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.
Team leadership theory is a recent leadership theory that does not discriminate between the leader and the other team members. The approach considers contributions from each team member to be critical for organizational success. This approach focused on the overall team effectiveness and team problems are diagnosed and action is taken to remediate weakness. This approach provides for taking corrective action when the leader deems necessary.
A good leadership style is something that every effective leader must have in order to succeed, but identifying what that entails or does not entails might be difficult to understand. Most of the research on leadership focuses on the exemplary, best practices, and positive attributes of effective and successful leaders. This article talks about a new approach to learn leadership using lessons from bad leadership. That is the lessons to be learned by examining leaders who have not effectively exercised their power, authority, or influence.
Team Development by Building Trust
As your team begins to work together, you need to establish a way each team member can exchange ideas and build mutual trust. Successful groups are built on trust and collaboration. A free exchange of ideas, in an open environment, will allow your team to get to know each other and enable you to check on how they work together. Learn some tips to help build team trust and establish personal bonds.
Creating Highly Effective Teams
How do we create effective teams? What comes to mind when you think about an effective team? High performing teams exhibit accountability, purpose, cohesiveness, and collaboration. It is a team that works seamlessly as a whole. Everyone brings unique talents and strengths and support each other to bring out the best in everyone. How do you create one?
Effective Business Communication
Communication is all about getting the message across correctly. To make this happen, you need to have good speaking skills and good writing skills. If you have these skills coupled with good listening skills and interest in reading, you have all the potential to be a good communicator. What things should the leader take into consideration to be more effective with interpersonal communication?
Many different types of teams have been identified by social scientists. Managers may encounter the diverse types of challenges while managing different kinds of teams. Challenges associated with Cross-Functional Teams might be different from that of a Geographically Dispersed Team or a Virtual Team. This article explores some common categories and subtypes of teams.
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.
The development of teams is an ongoing process because the composition of the team may keep on changing. The new members may join and the old members may leave the team. The team members pass through several stages for the development of the team and there has been a lot of research to identify these stages. In this article, we discuss the common theories of team development.
Building Perfect Creative Team
One misconception around creativity is that creative act is essentially solitary. Most of the world's important inventions resulted not from the work of one lone genius, but from collaboration of a team with complementary skills. Managers should build teams with the ideal mix of traits to form a creative group and then establish the conditions that make creativity much more likely to occur.
Appreciative leaders encourage contributions from those around them and facilitate the discussion to mutually solve problems. Understand the concept of Appreciative Leadership and learn about tools to create and ask powerful questions - that lead to new discoveries and possibilities. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong in the workplace, learn about, and build upon what works. Learn in this article the art to apply appreciative inquiry to specific situations and challenges at your workplace.
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