Chapter 6: Groups and Teams
The discussion of work groups and teams is important in understanding how to properly deploy a company’s resources. Deploying resources in the correct way will lead to better results and higher motivation for employees. This topic is important to me because the productivity and output of well-run teams is higher than that of summing the individual’s contributions. Teams are also able to solve more complex problems than an unassisted worker can.
In the book Summary “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, Patrick Lencioni offers fundamental principles of teamwork and how to avoid five common mistakes that compromise the success of teams. This book is applicable to my aspirations because I am currently managing teams and in each of my future roles the teams I manage will get larger and more complex. It is important to know what pitfalls to avoid so the teams do not get demotivated. Based on my self-assessments this book summary is appropriate because it reminds me to openly demonstrate my strength of integrity while working on my need to communicating better.
Five hazards to effective teamwork include:
1. Lack of trust – Team members are afraid to communicate openly and honestly with one another. They will not take responsibility for fear of making a mistake. Trust allows people to be honest about their mistakes and shortcomings and ask for help when needed.
2. Fear of confrontation – If there is a lack of trust, teammates will not confront one another. Discussion is muted and progress stalls. Used properly confrontation helps to advance projects, even in heated debate the focus is on the issue and not a personal attack.
3. Absence of commitment – If an individual is not committed they are simply attending meetings and going through the motions. Progress is not made. Each team member must clearly understand and buy into the goals of the team.
4. Absence of accountability – Team members to not hold each other to a standard of producing quality work on time. Energy will dissipate from the team and no pressure exists to advance the workflow. Peer pressure, when properly expressed, can be a source of encouragement.
5. Failure to focus on goals – Members of the team focus on personal goals rather than that of the team. Each contributor should publicly commit to the team’s goals and managers should make the progress public. Rewards should be tied to those results.
I found some very practical advice about building and running teams in Howard Guttman’s book summary “Great Business Teams”. This book will be relevant from my aspirations because there is information on understanding the qualities of high performing teams, leading high performance teams, how to be a member of a high performance team, the stages teams go through in becoming high performance, and outlines best practices for decision making, communicating, and holding meetings. This is information can be put to use right away, and shared with team members. Based on my self-assessment this book summary is important because I can build on my competency of leading teams. Most teams that I have lead up until now have been less than 20 people this information can be used with larger teams.
High performing teams share these qualities:
· High-performing leaders who live the principles they expect from the team and foster authentic relationships among members.
· Team oriented action focusing on team’s goals not an individual, no matter how talented an individual might be.
· Protocols and defined procedures are used instead of relying on luck. They avoid change and randomness as much as possible.
· Constant improvement based on learning for experience and analyzing successes and failures. They are never complacent
· Supportive management that gets out of the way and making sure that compensation is aligned with team objectives.
Managing a team requires aligning groups horizontally in an organization and not thinking hierarchically. The challenge of a leader of a high performance team is to synchronize five aspects of the business:
· Business Strategy – Understand what the business focus is and how to execute the team’s value proposition.
· Team deliverables – The value proposition implies goods or services, make sure they are well identified and delivered with superb quality.
· Business unit function – Make sure each unit has well defined roles and responsibilities, and knows how it contributes to organization’s success.
· Decision making rules and procedures are defined, as well as a conflict resolution process.
· Relationships among people and other businesses – Most business is done between people and teams are successful with people work together. Focus on people and their building solid relationships with one another.
As a member of a high performance team there are four basic mental habits that underlie the right attitudes and approaches.
· Approach your job as if you were an owner of the company. You have to understand how your work contributes to the business unit and the organization.
· Exceed the expectations of your job to help the team succeed. Do not let a job description limit your contribution; add value outside your role.
· Accept personal accountability for results. This means holding yourself and team mates accountable for achieving team goals.
· Accept coaching and look for growth opportunities. This means that you will be outside your comfort zone at times which is how individuals gain new skills. Understand how your behavior affects the way you work and the people around you.
