Organizational Behavior( IB 309)

An Assignment On
Team Work in Organization

Prepared By:
Tanmoy Das

Roll No. 1

3rd Year, 2nd Semester

BBA 2nd batch

Department of International Business

University Of Dhaka

Instructed By
Dr. Khondoker Bazlul Hoque

Professor

Department of International Business

Faculty of Business Studies

University of Dhaka
 Table of Contents

Meanings and Definitions:.....................................................................................................................1

Difference between Work Group and Work Teams...............................................................................4
The Five Stages of Team Development.................................................................................................6
Types of Teams:....................................................................................................................................9
1. Problem-Solving Teams:.............................................................................................................9
2. Self-Managed Work Teams:........................................................................................................9
3. Cross-Functional Teams:...........................................................................................................10
4. Virtual Teams:...........................................................................................................................10
When it’s best to use teams.................................................................................................................11
Characteristics of Effective Teams......................................................................................................12
Factors that define High Performance Teams......................................................................................14
A Team Effectiveness Model :............................................................................................................16
Work Design....................................................................................................................................16
Composition....................................................................................................................................16
Context............................................................................................................................................18
Process.............................................................................................................................................19
Key Roles of the Teams:......................................................................................................................20
The Belbin Team Roles...................................................................................................................20
Margerison and McCann Model......................................................................................................22
Turning Individuals into Team Players:...............................................................................................23
Contemporary Issues in Managing Teams...........................................................................................25
Teams and quality management.......................................................................................................25
Workforce Diversity........................................................................................................................26
Advantages......................................................................................................................................27
Disadvantages..................................................................................................................................27
Managing Diversity.........................................................................................................................27
The Reasons Why Teams Fail.............................................................................................................28
Top EXTERNAL Reasons Why Teams Fail...................................................................................29
Top INTERNAL Reasons Why Teams Fail :..................................................................................30
References:..........................................................................................................................................31

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Meanings and Definitions:

Group:

Group is called when Two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who have
come together to achieve particular objectives.

Group work:

Group work is a way to serving individual within and through small face to face group in
order to bring about the desired change.

Work Group:

A group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each
group member perform within his or her area of responsibility. No joint effort required here
to bring out the desired result.

Work Team:

A group whose individual efforts result in a performance that is greater than the sum of the
individual inputs. Work team puts joint effort to get e job done what can be done easily with
a team work which might have very difficult to do only with individual effort. Teamwork has
been defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "work done by several associates with
each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole."

“A team is not a bunch of people with job titles, but a

congregation of individuals, each of whom has a role which
is understood by other members. Members of a team seek
out certain roles and they perform most effectively in the
ones that are most natural to them.”

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The Key Elements of a Work Team
Small Number of People
Teams by their very nature can't be big therefore a real team has a definable membership,
typically fewer than 12.

Complementary Skills
Teams bring together complementary skills and experience that exceed those of any
individual on the team. The different perspectives, knowledge, skills and strengths of each
member are identified and used, by comparison most groups are extremely rigid, and
members usually have assigned roles and tasks that don’t change. Teams however are flexible
performing different task and maintenance functions as required. Roles and tasks may change
depending upon the expertise and experience most pertinent to the work being performed

Performance Goals
Members share the common task and have clearly defined objectives for which members are
individually and collectively accountable

Common Approach
A team has sense of shared purpose with a clear understanding of what constitutes the team's
mission. They can describe a vivid picture of what the team needs to achieve, and the norms
and values that will guide them.

The actions of members are interdependent and coordinated. Members have a shared sense of
unity and consciously identify with the team and each other. Individuals use "we" rather than
"me."

Mutually Accountable
A group typically produces products that are the sum of individual member contributions
whereas a team develops products that are a result of the team's collective effort.

In groups, members are individually accountable for their efforts where in real teams
members need the help of one another to accomplish the purpose for which they joined the
group. They are individually and collectively accountable for the timeliness and quality of the

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team's products. If members answer to the boss instead of to one another, then you have a
work group not a real team.

Leadership
Typically a work group has a strong leader, in a traditional management role, who directs
activities, assigns tasks and establishes schedules. Where the team leader makes all the
critical decisions it’s a single leader unit not a real team.

By contrast, teams share or rotate leadership among individual members. They will also
rotate less desired tasks, such as record keeping, so that no one member is permanently
assigned to a less challenging or interesting activity.

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Difference between Work Group and Work Teams

Work Groups Work Teams

Individual accountability Individual and mutual accountability

Come together to share information and Frequently come together for discussion, decision
perspectives making, and problem solving, and planning.

