Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Roles of Team Working in Different Organisations

Chapter 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Working in an Organisation

Advantages of working in a team

Disadvantages of working in a team

Chapter 3 Different Types of Teams in the Work Place

Working Team

Special Purpose Team

Multifunctional Team

Virtual Team

Management Team

Chapter 4 Five Different roles and Personality Types within a Team

1. Implementer

2. Team Worker

3. Co-ordinator

4. Specialist

5. Shaper

Chapter 5 Impact of Effective and Ineffective Team Members

Effective Team

Ineffective Teams

Chapter 6 Issues that May Arise in Multi-team Tasks

Consequences of Multi-team Tasks

Chapter 7 Principles of Team Development

Communication (non-verbal, interpersonal, visual)

Leadership

Goals

Teamwork

Feedback

Learning

Chapter 8 Stages of Team Development

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Adjourning

Chapter 9 Team Leadership and Successful Teams

Chapter 10 Importance of Feedback on Team Performance

Bibliography

Introduction

Team work as a concept has grown over the last 20 years. However team work is not instinctive. Teams should be organised for the right reasons. When selecting a team it is important to consider team selection as well as securing team purpose so as all goals are clear and agreed.

Teams may be organised in different and more complex ways, but team work is still very important.

There are still issues with team management, but benefits still outweigh the cost.

Individually we are one drop, together we are an ocean.

Chapter 1 Roles of Team Working in Different Organisations

 

Team

A team is a group of people who work with others with a full set of complimentary skills and play different roles of communication, who share and understand common aims co-operating to achieve clearly definite tasks and responsibilities. Distributed according to skill ability strength and weakness are acknowledged. The members will support each other and respect the member. They are encouraged to plan evaluate and make suggestions by thinking. There are many different types of teams, department teams, and problem solving teams, virtual teams, functional teams or football teams. A rock band is a team.

A team is more than just a group of team members with collective commitments. A team creates alliance which accomplishes a greater performance than that of individual members.

 

Computer Express Ltd

 

At Computer Express Ltd there are several different teams. These include our:

• Computer Resource Team

• Infrastructure Solutions Team

• Cloud Computing Team

• Business Analytical Team

• Customer Services and Technical Support Helpdesk Team.

Chapter 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Working in an Organisation

 

Advantages of working in a team

There are many advantages of team work. Two heads are better than one. Good teams make the most of all team member’s individual talents when they realise each other’s strengths and weaknesses and work together to create better communication and relationships with their employers.

Advantages

1. Opportunity

Team members have the opportunity to learn from each other.

2. Synergy

Opportunity provided for synergistic combination of ideas and abilities.

3. Communication

Communication and information exchange may be facilitated and increased,

4. Autonomy

“Greater autonomy, variety, identity significance and feedback for workers can occur”. (Hf.faa, 1997).

5. Facilitation

Team members can provide social facilitation and support for difficult tasks and situations.

Disadvantages of working in a team

There are also disadvantages to team work. Conflict can occur when there are too many team members who believe they are experts and these members should be reminded that there is no I in team. If people can’t look past their egos conflict or resentment could possibly arise which could result in members of the team being unwilling to accept other perspectives. If there is more conflict that innovation it is harder to achieve team goals.

Disadvantages

1. “Unequal Participations” (Daniellapaul.wordpress. 2012)

In some teams some members could allocate others to do most of the work which could lead to resentment in the workplace.

2. Limiting Creativity

Team working may also limit creative thinking, on working they do not take their ideas into consideration.

3. Inherent Conflict

At least some conflict will occur when a group is created to achieve a goal, this usually occurs when some members find it difficult to accept differences of opinions.

4. Individuals Who Are Not Team Players

Not all people exert themselves well as part of a team. Some people are better at working alone. These people in the correct environment may work excellently but can have difficulty adapting to a certain work culture resulting in dissatisfaction across the team.

5. “Longer Process” (Daniellapaul.wordpress. 2012).

Sometimes a team can take longer than anticipated to achieve it a desired goal. There are processes a team needs to go through in order to reach a goal. They must go through selecting, organising and socialising before completing the task. It is also possible a team go through more resources than anticipated leading to added expenses.

