EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Nana Defie Badu

 Presentation Outline
• What is a Team?
• Types of Teams (Social and Work)
• What are Teams Made up of?
• Characteristics of Effective Teams
• What Skills do Teams need to PERFORM?
• What are the Benefits of Team Work?
• Negative Effects and How to Avoid them
• Learning Points
• Appropriate Behaviours
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 What is a Team?
• A team is defined ‘as a group of people who
work interdependently and have joint
accountability for a task.’
A team is a unit of two or more people who
interact and coordinate their work to
accomplish a specific goal.

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 Are Teams Different from
Groups?
Although a team is a group of people, the two
terms are not interchangeable. An employer,
a teacher, a coach can put together a group
of people and never build a team.
The team concept implies a sense of shared
mission and collective responsibility.

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 Is an Organisation a Team?
• An organisation is a grouping of people who
usually feel the same about a particular
cause, have a common purpose, function
according to certain rules and regulations,
has a boundary separating it from its
environment and have a unique identifier or
name.
• So what is your verdict?

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 Some Differences
Team
• Has a designated strong
leader
• Individual accountability
• Individual work products
• Individual work products
• Discusses, decides,
delegates works to
individual
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Group
• Shares or rotates leadership
roles
• Individual and mutual
accountability (Accountable
to each other)
• Collective work products
• Discusses, decides, shares
work
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 Types of Teams
• Functional Operating Team
• Cross-Functional Team
• Self-Managing Team
• Self-Defining Team
• Top Executive Team

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 Types of Teams
• Functional Operating Team
– Formal Leader
– Members with similar, but specialized functions
– Example: Maintenance crew, SWAT team, sports
• Cross-Functional Team
– Usually has a formal leader
– Members with different functions – various
stakeholders
– Example: Team to begin new or to kick-off a new
promotion

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 Types of Teams
• Self-Managing Team
– No formal leader - leadership may rotate
– Membership: similar functions
– External leader, in the same organization, to
direct, coach, support, and delegate
• Self-Defining Team
– No formal leader - leadership may rotate
– Facilitator acts as leader – role rotates
– Membership: similar goals or business purpose,
but specialization of roles is possible

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 Types of Teams
• Top Executive Team
– Can have some of the characteristics of the
previously discussed types of teams.

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What are Teams Made Up Of?

• Leader (Team Player)
• Members (Tem Players)
• Shared Goal/Objective/Aim/Target
• Agreed process
• Identified roles

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Characteristics of Effective
Teams
• Purpose & Values (clear commitment of
purpose and goals)
• Empowerment, initiative, involvement &
creativity
• Relationships and communication

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Characteristics of Effective
Teams
• Flexibility in share responsibility
• Optimal performance – High standards,
significant results and problem solving
• Recognition and Appreciation – valued
contributions, acknowledgement of team
efforts
• Morale - confident, enthusiastic, encourage
hard work

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 What Skills do Teams Need to
PERFORM?
• Being able to commit to a shared goal
• Being able to listen and respond to others in an
objective and productive way
• Being able to take on different roles in the group
in order to accomplish shared ends
• Being open and honest with one's ideas,
concerns, and values
• Being able to be a leader as well as a follower
• Not carrying hidden agendas into team meetings

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What Skills do Teams Need to
PERFORM?
• Communication
• Commitment
• Leadership
• Time management
• Decisions making
• Delegation
• Functional/Technical Skills
• Management Skills

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 Managerial Skills
• There are three skill sets that managers need to
perform effectively.
– Conceptual skills: the ability to analyze and diagnose a
situation and find the cause and effect.
– Human skills: the ability to understand, alter, lead, and
control people’s behavior.
– Technical skills: the job-specific knowledge required to
perform a task. Common examples include marketing,
accounting, and manufacturing.
All three skills are enhanced through formal training,
reading, and practice.

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 What are the Benefits of
Teamwork?
• Distributing the workload
• Reinforcing individual capabilities
• Creating participation and involvement
• Making better decisions
• Feeling like we play a part in the work being
done
• Generating a diversity of ideas, etc.

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 What are the Benefits of
Teamwork?
• Creativity
• By utilising all different skills, knowledge and personal
attributes in a team, more ideas can be generated, more
creative solutions are generated, leading to better
results.
• Skills
• Even the best qualified individual cannot have all of the
skills to do everything. Some people excel at coming up
with the ideas, others love the detail while there are
those that focus on the big picture, some too can be
counted on for implementation. So when a team works
together, it has a wide range of skills available that it can
utilise to deliver extraordinary results.

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What are the Benefits of
Teamwork?
• Satisfaction
• Individuals working together as a team to achieve a
common goal are continually developing. As more energy
and enthusiasm is created during interactions, the energy
is utilised and produces results which positively impacts
on motivation and leads to even more success.
• Speed
• Imagine that you have a project that needs research,
pulling together a proposition, financing it, implementing it
and delivering specific benefits. It could take months and
maybe years to make it happen. By splitting up the project,
work can move forward in parallel and the ultimate goal
achieved faster.

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What are the Benefits of
Teamwork?
• Sounding board
– We all have a range of options open to us. In a
team situation, other team members can act as a
sounding board, allowing us to cut through the
options and get on with those most likely to
achieve the desired goal.
• Support
– It is amazing the amount of solidarity that is
created in teams, especially when the going gets
tough. People will often go to what seems like
extreme lengths when they know that they can rely
on the support and encouragement of the team.
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 Benefits of Teamwork to You
• Teamwork helps employees learn their jobs
faster
• Teamwork encourages members to strive for
excellence
• Teamwork gives employees the sense of job
security
• Teamwork helps departments work
constructively
• Teamwork gives employees a sense of
ownership
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 Benefits of Teamwork to Golden
Tulip
• Teamwork reduces downtime
• Teamwork increases productivity
• Teamwork reduces turnover
• Teamwork lowers implementation time
• Teamwork saves health costs

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 How Can I Be a Team Player?
• Discussions
• Characteristics of a Team Player

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There Is No “I” In Teamwork But If You Look
Hard Enough, There Is A “Me”.

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 Negative Aspects of Teamwork
• There can be Social Idleness
- ‘free loaders’ in teams,
these people pretend to
work but don’t actually work.
• Some people feel used
• Teamwork may be time
consuming when the team
does not set right priorities
• May increase level of
unhealthy competition
• Focusing exclusively on
negative aspects
• Criticizing other members
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• Agreeing with the first idea
• Retreating rather than trying
to explain
• Changing positions to
reduce conflict
• Being dominated by one or
two people
• Withdrawing from the
discussion
• Deferring to the more
aggressive members
• Reacting with frustration
• Failing to question ideas
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Learning Points & Appropriate
Behaviours
• What Learning Points have you got from the
activity, discussions and presentations?
• Can you list some Appropriate Behaviours
we need to adopt to ensure that our teams
become effective?

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 Conclusion
• THERE IS NO “I” IN TEAMWORK BUT IF YOU
LOOK HARD ENOUGH, THERE IS A “ME”.

• ”We must all hang together, or assuredly, we

shall all hang separately.”
- Benjamin Franklin

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