Focus on individual goals Focus on team goals

Produce individual work products Produce collective work products

Define individual roles, responsibilities, and Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks
tasks to help team do its work; often share and rotate
them

Concern with one's own outcome and Concern with outcomes of everyone and
challenges challenges the team faces

Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by team
manager leader with team members

Picture: work Group Picture: work Team

Table 1: Difference Between Work Groups and Teams

To call a group a team does not make them a team: wishing for them to work as a team
doesn't work either. For a snapshot of the main differences between work groups and teams,

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take a look at Table 1. As you can see, work groups have a strong individual focus and teams
have a strong collective focus. The individual is not lost on a team, but that person's work is
coordinated to fit in with the greater good. Team concerns are much more focused on the
outcomes of the overall unit rather than an individual's accomplishments.

Table 1 also indicates that teams meet more often than traditional work groups. Work groups
may meet periodically, based on the manager's style, primarily to hear and share information.
Teams, by comparison, do much more than communicate when they meet. Team meetings
are forums for planning work, solving work problems, making decisions about work, and
reviewing progress. In short, meetings are vital to a team's existence.

The last item in Table 1 is crucial: Team leadership is participatory, in contrast to the
primarily manager-driven nature of regular work groups. On a team, the manager or team
leader frequently involves team members in helping shape the goals and plans for getting the
group's work done — may as well get them involved, they've got to do the work! But in other
kinds of work groups, managers more commonly work with staff individually to set goals and
determine assignments. Of course, in many cases, managers just assign work with little
discussion or collaboration with the staff members. And staffs are then left to figure out
what's expected and how best to get it done.

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The Five Stages of Team Development
Stage 1: Forming

Team members are reserved and polite, putting on their best behaviour to create a good first
impression. Conflict is avoided at all costs because of the need to be accepted into the group.
There may be a sense of excitement and opportunity, but also cautiousness and uncertainty
about the future. Team members reflect not only on the tasks at hand, but also about each
other.Initial ground rules are established as the team begins to discover how to work together.

The Challenge The Team Dynamic The Questions

Creating a Exploring why we are together? What are we supposed to do

purpose and Testing to identify the boundaries
managing team of both interpersonal and task
membership behaviours
Assessing other team members and
the commitment
Evaluating potential risks and
rewards
Establishing relationships with
leaders and other team members
together?
Do I want to get involved in this?
Is everyone committed to this?
How can I contribute?
What will you expect of me?
What are the pros and cons of
being on this team?
Who are these people? Will we get
along?
What will you contribute? Can I
trust you?

Stage 2: Storming

Differences in opinion are more common and are expressed more openly. Conflicts emerge
around interpersonal issues and task needs. Power struggles may emerge as leadership is
challenged and factions begin to form. Team members compete for positions, challenge
goals, the group influence and resist task requirements. Note: Many groups commonly stall at
this stage.

The Challenge The Team Dynamic The Questions

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 Managing Challenging the team’s purpose
expectations Splintering into subgroups
and roles Struggling for power and control
Resisting tasks and authority
Avoiding dealing with underlying
tension and hidden agendas
Why are we doing this?
What’s the point?
Why are we doing it this way?
Why don't we do it that way?

Stage 3: Norming

A sense of renewed optimism as the team begins to feel a sense of team identity. It
experiences increased cooperation as roles and responsibilities become clearer and agreement
on norms and expectations for behavior are reached.

 The Challenge The Team Dynamic The Questions

Managing Implementing the team’s Who does what and when?

relationships performance expectations
and task Re-establishing specific roles and
efforts operating procedures
Defining rules for problem solving
Clarifying processes for resolving
team conflicts
Building team culture
How often will we meet?
How do we resolve problems?
How do we make decisions?
How do we handle conflicts?
What makes our team special?

Stage 4: Performing

Reaching this stage is largely dependent upon the successful transition through the previous
stages. The team knows clearly what it is doing and why. Relationships are strong and while
disagreements may occur they are resolved quickly and positively. Roles become flexible and
functional, and group energy is channelled into the task. There is maximum work
accomplishment, interdependence, personal insight and constructive self-change

 The Challenge The Team Dynamic The Questions

Managing task Alignment Each person has an

completion, integral role in the team’s work How can we improve this?
evaluating Accomplishment. People and the Is there a better way?
results, striving team as a whole are meeting and What more can we do?
for exceeding role and task How can I help?
improvement expectations

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 Cohesion. Feeling like a “team”
Commitment. To each other, the
team and to accomplishing the
team’s goals. Loyalty and trust

A team at the Performing Stage can either: Return to the forming stage as group membership,
leadership and the team’s purpose changes. Decline into "dorming" stage as the group
becomes complacent or adjourn as the group successfully reaches its goal, completes its work
and disbands.