Chapter 3 Different Types of Teams in the Work Place

Working Team

A working team is “two or more people who must coordinate their activities to accomplish a common goal”.

The common goal and the required coordination make them a team. Coordination must be required to accomplish the task in order to be a team.

A working team:

• Enhances success
• Promotes creativity
• Builds synergy
• Solves problems
• Is fun and reduces tension and conflicts
• Helps both large corporations and small groups.
• Responds to the challenge of change.

Basic elements of a working team is ensuring each goal is the responsibility of all team members. Team goals are as important as individual goals while individual competiveness is reduced on a winning team. In a working team communication, mutual understanding, respect and cooperation is increased among team members.

Good team work starts with a shared understanding of its importance. Many organisations recruit people with an aptitude for demonstrating team work. Although team members have clear and designated responsibilities, they help others when required. Good team work behaviours are recognised and rewarded. Team working is built into the organisation culture and has to be carefully nurtured.

Example: Cyber Security team is a working team at Computer Express, they have the common goal of keeping the security of the company.

Special Purpose Team

A special purpose team is used to help increase productivity, quality and to provide a support system for each member of the team. When people work together, they are able to get feedback on their work and help when they need it. It is the group forming to produce a one off project, for example a one off event.

On a special purpose team, members:

• Conduct research
• Work separately on the same problem then compare results.
• Examine a case and complete a project
• Work out a solution to problems by role playing a real life situation.

Example: Computer Express Ltd.’s online infrastructure team were specially put together to develop our website and then were disbanded.

Multifunctional Team

Groups composed of members from two or more departments or areas working together to solve a problem or handle a situation that requires capabilities, knowledge and training not available from any one source. Also described as a multidiscipline team, “the group is composed of members with varied complimentary experience, qualification and skill that contribute to the achievement of the organisation’s specific objective. For example a multidisciplinary team consisting of doctors, nurses, cooks, lab techs, housekeepers and others work together to care for you”. (Business dictionary.com

2017). Members of multifunctional teams or cross functional teams come with diversity of experiences and knowledge. This diversity can help create synergy and broaden perspectives. There could be good advantages for a team to create a greater effect leading to a high level of creativity.

The multifunctional “team are not without their disadvantages. The team can take significantly longer to develop cohesion because members come from different experience and backgrounds. The team” leader must take care managing team relationships because there may be a high level of conflict “unit rivalry, egos and possible conflict between the interest of the various parts of the organisation“.(Study, 2017).

Example: Management teams in different physical locations (head quarters may be in two different countries) brought together to manage Computer Express Ltd.

Virtual Team

A virtual team works with each other from different locations across the world with communications devices such as, email, fax, and video or voice conference service. Powell, Piccoli and Ives define virtual teams in their literature review article “as group of geographically, organisationally and/ or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organisational tasks”. (Dice. 2017).”Task processes actions that team members carry out in order to accomplish their goal and complete the project. The three main tasks processes are communication, co-ordination and task technology structure fit.” (Dice, 2017).

Disadvantages

The big disadvantage with a virtual team is the lack of an efficient communication medium. Humans communicate better with their body language or face to face. Poor leadership in an incomplete team can become a problem. An incomplete team can lead to a lack of knowledge in order to complete the assigned task. A team with poor leadership can have a negative effect on other members.

Advantages

Cultural diversity people from different cultures are more prone to engage in group decision making and this in combine conflict management. The mix back ground encourages creativity and produce perceptions making it more likely that more than one option is discovered and measured.

With cultural diversity virtual teams are a more equal workforce. Prejudges against race, age and gender are less likely by forcing individuals to interact with others whose differences challenge assumption[1]. Virtual teams can “save travel cost, significant expenses for businesses with multiple locations or having clients located in multiple places”[2]. The use of virtual teams also allows the employee to contribute to multiple assignments within the company that could located on different locations. This assists the company to employ a new member to do the same job.