High performance teams go through a four stage development process. The first two stages typically happen naturally, however stages three and four require leader intervention to guide the transformation.
· Stage one –Team members test each other to conclude if they can work together
· Stage two – There will be conflict and tension within the team. Some may try to blame others for missed deadlines, etc.
· Stage three – A leader should clarify team goals, assist team members acquiring new skills, and set the tone of focusing on issues and not individuals.
· Stage four- Builds on stage three and ensures that the right people with the right talents are in the right positions. The team is comfortable with self-assessment and is able to manage conflicts internally.
High performance teams regularly display the ability to make the correct decisions. There are some common methods a good leader uses with the team: Making sure decision making is pushed down to the most appropriate level and those people have the resources needs for data collection and analysis. Everyone needs to understand the time constraints of taking a particular decision and how long the decision is good for if new information presents itself or situations change.
Meetings should be kept to a minimum with an agenda that is strictly observed. Focus is on active priorities and communication is crisp and clear. Ten traits of high performance communication are:
1. “Clarity” – Think of each person’s precise meaning, rather than using vocal volume.
2. “Authenticity” – Emphasize straight talk. Don’t play games or manipulate people.
3. “Accuracy” – State the facts. Require using them as a basis for decisions and actions.
4. “Efficiency” – Having your time and effort wasted is frustrating.
5. “Completeness” – Get and give the full story. Don’t surmise or infer.
6. “Timeliness” – Delivering assignments on time is as important as their quality.
7. “Focus” – Don’t get sidetracked from the team’s core work.
8. “Openness” – Teams are no place for functional silos or private agendas.
9. “Action-oriented” – Good work now is better than perfect work later.
10. “Depersonalization” – Focus on issues and tasks; never make anything personal.
Roger Schwarz's book summary “Smart Leaders Smarter Teams” provides simple contrast on unilateral, dictatorial leader and the Mutual-Learning mindset. This book is relevant to my aspirations because it is easy for a leader to over exert his/her influence on the team when he/she does not even realize it. This can cause teams to become demotivated at the very least underperform by not taking advantage of everyone’s diverse talents. Based on my self-assesment I can sometimes be a little to results driven, this article reminds me to keep the situation in perspective.
A unilaterally controlling leader has these basic fallacious values which are behaviors a good leader should check himself for, even asking for feedback from the team.
· Win, don’t lose, only my objectives matter
· Always be right
· Suppress criticism of your decisions by the team
· My rational thinking will overpower others
They also make these incorrect assumptions:
· “I understand the situation; those who disagree don’t”
• “I am right; those who disagree are wrong”
• “My motives are pure”
• “My feelings and behaviors are justified”
• “I am not contributing to the problem”
An atmosphere of mutual learning values transparency, curiosity, informed choice, accountability and compassion. The mutual learning approach makes these assumptions:
• “I have information; so do others”
• “Each of us sees things others don’t”
• “Differences are opportunities for learning”
• “People may disagree with me and still have pure motives”
• “I may be contributing to the problem”
A leader who shows the mutual learning attitude will instill the same values to his team by osmosis. This will foster trust and constructive (albeit not always agreement) dialog between team members. The results will be a higher performing team and higher job satisfaction.
In the HBR article “Discipline of Teams” by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, insight is given to the differences between a work group and a true team. We learn five characteristics of teams, skill requirements of team members, and suggestions on how to build team performance. This article is appropriate to my aspirations because I am currently managing a work group, assembling teams for specific projects and being asked to be a team member on other projects. This article will help me be a better team leader and team member which is necessary for achieving the superior results expected.
A work group is a collection of individuals with individual goals and objectives. Workgroups can share best practices, communicate and help each other out, but the performance measurement is focused on the individual. True teams have a relentless focus on performance and a purpose that is distinctive and specific to a small group and requires members to achieve something beyond the sum of individual outputs.
A team is characterized by five traits:
• A meaningful common purpose that the team helps shape. Many times teams may be formed based on an external mandate or opportunity, it is up to the team to come up with its purpose and vision which develops ownership.
• Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose. The goals should be inspiring and challenge the team. In order to succeed the team has to work towards these goals and disregard titles.
• A mix of complementary skills. Each team needs to contain functional expertise(s), problem solving, decision making, and interpersonal skills. It is acceptable to add skills to the team after it originally forms.
• A strong commitment to how the work gets done. Teams must agree on who does what, establish schedules and milestones. Everyone does equal amount of work including the team leader.
• Mutual Accountability. Trust and commitment cannot be bribed or coerced. The obligation to achieve goals is to each other, not just to the organization.
Building team performance cannot be scripted, yet there are common approaches successful teams use:
• Establish urgency, demanding performance standards and direction.
• Members are selected for skills not personality.
• Team first meetings set the tone for the team so particular care is used at this formative stage.
• Rules of behavior are established. Some of these are mentioned in the articles above- fact base language, encouraging healthy debate, everyone is on time.
• Quick wins are established to help gel the team.
• Group is challenged on a regular basis with new ideas and facts.
• The power of recognition and reward is used to reinforce correct behavior and motivate.
Exercises and practice routines
Exercise # 1 Team dsyfunction assesement
Objective: Use this assessment to test the dysfunction of a team you are on or leading.
Use this questionnaire to check your team’s health. Have each member grade each statement. If the answer is, “as a general rule,” give three points, “occasionally,” two points and “infrequently,” one point.
1. Team members talk about ideas without abandon or reservation.
2. Team members point out each other’s shortcomings or problems.
3. Team members understand each person’s task and know how that task adds to the team’s work.
4. Team members sincerely say they are sorry when they offend each other or inadvertently undercut the team’s work.
5. Team members give things up to forward the goals of the team, even power, personnel, money or perks.
6. Team members freely admit when they have made an error or when they have a weak skill.
7. Team meetings are interesting, not dull.
8. After each meeting, team members are sure that they’ve reached agreement, even after debate, and that everyone has signed on to the mission.
9. If the team does not attain its objectives, morale suffers.
10. Team meetings tackle critical issues, even if they are difficult to discuss.
11. Team members worry about disappointing their teammates.
12. Team members are aware of each other’s home lives and talk about them easily.
13. Team members wrap up their conversations with firm decisions and actionable tasks to perform.
14. Team members question and argue with each other to determine tactics and blueprints.
15. Team members freely praise each other, but demur about claiming individual credit.
To determine if a certain dysfunction is a problem for your team, score each person’s exam by adding up the answers to the set of questions for each area. For lack of trust, add questions number 4, 6 and 12. For fear of confrontation, add 1, 7 and 10. For absence of commitment, add 3, 8 and 13. For absence of accountability, add 2, 11 and 14. And, for failure to focus on goals, add the answers to 5, 9 and 15. In each area, a score of 8 or 9 means your team does not have a problem with this dysfunction; a score of 6 or 7 suggests the possibility of a problem and a score of 3 to 5 is a blinking yellow light calling attention to this dysfunction.
Exercise #2 Teams work on communication and trust
Objective : Team members build and appreciation for each member brings to the team
· Personal history — Team members take turns answering a few basic and unthreatening questions about their lives and experiences, such as: How many brothers and sisters do you have? Where did you grow up? What was your first job? What is your most memorable experience? This exercise allows team members to get to know each other as human beings with personal lives.
· Team effectiveness — Team members point out the most important talent, skill or aptitude that each member brings to the work of the team, and the one thing that each individual must improve to help the team even more.
In the book Summary “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, Patrick Lencioni offers fundamental principles of teamwork and how to avoid five common mistakes that compromise the success of teams. This book is applicable to my aspirations because I am currently managing teams and in each of my future roles the teams I manage will get larger and more complex. It is important to know what pitfalls to avoid so the teams do not get demotivated. Based on my self-assessments this book summary is appropriate because it reminds me to openly demonstrate my strength of integrity while working on my need to communicating better.
