LEADING AND MANAGING HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS

                                                Factors that underpin the Effectiveness of a Team

               Employers and employees value the importance of teams that create avenues for collaboration and improve workers’ productivity. Employers encourage their workers to work in groups to solve company problems within a short time and improve the outcomes of decision-making. The results of teamwork are diversified and may include the job satisfaction of workers, autonomy to derive methods of solving tasks, increased productivity, and innovation. When employees gather ideas and present them for discussion, they encourage innovation. The creativity they gain fosters the choice of an efficient solution to a specific task. While the benefits of teamwork are essential, the factors that nurture a team’s success. Since teamwork improves a company’s productivity, it is vital to identify factors like communication and how they nurture productivity.

Boddy Framework

               The rationale for evaluating the factors that nurture successful teams is the stages through which teams undergo before they are dismantled. Once a company forms teams for the employees, it is not expected that they will find an outcome immediately. It takes time since groups have to grow in four different stages. Boddy (2008, p.570)) proposes a method through which the companies can manage their teams. The framework has five main stages that team members follow for their success and projects. The skills that employees acquire from groups nurture their willingness to participate in teamwork. Forming is the first stage of a team in which members get to know one another. In the storming stage, each member has varied ideas on how they want to achieve the group goals and what the goals are. The variation in goals and ideas is a common cause of group conflict. However, factors like communication ensure that there is conflict resolution and the storming period proceeds to the norm. At this level, the members form rules that will govern their operations. It is a tactic they use to ensure the group activities are efficient. The team then performs its tasks upon agreement on implementation strategies. At this stage, all the members join forces to ensure the success of the team and a positive outcome. Once the assigned project is complete, the team can be disbanded or adjourned until future projects arise. At every stage of team performance, some challenges arise, and success factors improve the team’s progress.

Team Cross-Training

               In the formation stage, collaboration challenges exist as members do not know one another. Each person joins the team and offers initial information that is superficial. At this point, every member tries to impress the rest and create a good image. Thus, a lot of vital information is withheld. According to Marks et al. (2002, p.3), people have mental models about group tasks that cause challenges in the early stage of a team. When a group is new, each member develops these mental models of preferred mechanisms through which they can c interact and solve the tasks.

               Team training is a process through which members engage in activities that align their thoughts of group activities. The training aligns their mental models to similar structures of completing tasks. The goal of cross-training team members is to make information about each one’s responsibilities known to all. New teams have challenges since the role of each member is unknown. However, once the mutual information is public to all the members, they can think alike to foster success. Besides aligning the mental models, training allows members to know one another’s strengths and weaknesses. An effective team is nurtured through mutual understanding. Team members must work in tandem while complimenting each other’s weaknesses. One person’s strength can cover another’s weakness, and this increases the success rate among members. Once the teams generate information about each other’s tasks, they know their responsibilities and how they ought to support each other. Thus, the proposal of ideas on how a specific task can be completed is a group effort that calls for coordination.

Coordination

               A team can only succeed if there is a stream of activities that offers directions to members on how they should fulfil their duties. In the storming and norming stages, the group develops strategies to complete tasks in the shortest time and offer the best outcomes. Coordination is a factor that fosters the formation of rules and procedures which will govern the completion of these tasks. Through coordination, members exchange vital details on how they wish to attend to tasks. The information is mutual and simultaneous. Coordination also encourages members to be flexible. Flexibility allows members to be ready to adjust how they will fulfil their duties. A team member may propose a better and faster method of solving a task than initially proposed during formation. Thus, the storming and norming stages succeed when members are flexible to possible changes in their way of operation. Whenever an employer assigns intertwined tasks to a team, coordination is vital to proper completion. The coordination of activities allows close monitoring of each role that the members have. Hence, this nurtures effective task implementation and collaboration within the team.

Communication

               Once a group is formed, the exchange of information begins in the storming stage and proceeds until adjourning. Communication plays a vital role in the sharing of ideas and resolving issues that arise during team interactions. Practical communication skills are necessary for the success of group interactions. There are groups where members have superior communication skills, whereas others may be poor communicators. In either case, evaluating the potential of each employee in a group is vital when forming groups. The cross-training process can also evoke different skills that are strengths for some employees and weaknesses for others.         