Stage 5: Adjourning

Adjourning is typically related to the end of a project team however, its also relevant when
the purpose and structure of team changes substantially due to sale, merger or a restructuring
process. This stage can be particularly stressful where the dissolution of the team is
unplanned. This stage involves the disbandment of the team, termination of roles and the
completion of tasks. This stage is also referred to as 'mourning' given the sense of loss
experienced by some team members.

The Challenge The Team Dynamic The Questions

Managing Conflicting emotions (sadness,

relationships anger, gratitude, happiness) What will I do now?
and task Uncertainty about how to end and
efforts their future
What will it be like now?
Grieving Feelings of dislocation
and loss Shall I stay (with the company) or
Team members deal with this shall I go?
stage in different ways:
Avoiding tasks, Arguing over
minor details or past arguments
resurface, Denying: pretending the
team will continue, Pollyanna:
focusing only on the positive
experiences
Acknowledging: facing the good,
the bad and the ugly, letting go and
saying goodbye

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Types of Teams:

1. Problem-Solving Teams:

Twenty years ago, teams were just beginning to grow in popularity and most took similar
form. They are typically composed of 5–12 hourly employees from the same department
who met for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and
the work environment.Members share ideas or offer suggestions on how work processes
and methods can be improved. Rarely are they given the authority to unilaterally
implement their suggested actions.One of the most widely practiced applications during
the 1980s was quality circles.

2. Self-Managed Work Teams:

Problem-solving teams did not go far enough in getting employees involved in work-related
decisions and processes. This led to experimentation with truly autonomous teams.
These groups of employees (typically 10–15 in number) perform highly related or
interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors.
This includes planning and scheduling of work, assigning tasks to members, collective
control over the pace of work, making operating decisions, and taking action on problems.
Fully self-managed work teams even select their own members and have the members
evaluate each other’s performance. As a result supervisory roles become less important.
Business periodicals documented successful applications of self-managed teams. In spite of
these impressive stories, a word of caution:

a. Some organizations have been disappointed with the results from self-managed
teams.

b. Teams do not seem to work well during organizational downsizing.

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 c. The overall research on the effectiveness of self-managed work teams has not
been uniformly positive.

d. Moreover, while individuals on teams do tend to report higher levels of job

satisfaction, they also sometimes have higher absenteeism and turnover rates.

e. The effectiveness of self-managed teams is situationally dependent.

3. Cross-Functional Teams:

These are teams made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from
different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task.

a. Many organizations have used horizontal, boundary-spanning groups for years.

b. IBM created a large task force in the 1960s—made up of employees from across
departments in the company—to develop the highly successful System 360.

c. A task force is really nothing other than a temporary cross-functional team.

d. The popularity of cross-discipline work teams exploded in the late 1980s.

4. Virtual Teams:

The previous types of teams do their work face to face. Virtual teams use computer
technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.

a. They allow people to collaborate online.

b. Virtual teams can do all the things that other teams do.

c. They can include members from the same organization or link an organization’s
members with employees from other organizations.

d. They can convene for a few days to solve a problem, a few months to complete a
project, or exist permanently.

The three primary factors that differentiate virtual teams

a. The absence of paraverbal and nonverbal cues. These help clarify communication
by providing increased meaning, but aren’t available in online interactions.

b. Limited social context. Virtual teams often suffer from less social rapport and less
direct interaction among members.

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 c. The ability to overcome time and space constraints. Virtual teams allow people to
work together who might otherwise never be able to collaborate

When it’s best to use teams

Teams should never be created for the sake of having a “team”. They can however be
extremely effective when they are designed to meet the needs of a specific performance
challenge. And, they will add the most value when the combined membership is better than
the most effective individual.

Teams are most effective when

 The task is complex requiring multiple skills and knowledge.

 There is too much or not enough information is incomplete.
 The task, problem or solution affects many people or reques input from other
departments
 Creativity and new ideas are needed;
 There are no clear answers and the path forward is unclear.
 More efficient use of personnel is required.
 Sufficient time is available for team training and development and for reaching decisions
 High commitment is desirable.
 Cooperation needed for team implementation is likely.
 When division and coordination of labour is needed for the work to be accomplished

Teams are least effective when

 One person has greater expertise on the subject than other members
 All information required is available
 Task or purpose contained within one area
 The task is straightforward.
 The task is routine.

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 Insufficient space, equipment and resources for a team
 Time constraints do not support team training, development and decision-making
 Employee turnover is high.
 Lack of support for teams because of culture, management or union relations
 Where work can be divided amongst a few people and the leader can integrate those
parts.

Characteristics of Effective Teams

The following 10 characteristics should present in successful teams. These teams work well
together, achieve their goals and enjoy them in the process.

