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Team Dynamics
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When you hear the word “team”, what does it mean to you? Think of the common factor between a baseball team, a military fire team, and a learning team. They all share many aspects. Each one is a group of people that have to work together to accomplish a task or job. Each person on those teams has their own individual assignment to carry out, and every assignment is just as important as the next. If one member fails to fulfill their duty the entire team will not function correctly. But how do we know who will have what task? How do we know who will even be a part of that team? Let’s dive a little deeper into the ingredients that make up team dynamics. Research on team effectiveness concludes that the most important contributing factor is a clear and elevating goal. Further, the relationship between goal setting and task performance is probably the most robust finding in the research literature of the behavioral sciences. The more completely the purpose of the team can be identified, the more likely management, team members, and the rest of the organization will support it in accomplishing its objectives. Once the team has been formed and the members selected, management-and especially the team itself-must determine how it will go about getting the job done. This is the ground rule phase and involves deliberately taking charge of the “norming” process. When and where will the team meet? How will it meet (face- to- face or some kind of virtual arrangement)? What maintenance roles will the members agree are important and how will they assign those? How will the members communicate with one another? What happens if a member can’t be at a meeting but has an assignment due? What are the expectations regarding participation in the meetings? How will we know what mid course corrections need to be made to the process or plan? How will we measure our progress? What can we do to learn from this experience about how not only to make this team better, but future teams: both those we serve on individually and teams the company forms? By planning how and when the team will reflect on the process they are going or have gone through the, individuals, team, and larger organization benefit.
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