Five hazards to effective teamwork include:
1. Lack of trust – Team members are afraid to communicate openly and honestly with one another. They will not take responsibility for fear of making a mistake. Trust allows people to be honest about their mistakes and shortcomings and ask for help when needed.
2. Fear of confrontation – If there is a lack of trust, teammates will not confront one another. Discussion is muted and progress stalls. Used properly confrontation helps to advance projects, even in heated debate the focus is on the issue and not a personal attack.
3. Absence of commitment – If an individual is not committed they are simply attending meetings and going through the motions. Progress is not made. Each team member must clearly understand and buy into the goals of the team.
4. Absence of accountability – Team members to not hold each other to a standard of producing quality work on time. Energy will dissipate from the team and no pressure exists to advance the workflow. Peer pressure, when properly expressed, can be a source of encouragement.
5. Failure to focus on goals – Members of the team focus on personal goals rather than that of the team. Each contributor should publicly commit to the team’s goals and managers should make the progress public. Rewards should be tied to those results.
I found some very practical advice about building and running teams in Howard Guttman’s book summary “Great Business Teams”. This book will be relevant from my aspirations because there is information on understanding the qualities of high performing teams, leading high performance teams, how to be a member of a high performance team, the stages teams go through in becoming high performance, and outlines best practices for decision making, communicating, and holding meetings. This is information can be put to use right away, and shared with team members. Based on my self-assessment this book summary is important because I can build on my competency of leading teams. Most teams that I have lead up until now have been less than 20 people this information can be used with larger teams.
High performing teams share these qualities:
· High-performing leaders who live the principles they expect from the team and foster authentic relationships among members.
· Team oriented action focusing on team’s goals not an individual, no matter how talented an individual might be.
· Protocols and defined procedures are used instead of relying on luck. They avoid change and randomness as much as possible.
· Constant improvement based on learning for experience and analyzing successes and failures. They are never complacent
· Supportive management that gets out of the way and making sure that compensation is aligned with team objectives.
Managing a team requires aligning groups horizontally in an organization and not thinking hierarchically. The challenge of a leader of a high performance team is to synchronize five aspects of the business:
· Business Strategy – Understand what the business focus is and how to execute the team’s value proposition.
· Team deliverables – The value proposition implies goods or services, make sure they are well identified and delivered with superb quality.
· Business unit function – Make sure each unit has well defined roles and responsibilities, and knows how it contributes to organization’s success.
· Decision making rules and procedures are defined, as well as a conflict resolution process.
· Relationships among people and other businesses – Most business is done between people and teams are successful with people work together. Focus on people and their building solid relationships with one another.
As a member of a high performance team there are four basic mental habits that underlie the right attitudes and approaches.
· Approach your job as if you were an owner of the company. You have to understand how your work contributes to the business unit and the organization.
· Exceed the expectations of your job to help the team succeed. Do not let a job description limit your contribution; add value outside your role.
· Accept personal accountability for results. This means holding yourself and team mates accountable for achieving team goals.
· Accept coaching and look for growth opportunities. This means that you will be outside your comfort zone at times which is how individuals gain new skills. Understand how your behavior affects the way you work and the people around you.
High performance teams go through a four stage development process. The first two stages typically happen naturally, however stages three and four require leader intervention to guide the transformation.
· Stage one –Team members test each other to conclude if they can work together
· Stage two – There will be conflict and tension within the team. Some may try to blame others for missed deadlines, etc.
· Stage three – A leader should clarify team goals, assist team members acquiring new skills, and set the tone of focusing on issues and not individuals.
· Stage four- Builds on stage three and ensures that the right people with the right talents are in the right positions. The team is comfortable with self-assessment and is able to manage conflicts internally.
High performance teams regularly display the ability to make the correct decisions. There are some common methods a good leader uses with the team: Making sure decision making is pushed down to the most appropriate level and those people have the resources needs for data collection and analysis. Everyone needs to understand the time constraints of taking a particular decision and how long the decision is good for if new information presents itself or situations change.