1. Clear Purpose.

Members understand and are fully committed to the vision, mission, goals, and objectives of
the team. Ineffective teams lack clarity of purpose, a plan and specific goals. Members
wonder, wander and pull in different directions.

2. Open Communication.

Effective teams pride themselves on open, participatory communication and vigorous

discussions. Ineffective teams are marked by gossip, hidden agendas and guarded
communication.

3. Constructive Conflict.

On effective teams, there's disagreement, but members are comfortable with this and deal
with it openly. There are very few signs of avoiding or suppressing conflict. Ineffective teams
lack trust and are often undermined by personal disagreements and their inability to resolve
conflict constructively.

4. Effective Problem Solving and Decision-making.

Approaches to problem solving and decision making are well established in effective teams.
Ineffective teams lack problem-solving strategies and are stymied by inefficient decision-
making processes and low quality decisions.

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5. Defined Roles, Responsibilities and Accountability.

Roles, responsibilities, expectations and authorities are well defined, understood and
accepted. Work is fairly distributed and skills are well represented with team members'
abilities recognized and fully utilised. Team members are fully accountable for individual and
collective team performance. Ineffective teams struggle with role conflict, unclear
boundaries, confused expectations and poor accountability.

6. Strong Relationships.

Effective teams work on building and maintaining internal relationships. Team members are
supportive; trust one another and have a lot of fun together. Members also invest in
developing relationships and building credibility with important stakeholders in other parts of
the organization. Poor collaboration, low morale, cliques and silos characterize ineffective
teams.

7. Systems and Procedures.

Effective teams implement and support procedures to guide and regulate team functioning.
Ineffective teams rarely invest in developing their team systems or improving work processes

8. Experimentation and Creativity.

Well functioning teams encourage creativity and risk taking and experiment with different
ways of doing things. Ineffective teams often are bureaucratic, low risk and rigid.

9. Measurement and Self-assessment.

Effective teams have clear shared measures. They schedule time to regularly assess their
progress and performance, identifying achievements and areas for improvement. Ineffective
teams tend focus on individual measurement and rarely review their collective performance.

10. Shared Leadership.

Effective teams share leadership roles depending upon the circumstances, needs of the group,
and expertise of members. The formal leader co-ordinates the integration of effective team
functions and models appropriate behaviour to help establish positive norms. Ineffective
teams often have one person dominating.

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Factors that define High Performance Teams
A true high performance team is a rare thing. These are the teams that break
boundaries, rescue organizations from the brink of disaster and deliver projects against
seemingly impossible odds. And yet, while we have all seen (or at least heard) of these teams
few of us have served on one, fewer still have experienced the privilege of leading one. The
elusive pursuit of replicating the success of high performance teams continues to challenge
organisations throughout the world.

The difference between an Effective Team and a High Performance Team is

While high performance teams possess all the characteristics of the effective work team.
There are four characteristics which set them apart:

 Higher levels of companionship

 Increased levels of interdependence

 Greater collective learning and adaptive capabilities

 Closer identification with team outcomes than other teams

The factors working behind the high performance teams are described below:

1. Commitment to the Cause

In high performance teams
members are involved in both
creating a clear and engaging direction
and integrating their values and needs
with group values and goals. This task
significance engenders deep

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 commitment and efficiently focuses the team’s efforts on objectives. Subsequent success
feeds intense pride, the WIIFM factor out weighing formal rewards.

2. All for One and One for All

The interpersonal and task interconnectedness so essential to the success of an “effective
team” is hardwired into the high performance team. The strong sense of solidarity and
mutual concern for each other’s well-being creates a highly supportive and trusting
environment. This environment promotes personal growth and the risk taking that
characterizes the extraordinary success of so many high performance teams

3. Strong Identity
Connected to the team’s mission by strong interpersonal commitments, the team’s
purpose becomes more noble, performance goals more urgent, its identity more
pervasive and its approach more powerful. Members vigilantly protect the team by
minimizing internal politics.

4. High Fun Factor

High performance teams seem to have a better-developed sense of humour and more fun.
Members forge close-knit relationships and maintain high levels of camaraderie.

5. Fast Team Learning

High-performance teams leverage the strong network of interpersonal relationships to
facilitate team learning, accelerating their ability to learn from each other and collective
experiences. This fosters the development of interchangeable skills, which in turn
produces greater flexibility leading to higher levels of performance.

6. Frequent Feedback
Top management support ensures the teams survival within the organisation while
positive feedback from management and customers fuels the team’s performance,
reinforcing the team’s self-belief in future success.

