A team is thought to a group of individuals who interact while depending in each other as well as cooperating each other in order to meet to perform common objective or goal. A team can be create to attain long-term and/or short-term objectives. For instance a team for product development will last more longer to attain planning and operational objectives. Other example of teams lasting for longer time are senior of company.
Some people also use the term "team" when they mean "employees. " A "sales force" is a common exemplory case of this loose or perhaps euphemistic usage, though interdependencies exist in organisations, and a sales team can be disappointed by poor performance on other parts of the organisation upon which sales depend, like delivery, after-sales service, etc. . However "sales staff" is a more precise description of the typical arrangement.
[edit] From Groups to Teams
Groups become teams in four stages. The four stages are: dependency and inclusion, counterdependency and fighting, trust and structure, and work. Within the first stage, group development is characterized by members' dependency on the designated leader. In the next stage, the group seeks to free itself from its dependence on the leader and groups have conflicts about goals and procedures. In the third stage, the group manages to work through the conflicts. And in the last stage, groups give attention to team productivity. [5]
Importance of team
Teamwork and leadership
There is no single of definition of team but generally agreed definition with with team is group of folks with an alternative technical knowledge who join one another to achieve a objectives or goal.
Working in a team is generally everyone agreed that could benefits every one whether its participant and company.
There are quantity of reason why just how teams were used are changed like the changing technology together development of new ways of doing business but the benefit that can obtain from are not changed alongside the underlying principle for the formation of teams.
In the working of team distance is not very important barier and changing technology and communication methods allow people to work in a team despite of being separated wide a part with in different location with in same country or at diferrent location spreaded throughout the world.
Infact in some companies due to difference in time zones team members could work and make progress over a project around a day in a day six days weekly and by doing so they are really actually utilizing maximum time.
As practically seen people employed in organization use this geographical different and difference in time zone in the features of company in such a way that for example a business office in Australia or in the united kingdom with location in other countries have benefit from such arrangement.
One of the common example of this is virtual team s which are receiving increasingly more common with time and there person in teams should never be saw one another in person nonetheless they collaborate through vaious channels through telephone, online meeting methods through use of internet and of course emailing.
Many organization are now aware with the advantages of employed in teams and importance of team as most effective and efficient of running a business and performing a task. The old job title of supervisor is now used as team leader.
And the reason why more and more companies are using this ways is because it gives benefit and produce desirable results and also because in this companies can motivate their employees and keep their morale up through making them feel themselves being valued and realizing them of the role in obtaining overall objective.
Its very motivating for individuals to be part of something that give them recognition and where their worth is acknowledged.
The key question to ask here's why some companies fail to obtain any worthwhile reap the benefits of teamwork which why should have.
The are number of answer because of this question but most importantly is why a team neglect to achieve is objective depends upon poor composition of team.
The definition of team says a team is exactly what we called an organization of individuals who possess some specialize but individual knowledge and/ or skills when join with the other person to achieve a standard objective then a synergy( when the sum of people potential bring about more collective whole ) is obtained but it can on work when teamwork is steady and effective. Team work give benefit to company because not every individual can be perfect and therefore in team one member overcome the lacking of other member.
In order for the team to execute well and achieve synergies, people working in the team must work with a positive attitude and with firm commitment to the achievement of the objectives of team. Working in harmony with effective communication and cooperation within team is crucial to achieve the success and if team is not follow above principle the team can't have the expected benefits as it should have.
In order for a team to work effectively, a very clear and common understanding of the objective and goals and strategies to achieve those objectives is very critical. Associates got to know why cause of the existence of the team and what exactly are its objectives and goals.
The above mention three factors are incredibly important for the forming of a team and for that reason must be in place for the team to accomplish its objectives as don't assume all team get success or formation of any team is not gurranteed to success but you have to ensure that above mention characteristic must be there for its success.
And important thing companies need to ensure in order to make an efficient and efficient team is to be sure that team has all the required knowledge and resource whether its financial or human resource or any other one. Team members selection must be done carefully and companies need to ensure every required knowledge is present in the team and together with teams need to have firm commitment to the achievement of goal of a team.