Meetings should be kept to a minimum with an agenda that is strictly observed. Focus is on active priorities and communication is crisp and clear. Ten traits of high performance communication are:
1. “Clarity” – Think of each person’s precise meaning, rather than using vocal volume.
2. “Authenticity” – Emphasize straight talk. Don’t play games or manipulate people.
3. “Accuracy” – State the facts. Require using them as a basis for decisions and actions.
4. “Efficiency” – Having your time and effort wasted is frustrating.
5. “Completeness” – Get and give the full story. Don’t surmise or infer.
6. “Timeliness” – Delivering assignments on time is as important as their quality.
7. “Focus” – Don’t get sidetracked from the team’s core work.
8. “Openness” – Teams are no place for functional silos or private agendas.
9. “Action-oriented” – Good work now is better than perfect work later.
10. “Depersonalization” – Focus on issues and tasks; never make anything personal.
Roger Schwarz's book summary “Smart Leaders Smarter Teams” provides simple contrast on unilateral, dictatorial leader and the Mutual-Learning mindset. This book is relevant to my aspirations because it is easy for a leader to over exert his/her influence on the team when he/she does not even realize it. This can cause teams to become demotivated at the very least underperform by not taking advantage of everyone’s diverse talents. Based on my self-assesment I can sometimes be a little to results driven, this article reminds me to keep the situation in perspective.
A unilaterally controlling leader has these basic fallacious values which are behaviors a good leader should check himself for, even asking for feedback from the team.
· Win, don’t lose, only my objectives matter
· Always be right
· Suppress criticism of your decisions by the team
· My rational thinking will overpower others
They also make these incorrect assumptions:
· “I understand the situation; those who disagree don’t”
• “I am right; those who disagree are wrong”
• “My motives are pure”
• “My feelings and behaviors are justified”
• “I am not contributing to the problem”
An atmosphere of mutual learning values transparency, curiosity, informed choice, accountability and compassion. The mutual learning approach makes these assumptions:
• “I have information; so do others”
• “Each of us sees things others don’t”
• “Differences are opportunities for learning”
• “People may disagree with me and still have pure motives”
• “I may be contributing to the problem”
A leader who shows the mutual learning attitude will instill the same values to his team by osmosis. This will foster trust and constructive (albeit not always agreement) dialog between team members. The results will be a higher performing team and higher job satisfaction.
In the HBR article “Discipline of Teams” by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, insight is given to the differences between a work group and a true team. We learn five characteristics of teams, skill requirements of team members, and suggestions on how to build team performance. This article is appropriate to my aspirations because I am currently managing a work group, assembling teams for specific projects and being asked to be a team member on other projects. This article will help me be a better team leader and team member which is necessary for achieving the superior results expected.
A work group is a collection of individuals with individual goals and objectives. Workgroups can share best practices, communicate and help each other out, but the performance measurement is focused on the individual. True teams have a relentless focus on performance and a purpose that is distinctive and specific to a small group and requires members to achieve something beyond the sum of individual outputs.
A team is characterized by five traits:
• A meaningful common purpose that the team helps shape. Many times teams may be formed based on an external mandate or opportunity, it is up to the team to come up with its purpose and vision which develops ownership.
• Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose. The goals should be inspiring and challenge the team. In order to succeed the team has to work towards these goals and disregard titles.
• A mix of complementary skills. Each team needs to contain functional expertise(s), problem solving, decision making, and interpersonal skills. It is acceptable to add skills to the team after it originally forms.
• A strong commitment to how the work gets done. Teams must agree on who does what, establish schedules and milestones. Everyone does equal amount of work including the team leader.
• Mutual Accountability. Trust and commitment cannot be bribed or coerced. The obligation to achieve goals is to each other, not just to the organization.
Building team performance cannot be scripted, yet there are common approaches successful teams use:
• Establish urgency, demanding performance standards and direction.
• Members are selected for skills not personality.