7. Protection from Politics

One of the most interesting findings of the recent “Contagious Success” research is that

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 in high-performing groups, the leader protects the team from the rest of the organisation
by shielding them from company interference.

8. Belief in the Impossible

The most significant factor in high performance teams is that members, including the
leader, believe that as a team they can accomplish the impossible. They respond rapidly,
identifying and acting on opportunities. They understand and accept however, the direct
consequences of their actions; success or failure will have a substantial impact on the
organization. This “potency factor” has been found to be the strongest predictor of the
high performance team.

A Team effectiveness Model:

Work Design

Effective teams need to work together and take collective responsibility to complete significant tasks.
The work-design category includes:

 variables like freedom and autonomy,

 the opportunity to utilize different skills and talents,

 the ability to complete a whole and identifiable task or product,

 and working on a task or project that has a substantial impact on others.

The evidence indicates that these characteristics enhance member motivation and increase team
effectiveness.

Composition

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1. Abilities of members:

Teams require three different types of skills:

 Technical expertise

 Problem-solving and decision-making skills

 Good listening, feedback, conflict resolution, and other interpersonal skills

The right mix is crucial. It is not uncommon for one or more members to take responsibility
to learn the skills in which the group is deficient, thereby allowing the team to reach its full
potential.

1. Personality:

Many of the dimensions identified in the Big Five personality model have shown to be
relevant to team effectiveness.
Teams that rate higher in mean levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and
emotional stability tend to receive higher managerial ratings for team performance.

The variance in personality characteristics may be more important than the mean. A single
team member who lacks a minimal level of, say, agreeableness can negatively affect the
whole team’s performance.

3. Allocating roles and diversity:

Teams have different needs, and people should be selected for a team to ensure that there is
diversity and that all various roles are filled.
Managers need to understand the individual strengths that each person can bring to a team,
select members with their strengths in mind, and allocate work assignments accordingly.

4. Size of teams:

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The most effective teams are neither very small (under four or five) nor very large (over a
dozen). Effective teams—managers should keep them in the range of 5–12 people.

 Very small teams are likely to lack for diversity of views.

 Large teams have difficulty getting much done.

5. Member flexibility:

This is an obvious plus because it greatly improves its adaptability and makes it less reliant
on any single member.

6. Member preferences:

Not every employee is a team player. Given the option, many employees will select
themselves out of team participation.

High performing teams are likely to be composed of people who prefer working as part of a
group.

Context
The contextual factors that appear to be most significantly are related to team performance:

1. Adequate resources:

All work teams rely on resources outside the group to sustain it. A scarcity of resources
directly reduces the ability of the team to perform its job effectively. As one set of
researchers concluded, “perhaps one of the most important characteristics of an effective
work group is the support the group receives from the organization.’’

2. Leadership and structure:

Agreeing on the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual skills
requires team leadership and structure. Leadership is not always needed. Self-managed work
teams often perform better than teams with formally appointed leaders.

On traditionally managed teams, we find that two factors seem influence team performance:

I. The leader’s expectations and his or her mood.

II. Leaders who expect good things from their team are more likely to get them!

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2. Climate of Trust:

 Members of effective teams trust each other and exhibit trust in their leaders.
 When members trust each other they are more willing to take risks.

 When members trust their leadership they are more willing to commit to their leader’s
goals and decisions.

3. Performance evaluation and reward systems:

How do you get team members to be both individually and jointly accountable? The
traditional, individually oriented evaluation and reward system must be modified to reflect
team performance.

Individual performance evaluations, fixed hourly wages, individual incentives are not
consistent with the development of high-performance teams.

Management should consider group-based appraisals, profit sharing, gainsharing, small-

group incentives, and other system modifications that will reinforce team effort and
commitment

Process

1. A Common Purpose:

Effective teams have a common and meaningful purpose that provides direction, momentum,
and commitment for members. This purpose is a vision. It is broader than specific goals.

2. Specific goals:
Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic
performance goals. They energize the team.Specific goals facilitate clear communication
and help teams maintain their focus on results. Team goals should be challenging.

3. Team efficacy:

Effective teams have confidence in themselves and believe they can succeed—this is team
efficacy. Success breeds success. Management can increase team efficacy by helping the
team to achieve small successes and skill training.

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 I. Small successes build team confidence.
II. The greater the abilities of team members, the greater the likelihood that the team
will develop confidence and the capability to deliver that confidence.

4. Conflict levels:
Conflict on a team is not necessarily bad. Teams that are completely void of conflict are
likely to become apathetic and stagnant. Relationship conflicts—those based on
interpersonal incompatibilities, tension, and animosity toward others—are almost always
dysfunctional. On teams performing non-routine activities, disagreements among members
about task content (called task conflicts) is not detrimental. It is often beneficial because it
lessens the likelihood of groupthink.