If a business have right associates in place with all the current required knowledge and with right approach towards the objectives of team, a team synergy will definitely take over. But first they required element must be there and associates must be kept motivate and participative.
Financial service industry team:
Financial serives industry is a industry which provide service related to finance or in other words financial services are those services which are given by finance industry such as a very wide selection of companies and other organization as well whost prime activity is to cope with money or even to become more precise its management of money. These exemplory case of these organization includes banks, companies operating in insurance industry, companies doing work for consumer finance, those organization which deal with stock commonly known as stock brokerages and also included funds for the management of investment such as mutual funds.
Types of team
There are number of classification to divide team into numerous kinds include distinctinction based on the fact that some teams are independent and while others are interdependent for example a rugby team can be said as interdependent due to following reason:
Success of team predicated on cooperationwith in the team as associates comprises of individual with specialize skills such goal kicking etc and success of team is very much dependent on the team work of team members as you individual no matter how much talented he is cannot win this game on its own.
Now if we look the independent team the most typical example of this kind teams is chess team.
In the chess individual play either in partner ship or individually and win matched on the basis of their own performance as though a team member win a game or loss it wont affect directly the performance of other individual.
There are a great many other types of independent teams such as group of folks in class solving individually a specific maths problem and therefore the outcome of one individual performance wont affect the performance of other class mate.
As the teams classification make sure they are either independent or dependent that's just how the methods to manage them is different for example if coaching provided to interdependent team for example a football team will focus on different tasks while coaching of an independent team will focus on exactly different factors. The reason behind this argument is the necessity of the associates with in both of these different categories differ significantly in terms of intrinsic incentives to motivate them and keep their behaviour positive.
The interdependent team would give attention to approach of getting to know the other person in order to understand each others behaviour, nature and develop trust on each other.
While on independent these acitivities have no real importance and will be consider by participant of independent team as waste of time while they prefer more training related to job.
Self-managed teams:
Under normal circumstance a manager become team leader who's largely responsible for and also have authority to define the goals, objectives, strategies and proper functioning of the team but there teams that happen to be structure with hierarchical types of control are often unable to properly the issues that may arise due to interdependencies and any possible conflicts across the organization's different parts. On the other hand use of self manage team create clear borders in order to provide freedom and responsibility regarding completion of task in hand with in effective and efficient way.
The key idea behind these of kind of teams is mutual consensus to the extend that leaders in these team do not act authority in decision making because of its positioning but in an excellent self managed team decisions are created with mutual consensus through voting.
Organization normally use self managed team for those project that are highly complicated in nature which involve normally research, process improvement, design or systemic issues resolution, normally include people from different departments within people involve are of same seniority. As mention the sort of leadership required with in self managed teams is completely different from just how traditionally leadership style followed in normal circumstance and the reason this difference is because of overcome the issues within traditional models of leadership but still a self manage team required guidance and support from the very best management to keep it working effectively.
The characteristic found in self managed team are extremely different from the traditional teams and therefore simply calling a team as self manage wont make itself managed team until it support the characteristic discovered above in it.
Once a self manage team begin working successfully, organization can delegate increasingly more authority and responsibility to it which makes it more productive and members of team will establish a knowledge and trust within themselves and for that reason work in meaningful ways.
Project teams:
Project team is reported to be a team which is perfect for predefine time frame with evidently define and comprehensive objectives and purpose of formation such feasibility study team for a particular project etc.
Project team are called team because a group of men and women work together to accomplish a typical objective and generally in most these team members came from across the organization from various disciplines and function with different knowledge and expertise, they work in project team by firmly taking in the teams activities together with continuing the original job (some time). They are simply viewed as one separately recognized unit who's charged with duties towards achievement of common goal.
Sports teams:
Sport normally played by a group of folks to achiever common objective such as winning the match and for that reason sports team are called team as they match the definition of team but it must be remember sports team no only include those people who are playing match but include people who don't directly play on the ground but still they are crucial for successful achievement and for that reason area of the team such as coaches etc.
