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Some links and material are still left in the original site. Our high appreciation for the writer for permitting HR Indonesia to publish this valueable materials. |
Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. - Warren Benniss, Ph.D. "On Becoming a Leader"
Leaders should not think of themselves as managers or supervisors, but as "team leaders." Thinking of yourself as manager or supervisor places you in a position of traditional authority based solely on respect for the position. This type of thinking simply places you in a position of power. By understanding the personal work preferences and motivations of your team members, you as an individual and not your position, can earn their real respect and trust. All the tools discussed so far in this guide, such as counseling and planning, provide the basic structure for developing a team.
A team is a group of people coming together to collaborate. This collaboration is to reach a shared goal or task for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. A group of people is not a team. A team is a group of people with a high degree of interdependence geared towards the achievement of a goal or completion of a task...it is not just a group for administrative convenience. A group, by definition, is a number of individuals having some unifying relationship. The team members are also deeply committed to each other's personal growth and success. That commitment usually transcends the team. A team outperforms groups, and outperforms all reasonable expectations given to its individual members. That is, a team has a synergistic effect...one plus one equals a lot more than two."
Members of teams not only cooperate in all aspects of their tasks and goals, they share in what are traditionally thought of as management functions, such as planning, organizing, setting performance goals, assessing the team's performance, developing their own strategies to manage change, and securing their own resources.
A team has three major benefits for the organization:
There are a number of ways to get your team started. None of them are hard to accomplish.
One way is to become enthusiastic about one aspect at a time, and initially look for a quick problem to be solved. Most teams trace their advancement to key performance oriented events that forge them together. Potential teams can set such events in motion by immediately establishing a few challenging yet achievable goals that can be reached early on. First, find a problem and start to talk about it with the team; do not delegate it to an individual or small group...make it a project for everybody. Choose a simple, but distracting work-related problem and solicit everybody's views and suggestions. Next, get the problem solved. Demand urgency against a clear target. There is no need to allocate large amounts of resource or time to this, simply raise the problem and make a fuss. When a solution comes, praise it by rewarding the whole team, and ensure that the aspects of increased efficiency, productivity, and/or calm are highlighted since this will establish the criteria for success. Finally, find another problem and repeat (preferably bigger).
Establish a sense of urgency and direction. Team members need to believe the team has urgent and worthwhile purpose, and they want to know what the expectations are. The more urgent and meaningful the need to reach a goal, the more likely it is that a real team will emerge. The best teams define their performance expectations, but are flexible enough to allow changes to shape their own purpose, goals, and approach.
Set some clear rules of behavior. All real teams develop rules of conduct to help them achieve their purpose and performance goals. Such as attendance - "no interruptions to take phone calls", discussion - "no sacred cows", confidentiality - "personal revelations must remain among the team", analytic approach - "facts are friendly", constructive confrontation - "no finger pointing", and often the most important - everyone does real work.
Challenge your team with fresh facts and information. New information causes a potential team to redefine and enrich its understanding of the objectives, thereby helping the team to set clearer goals.
Teams must spend a lot of time together, especially in the beginning. Yet potential teams often fail to do so. The time spent together must be both scheduled and unscheduled. Creative insights as well as personal bonding require impromptu and casual interactions.
Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition, and reward. Positive reinforcement works as well in a team context as elsewhere. If people in the group, for example, are alert to a shy person's initial efforts to speak up and contribute, they can give her the positive reinforcement that encourages continued contributions.
Some other methods are:
The elements that must be in a team are:
Not only must the "what" be solved, but also the "why." The team should identify what's in it for the organization and the team to achieve this objective. This is best done by asking "What is the benefit?" Also, help them to create a specific target that builds enthusiasm. Make achieving the objective sound appealing.
Define the obstacles that will prevent the team from achieving what it wants. Focus on internal obstacles, not on the external environment, such as competitors and laws. It will be too easy to say, "We can't do anything about it." Internal factors are within their reach.
The team now plans its actions. Lay out four or five concrete steps, and write them down. Not "we'll try" actions, like "We'll try to serve customers better." You want actions that can be tracked and monitored. You cannot measure a "try" action. You want observable behaviors like "Greet all customers with a smile and a good morning or good afternoon," or "Customers will be served within 1 minute upon their arrival."
Now its time to change the obstacles that were defined in step three. The team needs to formulate actions to address.
Take action now! This is most critical step. It is what differentiates an effective team from a group. Get commitment from individual team members to take action on specific items.
Contributors are task oriented members who enjoy providing the team with good technical information and data. They push the team to set high standards. Although they are dependable, they sometimes becomes too bogged down in the details and miss the big picture. They are responsible, authoritative, reliable, proficient, and organized.
Collaborators are goal directed members who see the vision, mission, and goal of the team. They are flexible and open to new ideas, willing to pitch in and work outside their defined role, and to share the limelight with other team members. They are big picture persons who sometimes fail to give enough attention to the basic team tasks or to consider individual needs. They are forward looking, goal directed, accommodating, flexible, and imaginative.
Communicators are process oriented who are effective listeners and facilitators of involvement, conflict resolution, consensus building, feedback, and the building of an informal relaxed climate. They are "people persons", who sometimes see a process as an end in itself, may not confront other team members, or may not give enough emphasis to making progress toward the team goals. They are supportive, considerate, relaxed, enthusiastic, and tactful.
Challengers are adventurers who question the goals, methods, and ethics of the team. They are willing to disagree with the leader and higher authorities, and encourage the team to take well-conceived risks. Most people appreciate the value of their candor and openness, but sometimes they may not know when to back off on an issue or become self-righteous and try to push the team too far. They are honest, outspoken, principled, and ethical.
Although your first instinct might tell you to select people like yourself, or to exclude one of these groups, this is not what you want. For example, having a group with no challengers would be just that, a group, not a team. You would be surrounded with a group of "yes people", who never question anything, they just blindly go where told. On the other hand, a group composed of all challengers would never get anything accomplished.
Build commitment and confidence. You should work to build the commitment and confidence level of each individual and the team. Effective team leaders are vigilant about skills. Their goal is to have members with technical, functional, problem solving, decision making, interpersonal, and teamwork skills. To get there, encourage your people to take the risks needed for growth and development. You can also challenge team members by shifting their assignments and role patterns.
Manage relationships with outsiders. Team leaders are expected, by people outside as well as inside the team, to manage much of the team's contacts and relationships with the rest of the organization. You must communicate effectively the team's purpose, goals, and approach to anyone who might help or hinder it. You must also have the courage to intercede on the team's behalf when obstacles that might cripple or demoralize the team get placed in its way.
Create opportunities for others. One of your challenges is to provide performance opportunities, assignments, and credit to the team and the people in it. You cannot grab all the best opportunities, you must share it with your team.
Create a vision. The vision is the most important aspect of making a team successful. Teams perishes when they don't clearly see the vision - why they are doing what they do and where they are going. You must motivate the team toward the fulfillment of the goals.
Are you ready to be a team leader? Then ponder the following Team building Checklist:
The next stage is the formal phase, where specific roles are allocated to each team member. There are many rules and protocols to ensure that things are orderly and run smoothly, to include rules for agreeing on objectives and planning approaches to tasks. The leader's primary purpose is to ensure that all the members adhere to the set procedures, do not argue, and keep to the point.
In the final stage, skillful, set procedures are rare. All members feel that they are in it together and feel a shared sense of responsibility for the teams success or failure. Members enjoy working together and find tasks fun and productive. The leader is democratic and collaborative.
Its time to build that team if you are facing the following problems:
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