2) Social loafing:
Individuals can hide inside a group. Effective teams undermine this tendency by holding
themselves accountable at both the individual and team level.

Key Roles of the Teams:

The Belbin Team Roles

The Belbin Model is a robust and highly effective concept on teamwork that is the product of
many years of research. British psychologist Dr Meredith Belbin has worked to achieve a
coherent and accurate system that explains individual behaviour and its influence on team
success. These behavioural patterns are called "Team Roles" and these nine roles cover the
types of individual behaviour at work in a team.

1. Plant (PL)

Advancing new ideas and strategies with special attention to major issues and looking for
possible breaks in approach to the problem that the group is confronting.

2. Resource Investigator (RI)

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Exploring and reporting on ideas, developments and resources outside the group, creating
external contacts that may be useful to the team and conducting negotiations.

3. Co-coordinator (CO)

Controlling the way in which the team moves forward towards the group objectives by making
the best use of team resources; recognising where the team's strengths and weaknesses lie and
ensuring the best use is made of each members potential.

4. Shaper (SH)

Shaping the way in which the team effort is applied, directing attention generally to the setting
of objectives and priorities and seeking to impose some shape or pattern on group discussion
and on the outcome of group activities.

5. Monitor Evaluator (ME)

Analyzing problems, evaluating ideas and suggestions so that the team is better placed to take
balanced decisions.

6. Team Worker (TW)

Supporting members in their strengths; eg. Building on suggestions, underpinning members in

their shortcomings, improving communications between members and fostering team spirit
generally.

7. Implementer (IMP)

Turning concepts and ideas into practical working procedures; carrying out agreed plans
systematically and efficiently.

8. Completer Finisher (CF)

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Ensuring the team is protected as far as possible from mistakes of both commission and
omission; actively searching for aspects of work that need a more than usual degree of attention;
and maintaining a sense of urgency within the team.

9. Specialist (SP)

Feeding technical information into the group. Translating from general into technical terms.
Contributing a professional viewpoint on the subject under discussion.

Renowned corporate psychologist Dr David Marriott (a colleague of Belbin and an expert on his
work) is available for detailed team role profiling and reporting for corporate teams and
managers.

Margerison and McCann Model

The important thing to remember about teams is that they have different needs, yet all teams
need to achieve their goals, and be sensitive to the needs of the members. 

People should be selected for a team to ensure that there is diversity and that all various roles
are filled. The notion of key team roles is not a new idea; Belbin put forward his `8 key roles`
as early as 1981.  The newer model of Margerison and McCann adds the role of `promoter`
to ensure ideas maintain momentum after they are created.

The authors identify nine potential team roles.  Successful work teams have people to fill all
these roles and have selected people to play in these roles based on their skills and
preferences.  Bearing in mind that in many teams individuals will play multiple roles, and
these may change over time.

The authors identified nine essential team activities 

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 1. Linker who co-ordinates and integrates the work of others.
2. Creator who initiates creative ideas and experiments.
3. Promoter who champions ideas after they’re initiated.
4. Assessor who offers insightful analysis of options.
5. Organiser who establishes and implements ways of making things work.
6. Producer who provides direction and follow through.
7. Inspector who controls and audits thw working of systems.
8. Maintainer who upholds and safeguards standards and processes. 
9. Advisor who encourages the search for more information.

Managers need to invest time and effort into understanding the individual strengths (and
weaknesses) of their team members.  They must select members with their strengths in
mind and allocate work assignments that fit with members preferred styles.  By matching
individual preferences with team role demands, managers increase the likelihood that the
team members will work well together.

Turning Individuals into Team Players:

All people are not inherently team players. There are also many organizations that have
historically nurtured individual accomplishments. They have created competitive work
environments in which only the strong survive. If these organizations adopt teams, what do
they do about the selfish, I’ve got to look out for me employees that they’ve created? Finally,
countries differ of how the rate on individualism and collectivism. Teams fit well with
countries that score high on collectivism.

The common phrase goes,” There is no ‘I’ in ‘Team.’” And that is correct, there certainly is
not; however some individuals do not understand this concept. The place where this is most
evident is in sports such as basketball. While watching, many fans will declare certain players
as a “ball hog” because he is not passing to a teammate to make a better play. This goes the
same in organizational teams. So how do we turn the organizational team member or “ball

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hog” into passing the ball off to others? To simply put it, we must turn that individual into a
team player.

Some individuals do not share team player attributes as their other counterparts. This has
been known to be an individual characteristic trait, but also to be encouraged by
organizations that reward and cater towards individual accomplishments. Managers may find
the need to turn these individuals around to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the
team. There are three simple steps that managers can use as a solution.

