Team Building Reaching Goals Together
Oct 21, 2014
Team Building
Reaching Goals Together
Objectives
• Understand how teams work
• Develop skills to build a team
• Explain problem solving in a team
• Examine techniques for managing conflict
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If you want to succeed in modern
organizational and social life, you must
understand how to communicate
effectively as a member of a Team.
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Why Teams
1. Meet important human needs
2. Teams are everywhere
3. Cannot assume that we participate
effectively
4. Vehicle by which the individual can make
a contribution to the organization and
society as a whole
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Definition--Team
Shared Goal
Collaborative
Individuals
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Product
Input
• Energy
• Information
• Raw materials
Through Put
• Transformation
• Input to output
Output
• Tangible product
• Reports
• Policies
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Effectiveness
• Workable size
– Usually 3 – 7, rarely more than 15
• Mutually interdependent purpose
• Each person has a sense of belonging
• Interaction involving verbal and non-verbal
channels
• A sense of cooperation among members.
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The Participant—Observer
Participant-Observer
• Active
• Observes
• Evaluates
• Participates
• Shares common goal
• Understands common
goal
Social Loafer
• Minimal contribution
• Assumes the other
members will take up the
slack
• Does not share common
goal
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The number of members and their personal
characteristics are input variables that
seriously affect team communication and
productivity
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Ethical Behavior
1. Team members should not disconfirm,
belittle, or ridicule other members
2. Team members should make sure they
understand other members before
agreeing or disagreeing with them
3. Team members should be thorough in
gathering information and diligent in
evaluating it
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Ethical Behavior (cont)
4. Members should be willing to speak and
should not do anything to prevent others
from speaking freely
5. Team members should embrace diversity
within the team
6. Team members must conduct themselves
with honesty and integrity
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Building a Team
All components of a
team operate
interdependently
with one another;
not in isolation.
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The Team
Nonsummativty
The property of the
team where the whole
is not the sum of its
parts, but may be
greater or lesser than
the sum.
• The personalities,
education,
commitment, the
individual make the
personality of the
team
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Traits and Attitude
Trait
• A relatively enduring,
consistent pattern of
behavior or other
observable
characteristics.
Attitude
• A network of beliefs and
values, not directly
measurable, that a
person holds toward an
object, person or concept;
produces a tendency to
react in specific ways
toward that object,
person, or concept.
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Briggs-Myers
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Shared Goal
• Determine goal
• Validate each
member’s
commitment to the
goal
• Constantly remind of
goal
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Willingness
Anxiety or fear
Reticence
Shyness
Open-Mindedness
Listener
Nonjudgmental
Dogmatic
Assertiveness
Assertiveness
Passiveness
Aggressiveness
Responsibility
Self-driven
Team driven
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Factors of Teams
Internal
• Characteristics
• Preferences
External
• Task
• Values
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Two Phases of Development
• Formation Phase
– Members get to
know each other
– Develop
interpersonal
relationships
• Production phase
– Focus on team
tasks
Formation
Production
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Two Phases of Development
• Production phase
– Focus on team
tasks
• Formation Phase
– Needs to be
reinvigorated
– New members
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Production
Formation
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Effective Problem Solving
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Problem Goal
Obstacle
Solution
P-MOPS
Procedural Model of Problem Solving (P-MOPS)
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Problem
Solution
EvaluateConsensus
Implement
Considerations
• Task difficulty
• Solution multiplicity
• Intrinsic interest
• Cooperative requirements
• Population familiarity
• Acceptance
• Technical requirements
• Area of freedom
• Goal
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Methods of Decision
By consensus
By leader
By majority
vote
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Sometimes
Needed
Winners &
Losers
Usually
Best
Decisions by Consensus
Advantages
• All members support the decision
• Members more satisfied and committed to decision
• Decision can be high quality, because all viewpoints are taken into account
• May cause team conflict
Disadvantages
• Usually takes more
time
• Members may feel
pressured to conform
• May be hard or
impossible to achieve
• May cause team
conflict
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Suggestions for Consensus
1. Don’t argue stubbornly for your own position
2. Avoid looking at a stalemate as a win-lose
situation
3. When agreement is reached to easily and
too quickly, be on guard for team think
4. Avoid conflict-suppressing techniques, such
as majority vote, averaging, coin toss, etc.
5. Seek out differences of opinion
Conflict
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Tension
• Tension is normal in team interactions
• Some tension is desirable
• Managing tension is part of the team
dynamics
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Benefits of Conflict
1. Conflict can produce better understanding
of both issues and people.
2. Conflict can increase member motivation.
3. Conflict can produce better decisions.
4. Conflict can produce greater
cohesiveness among team members.
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Negative Effects of Conflict
1. Conflict can cause bad feelings among
the team members.
2. Conflict, especially if it involves personal
attacks or is carried on too long, can
lower team cohesiveness.
3. Conflict can split a team apart.
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Primary Tension
Interpersonal -- first meet or during competition for power among members
• Member related
– Interpersonal
– Self-centered
competition
• Reduction
– Mutual respect
– Self-disclosure
• More difficult to
resolve
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Secondary Tension
Stems from task-related
• Points-of-view
differences
• Result from opinion
differences
• Can be loud and
vocal
• Reduction
– Agreeing
– Showing solidarity
• Use we
– Tension release
• humor
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Conflict Management Styles
• Avoidance
• Accommodation
• Competition
• Collaboration
• Compromise
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Effective Disagreement
1. Do express your disagreement
2. Stick with the issue at hand
3. Use rhetorical sensitivity in expressing
disagreement
4. Disagree with the idea but do not ever
criticize the person
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Effective Disagreement
5. Base your disagreement on evidence and
reasoning
6. React to disagreement in a spirit of
inquiry, not defensiveness
7. If someone persists in attacking you, stay
calm and speak reasonably
8. Use an integrative rather than distributive
approach to solving the conflict
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Summary
• Teams are part of human society
• Teams function in every human endeavor
• For teams to function effectively, the
individuals must act ethically toward each
other
• Team success requires active participation
from the individuals.
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Resources
• Team Building http://www.depts.ttu.edu/aged/leadership/leadtem.htm
• Emerging Systems for Managing Workplace Conflict: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=ilrreview
• Building Team Cohesion: http://cas.bethel.edu/dept/comm/nfa/journal/vol23no1-16.pdf
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Resources
• Leadership & Management: Managing Teams (There are 17 articles in this topic.)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/topics/managingteams.html
• Managing Virtual Project Teams http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~ceb/b895/btrautsch895.pdf
• Characteristics of effective teams: a literature review http://www.unc.edu/courses/2008fall/nurs/379/960/65_604078165817-effective_teams.pdf
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