Teams are part of the modern organizational culture. Whether you are a team leader or a team member, having a better understanding of how teams work, and being able to identify where the team is in the process, is a critical part of ensuring the team is ultimately successful. Start with the basics and understand what a team is and what role they play in an organization.
If you visit an organization, you will find that most of the activities of the organization are performed by a group of persons. Most of the work in organizations is done in teams. In an organization, activities are arranged in such a way that requires collective contribution. In fact, new organizations can be described as composed of teams.
In modern organizations, individuals are required to work in different types of teams. Even though individuals are important, their effectiveness depends, to a large extent, on the teams of which they are members. Every individual contributes to the achievement of a common goal. The individuals interact, collaborate, coordinate, and influence among the members. Thus, most of the time individuals work in a team.
A team consists of individuals. However, the collection of individuals in a place may be only a crowd. When individuals come together for certain tasks, then we have the formation of a group. A group is not necessarily a team. A group can have individuals with varied interests, attitude as well as thought processes. It is not necessary that the group members would have a common objective or a common goal to achieve. Let’s define these terms.
The main function of a group is to exchange task-related information and discuss task-related issues. The accountability in the group Building Roles and Teams remains of the individual. Each individual brings his/her competencies as well as the relevant information related to the task. Thus the group can be defined as a collection of individuals working in face-to-face relationships to share information and resources for a task to be achieved.
The team is qualitatively different from the group in several ways. The team functions almost like an individual. In other words, the team is accountable for results; collective responsibility is taken. There is mutuality and complementarity of the members of the team. The most important characteristics of a team are that it creates synergy, i.e., the performance of the team is more than the collective performance of the individual members. Hence, A team can be defined as a group of individuals working in a face-to-face relationship for a common goal, having collective accountability for the outcome of its effort.
Attribute |
Group / Work-Group |
Team |
Purpose |
Same as that of Organization |
Teams could be created for a specific purpose, distinct from that of the organization |
Work Products |
Individual |
Collective |
Process |
Discuss, decide, delegate |
Discuss, decide, do |
Leadership |
A single leader |
Shared Leadership |
Meeting |
Efficient |
Open, Problem Solving |
Accountability |
Individual |
Individual and Mutual |
Performance |
Performance typically depends on the work of individual members. |
Performance depends on both individual contributions and collective work products- the joint outcome of team members working together |
Responsibility |
Members of groups do not take responsibility for any results other than their own, although they do pool their resources to attain a goal |
Each team member shares responsibility for the team outcome. |
Goal |
Groups share a common interest goal |
Teams share a common interest goal plus a common commitment to purpose which supplies a source of meaning and emotional energy to the activities performed. |
Evaluation |
Indirect (Eg. Financial) |
Direct (Collective Work Product) |
A team may be defined as a group of two or more people who interact and influence the members for the achievement of a common goal. A team is a group of individuals, all working together for a common purpose. The individuals comprising a team ideally should have common goals; common objectives and they should be compatible with each other.
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." - Katzenbach and Smith, 1993
“A team is groups of two or more people who interact and influence each other, are mutually accountable for achieving common objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization.” - Steven and Mary Ann Von
A team is defined as a reasonably small group of people, who:
Based on this definition given above, the characteristics of the teams may be elaborated as under:
The frequency of interactions, influence, and the nature of tasks may determine the formation of a group, i.e., long-term, short-term, formal, informal, etc. Many new managers and supervisors reading this article will be taking over the management of an existing team rather than bringing together a new one. However, understanding these basics will help you put together your ideal team if you had the opportunity. This will help you fully understand the issues you may face.
Each individual is a contributor and brings a set of skills and knowledge to the organization. When we bring those individuals together, there is a wider range of skills and experience, and as a leader, you are able to come up with even better solutions.
Building Perfect Creative Team
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Share Information with Your Team
Willingness to share information is the most critical and the very first step in the Journey to employee empowerment and team development. People cannot make good technology or business decisions without information. They need to understand the purpose behind what they are doing and connect with the big picture. People with information feel the need to take the risk of making decisions that enable business growth.
Recognizing Stress & its Sources
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Have you ever noticed how we express ourselves or interact with each other? Have you ever wondered what communication is and what role it plays in our lives? One may wonder if communication is so omnipresent and integral to our lives, why study communication at all? We need to study communication because it is a complex process that consists of many elements and is also beset with a number of barriers and there is a need to remove the barriers so that the communication process is effective.
Participative leadership is one of the most effective styles and creates higher productivity, better contributions from group members, and increased group morale. The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decision-making abilities with group members by promoting the interests of the group members. Learn more about this leadership style and situations when it is effective.
Generating Ideas using Brainstorming
The brainstorming technique was developed by Alex F. Osborn in 1957 and brainstorming means where a team of members generates a large amount of alternative fruitful ideas on a specific problem without any criticism and then evaluates each idea in terms of their pros and cons. Brainstorming techniques fall into four broad categories: visioning, exploring, modifying, and experimenting.
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Generating Ideas using SCAMPER
SCAMPER is an activity-based thinking process that can be performed by Cooperative learning. SCAMPER is an acronym that provides a structured way of assisting students to think out of the box and enhance their knowledge. This can be used in the organizational context as a technique for creative problem solving and as a toolkit to generate fresh ideas.
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