1. Selection
Our selection criteria focuses more of the technical qualifications of a candidate and not
much efforts is put into taking a background check to ensuring that the candidate is a team
player. There is a general assumption that once a person has been hired they will
automatically get along with colleagues fit in.
This misconception later on leads to unnecessary interruptions and various visits to the HR
office for this issue or the other later resulting in the person quitting the job or being fired
taking us back to where we started from, recruiting once again. The manager has various
ways to dealing with such individualistic persons either to take them to a department that
does not require team work (this is rare) or taking the person through training.

2. Training
In today’s individualistic society training opens a door on where one can get to unlearn the  
individual mindset and embraces team work.
Training specialist has been known to conduct sessions that allow employees to experience
the satisfaction that teamwork provides. a candidate can be placed in a training session that
specifically teaches them how to be a team player. Second, there is the option of just not
hiring. If they do not fit in with your organization then it may just be better to find someone
who does. Some people may be totally resistant to the team approach and just not worth the
organizations time. However, the manager could also place the candidate elsewhere instead
of passing this person up.
One of the most effective tools of modern team building is the recreation weekends which
give   employees time to interact away from the office.

3. Rewards

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Rewards system over time has been focused on individual accomplishments therefore
pushing employees to strive for the ultimate price being offered.
Providing Incentives to be a Good Team Players, things such as promotions, raises and other
forms of recognition should all be given to those who work effectively as a team. A manager
must also consider implementing a rewards system that will give rewards for team efforts not
individual ones. When giving individual rewards you take the members of the team to a
competitive environment, and as I mentioned in previous blogs, this is exactly the opposite of
what you want to do in a team environment. Certain rewards can be given for training new
colleagues, sharing information, helping in resolving team conflicts, and mastering new
skills.  There is also another method of rewards giving; intrinsic rewards. Giving a
compliment and being part of a successful team can be a reward in itself for the individual
and team members. The amount of individual contributions should be balanced and weighed
with the amount of team contributions. Overall, a successful team with pleased members is
what manager want to achieve and to do this sometimes an individual needs to be turned into
a team member.

Contemporary Issues in Managing Teams

Teams and quality management

The issue of “improving quality"? has garnered increased attention from management in
recent years. This is to ensure Global competitiveness after the international markets opened
up for India post liberalization. In this article we want to demonstrate the important role that
teams play in quality management (QM) programs.

The essence of QM is process improvement, and employee involvement is the linchpin of

process improvement. In other words, QM requires management to give employees the
encouragement to share ideas and act on what they suggest.

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None of the various (quality management) processes and techniques will catch on and be
applied except in work teams. All such techniques and processes require high levels of
communication and contact, response, adaptation, coordination and sequencing. They require
the environment that can be supplied only by superior work teams.

Teams provide the natural vehicle for employees to share ideas and to implement
improvements. Gil Mosard, a QM specialist at Boeing states that, When a measurement
system tells you your process is out of control, team work is needed for structured problem
solving. Not everyone needs to know how to do all kinds of fancy control charts for
performance tracking, but everybody does need to know where their process stands so they
can judge if it is improving.

Examples from Ford Motor Co. and Amana Refrigeration, Inc., illustrate how teams are
being used in QM programs.
Ford began its QM efforts with teams as the primary organizing mechanism. “Because this
business is so complex, you can’t make an impact on it without a team approach"? noted one
Ford manager. In designing its quality problem-solving teams, Ford’s management identified
five goals.
The teams should be:

1.Be small enough to be efficient and effective.

2.Be properly trained in the skills their members will need;
3.Be allocated enough time to work on the problems they plan to address;
4.Be given the authority to resolve the
problems and implement corrective action;
5.Each has a designated “champion"?
Whose job it is to help the team get around
roadblocks that arise.

At Amana, cross-functional task forces

made up of people from different levels
within company used to deal with quality
problems that cut across departmental lines.
The various task forces each have a unique
area of problem-solving responsibility. For

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instance, one handles in-plant products, another deals with items that arise outside the
production facility, and still another focuses its attention specifically on supplier problems.
Amana claims that the use of these teams has improved vertical and horizontal
communication within the company and substantially reduced both the number of units that
don’t meet company specifications and the number of service problems in the field

Workforce Diversity
Workforce diversity goes beyond a company's legal obligations to comply with equal
opportunities and non-discrimination legislation. Companies that employ diverse workforces
encourage different perspectives and promote learning from alternative perspectives. A
diverse workforce should reflect the society in which the company operates in terms of race,
gender, physical and mental ability, ethnicity, age, class, spiritual practice and sexual
orientation. Employing a diverse workforce requires a company to create a culture that
respects conflicting opinions and promotes the dignity of each member of the workforce.