               Group communication requires that every individual learns to respect each other’s opinions. Effective communication nurtures values among team members who become open-minded to other people’s opinions and ways of handling things. The success of a group relies on how well these values are reinforced among all members. Other than respect, members also learn empathy which makes them compassionate about how others may feel (Geraghty and Paterson-Brown, 2018, p. 507). It allows people to be careful about their statements and how they react to diverse opinions. Successful communication within a team requires openness and the members’ willingness to be transparent. The honesty that the members develop nurtures effective communication and sharing of information.

               Effective communication also requires knowledge of conflict resolution. During the storming stage, employees have different ideas and may develop individualism. However, this is a team, and collectivism is vital. Conflict resolution is the capacity to understand the opinions of all members, how they differ and the best way to harness them (Geraghty and Paterson-Brown, 2018, p. 507). At least every team must have a team leader. Such an individual is not above others but is selected to ensure smooth operations and fulfilment of assigned roles. The individual should not only have practical communication skills but also use such skills as turn-taking and listening to resolve conflicts that emerge within a team. The expected result is that all members should agree on a specific way to handle emerging issues for the whole team’s success.

Backup Behavior

               Employers often assign duties to each member of a group. The members are supposed to devise strategies to complete assigned tasks within the scheduled period. Backup behaviour entails the ability of each team member to support the efforts of others when completing the tasks that they have. The members understand that they need the support of each one of them to succeed. Thud, backup behaviour entails knowledge of every member’s task and the impact it will have on the overall group performance (Peters and Carr, 2013, p. 117). The potential of m group members differs. When one member is recognized to be slow, backup behaviour stipulates that other members should support them. Even though there are individual tasks within a group, the team’s success depends on the performance of all. Thus, supporting a single member whose performance proves to be slow is one way of ensuring that the group succeeds.

               Backup behaviour emancipates in two forms. It can be as a way of discretionary resources that the other group members offer to a single one or the effort that is related to a specific task. Whether the effort is task-based or resource-based, the backup behaviour nurtures the success of every member and the team (Peters and Carrs, 2013, p.118). While helping others, service providers tend to lose focus and fail to accomplish their roles. However, it is advised that before lending a helping hand to a team member, it is vital to complete assigned tasks. The production team requires the aid of members to be successful. However, each team member must accomplish their tasks before offering help to others.

               In conclusion, the importance of teamwork to a company’s productivity makes it vital to evaluate the success factors in a team. The Boddy approach shows five main stages of teamwork (Boddy, 2008, p.570). These include forming, storming, norming, performance, and adjourning. At each level of the team, the members experience different challenges. However, the success factors discussed above elucidate how team members overcome challenges to ensure that the entire team performs well. Cross-training the team members is a factor that entails knowing the mental models of each employee and nurturing them so that they are similar. Each employee understands the role of others and supports these roles. Communication is a second factor that requires respect, empathy, active listening, and the capacity to solve conflicts that emerge in a team. Every individual has ideas that must be respected. Hence, team leaders have the role of appreciating all ideas and tabling them for discussion on which would be fit for the success of the team and the company. The coordination of activities is also essential for success. The backup behaviour includes supporting team members and showing one another to nurture success. Thus, team members need to complement one another and support each other in completing assigned tasks for the success of all.

Bibliography

Boddy, D., 2008. Management: An Introduction. Pearson Education. https://b-ok.africa/dl/2343616/6096b2

Geraghty, A. and Paterson-Brown, S., 2018. Leadership and working in teams. Surgery (Oxford), 36(9), pp.503-508. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263931918301455

Marks, M.A., Sabella, M.J., Burke, C.S. and Zaccaro, S.J., 2002. The impact of cross-training on team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(1), p.3. https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/87/1/3/

Peters, J. and Carr, C., 2013. Team effectiveness and team coaching literature review. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 6(2), pp.116-136. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17521882.2013.798669