Virtual teams:
Virtual is said to be a team which use the technology in order communicate and coordinate carries a group of individuals, improve achievement of common objectives, their work may be interdependent and these individual may share same common purpose to accomplish with in a time, resource and other boundaries set when creating a team.
The massive development is information and communication technologies make this virtual team idea possible the truth is as virtual teams are spread all over the country even sometime all over the world and therefore may expose to completely different culture who've rarely met in person with each other. A lot of the virtual teams consists of people from cross functional area whose main objective is to solve the issues of customers or even to generate process for the task.
Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams.
Some teams are interdisciplinary or multidisciplary like regarding medical science where a quantity of professionals treat same patient with various issues independently, there eeach one emphasise independently part of specialization. The problems treated by one professional may or might not related with or any connection with the challenge treated by another professional.
What is good team and bad team difference
A team can not be said as good if it got talent but will be good if it's flexible enough to rapidly evolve and adapt to changing methods in order to carryout work effectively and efficiently.
Critical Thinking Is Essential
Team performance is sharpened by rapidly testing and evolving methods that work for each team member, despite personality differences, skill sets, and critical thinking skills.
Participative leadership - creating an interdependence by empowering, freeing up and serving others.
Shared responsibility - establishing a host where all team members feel responsibility as the manager for team performance.
Alignment of purpose - having a sense of common purpose about why the team exists and the function it serves.
High communication - building a climate of trust and open, honest communication.
Future focused - seeing change as an opportunity for growth.
Focused on task - keeping meetings and interactions centered on results.
Skill Utilization - applying individual talents and creativity.
Rapid response - identifying and functioning on opportunities.
Sharpen Performance Through Simplification
Good teams don't just happen, they become good through steady action and constructive feedback within an high morale workplace. Feedback that doesn't get bogged down in the realm of vague philosophy or nitpicking.
Business teams happen in real life; discovering what works which is a process of collaborative learning and then focusing on what works. The results for your business can be amazing.
We desire to be in control of our own destinies. But the old hierarchical model of dictating people's thoughts and actions doesn't work in this highly networked yet polarized business world.
The characteristics of any good team that people all enjoy, become liabilities and threats under the thumb of a tyrant. Free thinkers and highly talented and skilled associates don't need the stress or pressure of putting up with a manager breathing down their neck
Develop a Code of Conduct
Staying consistent in a team setting is about not wavering when hardships occur. Discovering your team's code of conduct is about setting rigid boundaries in what is acceptable and what is not. This type of team building is not for weaklings, but it's needed for establishing the characteristics of your good team.
If you're serious about extracting top notch performance from your team, the code of conduct you agree upon can not be deviated from. Just what exactly are some characteristics of any good team Code Of Conduct? This will depend after you unique objectives, purpose, and values.
According to Jim Collins, discovering a company's core values is approximately asking the "right questions, " these questions can be scaled down to fit the needs of your team:
What can we be best in the planet at?
What are you deeply interested in?
What drives your monetary engine?
Team building is finding the answers to these same questions, but on the smaller scale. To generate an effective team the answers to these questions must mesh in order that you can find alignment in your purpose.
Team members must assign similar value to the core characteristics of an good team and their team's code of conduct.
You Can't Force Feed Values
Trying to force values onto people who don't believe in them is a lesson in futility and frustration - similar to trying to match a square peg in a round hole.
Team members, employees, managers and companies thrive within effective systems and culture where people are empowered by their work. Associates want a culture where their particular knowledge, experience, and motivation change lives for themselves and their team.
People will choose the values that reflect their own, and easily accept a code of conduct which allows those to take personal ownership over their position. They want to be a part of the team.
It's simple, if your team or company cannot meet the needs of your people or customers, they'll find one that can.
The characteristics of a good team are those that choose their values and purpose carefully, focus and passion. They produce a culture that holds people accountable for their actions, while at exactly the same time creating a system of empowerment for the team's members.