Advantages

In a study conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois in 2009, both racial and
gender diversity were found to contribute positively to sales, customers and profits. Racial
diversity can also positively influence market share, although the impact of gender on market
share was not significant in the study. In addition, companies often can increase their
creativity by encouraging diverse opinions and perspectives. Company recruiters can also
widen the talent pool if they recruit employees based on relevant qualifications and
experience, rather than limiting their search on race, gender, age or other grounds that are not
central to the role.

Disadvantages

Although employing a diverse workforce has many advantages, it comes with some
disadvantages as well. A company that recruits and employs a diverse workforce must create
a culture that promotes dignity and respect to avoid tension between employees. In addition,
communication may be adversely affected if employees' first language is not English.

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Existing employees may leave the organization if their personal prejudices prevent them from
working with colleagues from a different background. As another disadvantage, the
investigation of employee complaints regarding negative attitudes and harassment can take
up a considerable amount of management time, whether or not they are upheld.

Managing Diversity

The key to employing a diverse workforce is to train and support managers within the
organization. Managers must understand the need to support individuals within the team,
balancing conflicting needs and opinions. Each team member must have the opportunity to be
heard and feel that their opinions are respected. Managers also need to understand and deal
constructively with their own biases and prejudices. By offering opportunities to all
employees based on their performance, a company can increase its productivity and
creativity.

The Reasons Why Teams Fail

Frustrated by a lack of progress and results, organisation's will frequently despatch an

underperforming team on a team building day with the expectation that they will return
transformed. Problem solved. More often than not both the team and their organisation are
disappointed.

The team returns to work on a high but once the initial "buzz" has worn off the same old
problems reappear. There is little change in performance, results fail to materialise, cynicism
and frustration return, worse than before.

Team building has its place and can be highly effective when used appropriately however, it
is seldom the cure for the fundamental problems that plague many teams.

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Significant improvements in team performance can be achieved more rapidly through
carefully targetted interventions which eliminate (or reduce) the systemic barriers to a teams
performance. Often these barriers have less to do with the team's "skill or will" and more to
do with the team's design and the environment in which it operates.

This is clearly illustrated by the findings from a recent survey of Fortune 500 (and other
companies) across a variety of industries. It identified primary factors that contribute to the
failure of teams. These were classified as:

1. Internal Factors that exist within the team itself

2. External Factors present in the team's (organisational) environment

While some of these factors are related to specific team based skills (which can be improved
through training or team building) the most significant are connected to the organisation and
team design.

The lesson, if your team is struggling to gain traction on a project or is underperforming

generally then before you send them on a team building or training event, identify if any of
the factors listed below are present. Then assess their impact on the team.

Focus your efforts on eliminating external obstacles and improving the team's design
(structure, systems and processes). You, your teams and your organisation will experience far
greater and more enduring results.

Any training or team building you do invest in will then yield more substantial changes in
successful behaviours. Why? Because the team returns "skillled and willed" to an
environment that supports its performance.

Top EXTERNAL Reasons Why Teams Fail

1. Team members are often required to work on their "team" assignments in addition to
a full workload.

2. Management does not model the principles and behaviors that support teams in being
successful.

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 3. Compensation systems do not adequately reward teamwork and individual team
members.

4. Team leaders and/or managers do not release appropriate control to team members.

5. Teams are not given adequate resources (e.g., money, time, human resources) to do
the job.

6. Changes in the organization cause frequent changes in team membership.

7. Team members resist taking responsibility for tasks traditionally performed by

management.

8. Teams are not well chartered.

9. Team assignments are not aligned or integrated with business strategies.

10. Teams are given more work than they are capable of handling.

Top INTERNAL Reasons Why Teams Fail :

1. Team members don't influence and get support from key external stakeholders

2. Team members don't set appropriate goals for the team and then build and implement
a plan for reaching them.

3. Team members don't spend enough time planning how they will work together.

4. Team members don't know how to reconcile differences or resolve interpersonal

conflict.

5. Teams don't conduct efficient meetings that produce results.

6. Team members don't have compatible levels of problem-solving, analytic or project

management skills.

7. Team members don't make decisions effectively as a group.

8. Team members don't know how to influence the work of other team members.

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 9. Teams members don't have consistent or clear team leadership

References:

1. Organizational Behavior, Robbins, Stephen p. ; Judge, Timothy A.

2. http://www.google.com/search?
num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=Team+work&btnG=Search+by+image
3. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-diverse-workforce-organization-
20467.html
4. http://www.excellerate.co.nz/teamtacticsart.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/

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