, values, standards for excellence
–
Attitude
toward fun, importance of rewards
–
Use
first 4 chapters of TOOLKIT to tell us HOW you’ll work together to achieve
team goals this semester.
Behavioral Practice Session:
How to “Draw Out” your team’s talents and cooperation
-
Find
place in room to sit back-to-back with one member of your team -- spaced far
from others
-
Do
rocks, paper, scissors to decide who will be “A” member
-
Wait
for further instructions
De-Brief:
-
What
worked?
-
How
close did they come to your image?
-
What
DIDN’T work?
-
What
can we do to improve based on what we’ve learned here?