Don't Pull Their Weight: They simply do not contribute enough. They do not surpass commitments. They do not do enough- increasing the workload of others in the team.
Unwilling to Share: While quick to study from others and find out all that's going on, these are loath to talk about their knowledge and experience with others. They think learning and sharing is "one of many ways traffic".
Not worthy of Trust: They share the wrong things. If you happen to share a confidence with them, they misuse that information. They don't keep a secret. They prefer to talk of the issues affecting others while keeping theirs to themselves.
Pursue Personal Goals: Since there is nothing wrong in pursuing personal goals- indeed all of us do that- this should not be at the expense of team goals. Ineffective team members are not on a single page as the team. They choose their own priorities and areas of interest- which do not necessarily easily fit into well with the team's agenda and priorities.
Blame & Excuses: Excuses for non-performance and blaming others is a common behaviour. Faults lie with others, the kind of work, the facilities, the client- well almost everyone apart from themselves.
Unduly Pessimistic & Negative: They are gloomy and pessimistic and don't keep this to themselves. Any idea is met with a cynical comment that it won't work. Any move to be different is met with resistance without understanding what is involved.
Lack of Sensitivity: Feelings and needs of other associates do not concern them. Yet, they expect their colleagues to be careful about trampling upon their own feelings. Because of this, ineffective team members have no sense of timing, talk about issues at the wrong times and exaggerate perceived insults when none are meant.
Quick at fault others: In the first sign of something going wrong, they look for a scapegoat. Their first priority is to protect themselves. Blame is spread over associates, customers, suppliers, well -almost anybody other than themselves.
Quick to hog credit: Rather than sharing credit, they present information so to suggest that they have been responsible for each success. They bask in the glory although real work has been done by others.
Unwilling to choose, procrastinate: Really tough to obtain a decision from them, due to the fact they spend huge amounts of commitment in playing their cards as described above. If indeed they get blamed for the delay, the blame is offered to others. They would rather use the passage of time to solve problems rather than act vigorously and pro actively to solve them.
Dump rather then delegate: Under the guise of delegation, low priority or the most difficult work tasks are dumped on their team members. A lot more noticeable and glamorous parts of the task are kept to themselves. Dumping takes many forms including passing on tasks without adequate briefing about its importance or priority.
Not worth trust: Simply stated, they can not be trusted. They ask for information, opinions and views, which they then retail depending on the perceived value of the idea. Problems shared aren't kept confidential plus they lose virtually no time in passing them on as pieces of gossip.
Add no value with their team: Associates don't get the worthiness addition they research to in a boss. Because of a lack of competence, they are not able to solve issues raised by associates, unable to offer alternates rather than able to guide them in times of difficulty.
Poor role model: They don't really walk the talk. They say the organization values some trait but behave in ways totally contrary to mentioned values. They exhort others to follow norms of behaviour that they don't really follow themselves. They have one rule for themselves and a quite different other for team members.
Thing to consider when building a team
A team development success is whenever your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You may have a solid synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in creating a powerful team.
The first element in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each and every other's weaknesses. When different personality types balance and complement one another.
The other critical component of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed for the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships.
In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts and activities. There is just too big much space for problems. For instance, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing one another, may build-up conflicts. As well as worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are obvious and accepted by everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the means of attaining those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. There could be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the critical communication and causes loss of coordination in the average person efforts. And on and on. This is why every team requires a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work issues.
Here are some additional team development ideas, techniques, and tips you can test when managing teams in your position.
Make sure the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by each team member.
Make sure there is complete clarity in who's in charge of what and prevent overlapping authority. For example, when there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control using area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete control in one of those parts, according to the people individual's strengths and personal inclinations.
Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one amount of time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you anticipate the same.
Allow your workplace team members build trust and openness between each other in team development activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with the other person within an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch on Friday. Though be cautious with those corporate team development activities or events in which socializing competes too much with someone's family time.