Management Team

A management team is a team of managers brought together to oversee the success or failure of the company. They meet regularly, weekly/ monthly/ annually to discuss the future of Computer Express Ltd. They are in charge of hiring and firing,

For effective team management, it is important that the team leader is more of a mentor to his team members rather than being a straight boss. Understand your team members very well. Ensure that each and every team members willingly participates in a team discussion. Do not discuss team issues separately but with all team members.

Every team member should get the same information and should have easy access to the superiors in case of any query. Lose talk, blame games, dirty politics should ‘find no place’ in the team. If you come to know anything about someone it is better to discuss it with them face to face or else ignore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4 Five Different roles and Personality Types within a Team

 

Team Roles

Belbin’s (1981) team role model was proposed after conducting a nine years study on team building and team effectiveness with a multi method technique compiling personality critical thinking inventories and observational methods (Duce Wicz 1995). A team role was termed as prototype behaviour characteristics of the way a team member interrelates with another in order to assist the progress of the team all together. The team role model (Belbin 1981, 1993, 2001) proposes nine team roles to reflect the way in which individuals behave, contribute, and interrelate with others in a work team. These team roles are named Planner (PL), Resource Investigator (RI), Co-ordinator (CO), Shaper (SH), Monitor Evaluator (ME), Team Worker (TW), Implementer (IMP), Completer-finisher (CF) and Specialist (SP).

1. Implementer

Implementers are conventional, precise, controlled, efficient, stubborn, logical, sincere, stable, systematic, disciplined, reliable, and conservative and can turn ideas into practicalities. They can be slow to respond to new prospects.

2. Team Worker

Team workers could be described as extroverted, likeable, loyal, stable, submissive, helpful, unassertive, and uncompetitive, co-operative, gentle, understanding and diplomatic. They listen and like to prevent conflict. However, they can be indecisive in critical situations.

3. Co-ordinator

The co-ordinator is usually dominant, trusting, extroverted, developed, positive, self-controlled and self-disciplined. They deal with a conflict with maturity and confidence. They would be a good chairperson who is able to clarify goals, promote decision making and delegate tasks equally. They can however also be seen by others as manipulative and often abandons personal work to others.

4. Specialist

A specialist can be seen as an expert while being defensive, disinterested in others, severe, self-disciplined, competent, single-minded and enthusiastic with great knowledge and skill which focusses on procedures.

5. Shaper

A shaper could be seen as harsh, anxious, arrogant, dominant, competitive and emotional. They would also fall under the bracket of being extrovert, impatient, impulsive, sociable and disobedient who prospers on pressure and processed the ambition and valour to overcome difficulties. They tend to be prone offending other team member’s mind-sets.

Chapter 5 Impact of Effective and Ineffective Team Members

 

 

Effective Team

An effective team is open to discussion and makes influence to the group. If discussion is reasonable members are more prepared to listen and to learn from what they are hearing. An effective team reaches a decision by a process of convincing members by logical argument.

Using situation leadership under various circumstances, styles and working progress to achieve its goal and making the necessary changes to improve performance.

With effective team members in a team there is a higher rate of success. Effective team members will communicate clearly the necessary information by discussing the status of the tasks in progress. They will clearly define goals providing all team members with an understanding of what the team are attempting to achieve which helps the team to reach the goal of the project successfully.

An effective team member who shows leadership will motivate team members, facilitate communication and build trust within the group. They will benefit the team through evaluating results.

With effective team members on a project morale is high and priorities lie within the agenda.

Ineffective Teams

When there are ineffective members on a team reaching goals becomes more challenging. An ineffective team member may not put in as much effort as other members which adds to the workload and pressure of reaching goals successfully.

Ineffective team members can break down the trust in a team if they misuse information that was shared confidentially, cannot keep a secret or talk about the problems affecting others while retaining information on their own issues. This may lead to members being uncomfortable sharing ideas or information resulting in a communication break down within the team.

An ineffective team member may pursue personal goals that do not coincide with the team agenda, causing the team to stray from a successful goal.

If an ineffective team member blames others, makes excuses for non-performance, are unnecessarily negative or lack sensitivity team morale lowers and conflict can occur. A lack of agreed objectives can create an atmosphere full of tension. Tensions can sometimes burst into destructive conflict and with clashes of personality members do not really hear what others are saying.