• Team first meetings set the tone for the team so particular care is used at this formative stage.
• Rules of behavior are established. Some of these are mentioned in the articles above- fact base language, encouraging healthy debate, everyone is on time.
• Quick wins are established to help gel the team.
• Group is challenged on a regular basis with new ideas and facts.
• The power of recognition and reward is used to reinforce correct behavior and motivate.
Exercises and practice routines
Exercise # 1 Team dsyfunction assesement
Objective: Use this assessment to test the dysfunction of a team you are on or leading.
Use this questionnaire to check your team’s health. Have each member grade each statement. If the answer is, “as a general rule,” give three points, “occasionally,” two points and “infrequently,” one point.
1. Team members talk about ideas without abandon or reservation.
2. Team members point out each other’s shortcomings or problems.
3. Team members understand each person’s task and know how that task adds to the team’s work.
4. Team members sincerely say they are sorry when they offend each other or inadvertently undercut the team’s work.
5. Team members give things up to forward the goals of the team, even power, personnel, money or perks.
6. Team members freely admit when they have made an error or when they have a weak skill.
7. Team meetings are interesting, not dull.
8. After each meeting, team members are sure that they’ve reached agreement, even after debate, and that everyone has signed on to the mission.
9. If the team does not attain its objectives, morale suffers.
10. Team meetings tackle critical issues, even if they are difficult to discuss.
11. Team members worry about disappointing their teammates.
12. Team members are aware of each other’s home lives and talk about them easily.
13. Team members wrap up their conversations with firm decisions and actionable tasks to perform.
14. Team members question and argue with each other to determine tactics and blueprints.
15. Team members freely praise each other, but demur about claiming individual credit.
To determine if a certain dysfunction is a problem for your team, score each person’s exam by adding up the answers to the set of questions for each area. For lack of trust, add questions number 4, 6 and 12. For fear of confrontation, add 1, 7 and 10. For absence of commitment, add 3, 8 and 13. For absence of accountability, add 2, 11 and 14. And, for failure to focus on goals, add the answers to 5, 9 and 15. In each area, a score of 8 or 9 means your team does not have a problem with this dysfunction; a score of 6 or 7 suggests the possibility of a problem and a score of 3 to 5 is a blinking yellow light calling attention to this dysfunction.
Exercise #2 Teams work on communication and trust
Objective : Team members build and appreciation for each member brings to the team
· Personal history — Team members take turns answering a few basic and unthreatening questions about their lives and experiences, such as: How many brothers and sisters do you have? Where did you grow up? What was your first job? What is your most memorable experience? This exercise allows team members to get to know each other as human beings with personal lives.
· Team effectiveness — Team members point out the most important talent, skill or aptitude that each member brings to the work of the team, and the one thing that each individual must improve to help the team even more.
the-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team-lencioni-en-38141.pdf | |
File Size: | 154 kb |
File Type: |
great-business-teams-guttman-en-115841.pdf | |
File Size: | 164 kb |
File Type: |
smart-leaders-smarter-teams-schwarz-en-197581.pdf | |
File Size: | 342 kb |
File Type: |
the_discipline_of_teams.pdf | |
File Size: | 834 kb |
File Type: |
chapter_6_teams.pptx | |
File Size: | 62 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Bibliography
Lencioni, Patrick. The five dysfunctions of a team. Wiley. com, 2006.
Guttman, Howard M. Great business teams: Cracking the code for standout performance. Wiley. com, 2008.
Schwarz, Roger M. Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results. Wiley. com, 2013.
Katzenbach, Jon R., and Douglas K. Smith. "The discipline of teams." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 7 (2005): 162.
Lencioni, Patrick. The five dysfunctions of a team. Wiley. com, 2006.
Guttman, Howard M. Great business teams: Cracking the code for standout performance. Wiley. com, 2008.
Schwarz, Roger M. Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results. Wiley. com, 2013.
Katzenbach, Jon R., and Douglas K. Smith. "The discipline of teams." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 7 (2005): 162.