For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in your choice making process. For example, via group goal setting techniques or group sessions with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to achieve here's that every team member feels his or her ownership in the ultimate decision, solution, or idea. Plus the more she or he feels this way, the more likely he or she is to trust and invest in the decided type of action, the more you build team commitment to the goals and decisions.
When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications so you and your people are kept fully informed.
Even when your team is spread over different locations, you can still maintain effective team communication. Just do your meetings online and slash your travel costs. Click here for a free of charge test drive.
Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them completely.
Don't miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of a person team player's work.
Don't limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.
Finally, though team work and team development may offer many challenges, the pay back from a higher performance team is well worth it.
Motivation of team members :
Motivation is described by psychologist Shay McConnon as 'the inner need to take action'. Utilize people's motivation and you'll strike gold!
Motivation can be reduced to a simple form of self-interest more commonly known as what's in it for me personally? Individuals need to see and have the reward or benefit to themselves by taking action. The higher the perceived valued to self, the higher the amount of motivation.
There is not any universal source of motivation - it can't be bought in a one size fits all form. Being thanked personally may motivate some people whilst others may want to get challenges as a many thanks. Money may motivate some individuals, but not others, and more regularly is not the best motivator people think it is.
What motivates us - is it respect, the chance to be creative, the ability for success, enough time to think things through and develop and plan? What ever the answer, it's important to note that different people have different needs and various motivators. So the key question is, what motivates your people, employees and team - why will they do, what they do, even better?
As a manager or team leader, there are more people out there that aren't as if you, than like you, so be familiar with using your conditions to be motivated to motivate others. Ian Botham, as captain of the England Cricket team, rarely gave motivating talks to his players as he felt that putting on the England cricket strip should be motivation enough. General Norman Schwarzkopf went to great lengths to look after his troops, personally, engaging with them. Who is right?
The best managers and team leaders know their staff or team, and know the individuals' motivations and can utilize these strong sources of energy, with integrity, to set-up an even more successful outcome, more easily, that will benefit the folks and the business.
It is considered that some 75% of a team or companies success will come from soft skills such as motivation and attitude - not from hard skills or knowledge. If people aren't motivated it is highly unlikely they will use their skills and talents and this will negatively impact on the bottom line whether you are a premier football team, an events company of a private business.
Motivated teams of individuals far out perform other teams, no matter how qualified they are really. Keys to motivating your people include;
1. Learn people's criteria for being motivated and set goals relating.
2. Generate a rewarding environment where people can feel great about themselves.
3. Invest in people - and they will invest in you.
4. Learn how to thank people, so they feel thanked.
5. Maintain integrity and honesty.
There are numerous ways to discover about what motivates and drives people, how to engage with your staff or associates, to generate better working relationships, increase motivation, trust, respect and rapport, whilst reducing costly personality clashes, mis-trust, stress, sickness and disputes. By increasing staff motivation and engagement, you can directly improve the energy levels, interest, desire and productivity, which can result in increased productivity and profit.
Tools like the SDI (Strength Deployment Inventory), DISC, Myers Briggs Type Indicator and even Belbin, are good foundations from which to run People Development programmes to develop communication, understanding and engagement. PJ Stevens of LEAP favours the SDI model, as it is simple to use, accurate and highly effective in developing communication skills, leadership, understanding, teamwork, conflict resolution and performance. The SDI model is also part of the Rewarding Relationships programme developed by Shay McConnon and delivered by companies such as People First and LEAP. If you want to understand how to motivate your people, the Rewarding Relationships programme is a crown jewel in anyones teambuilding plans.
Increase staff motivation and engagement, and you can utilize a Gold Mine!
PJ Stevens, is a motivational speaker, presenter and facilitator working across the UK, Europe and Middle East, specialising in soft skills, teambuilding and management development.
http://www. leapplc. com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles. com/?expert=Paul_Stevens
Application of theories on team :
Conclusion
Teamwork as a concept has grown during the last twenty years. However, teamwork success is not automatic. Teams need to be established for the right reasons. Team member selection is very important, as is ensuring that the team purpose is clear and agreed upon
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