Managing Effective Teams, Essay Example

Management of effective teams is really an important issue for every organization that wants to succeed in its business, to achieve its strategic and tactical objectives, and to reach certain position on the market. Taking a group of managers (or simply employees) and turning it into an effective leadership and management team is not an easy task.

There are several groups of problems that may occur in every team and several reasons for the occurrence of these problems. For instance, team problems include: 1) problems with group decision-making – the primary goal of every team is to make decisions that have great influence on the company’s operations. But there is always an issue of conflicting interests and team members must be aware of the necessity and must be able to reach agreement in all critical questions; 2) difficulties with power relationships – as McIntyre (1998) states in order to be effective teams must successfully manage relationships upward, downward, and laterally; 3) management personalities – managers are usually those people who have great analytical skills and capabilities, but at the same time they are very independent and have high need for control, and such traits of character usually do not promote teamwork and do serve as a cause of conflicts.

A very important issue in the creation and operation of any team is the necessity to achieve collaboration and sense of synergy among the members of the team. And two basic elements of the successful inter-team relationships are the senses of trust and respect. A minimal degree of trust about major work activities and group decisions is absolutely necessary (McIntyre, 1998). People just can’t work together effectively if they don’t believe in the actions, words, and decisions of each other. And mutual respect also plays a crucial role in management and work of any team. There are two types of respect that can be applied in this situation. First, is the so called basic respect, meaning that any person, no matter what disagreements you have with him/her, must be treated respectfully because this person first of all is another human being. And there is also the so called earned respect, meaning that team members should earn respect of each other through their work, decisions, knowledge, accomplishments and so on.

As McIntyre states there are five major steps or factors that contribute to the effective team management. When these factors are absent it is always difficult for the team to fulfill its mission and to achieve its goals. These factors are:

1. Development and application of strategic goals. In order for the team to be successful, each member of the team should have a clear understanding of the purpose and goals of team’s existence. And these strategic goals must be directly related to the organization’s critical strategic priorities.
2. Establishment of extensive network. In order to make right decisions and take necessary actions team members should have sufficient information about the company. And this information should come both from inside and from outside the company.
3. Establishment of collaborative relationships. To provide effective outcomes of the team work the sense of trust, support, respect, and collaboration should exist within the team. And another important aspect is the establishment of positive atmosphere inside of the team.
4. Existence of the effective information processing. In order to be able to establish an effective process of team decision-making, team members should process all the information available to them to their colleagues promptly and with all necessary comments or explanations.
5. Development of focused action. It is a well known fact that no matter how brilliant the decision or idea is, the need to implement it effectively is the major issue of success. For this reason team members must be ably to make smooth transition from discussion to action.

Another important question and the key to success in team management is the right identification of the purpose of team’s creation.  In order to work effectively every member of the team should know and strive for the ultimate goal of the team’s existence. According to McIntyre (1998) there are four major types of teams that can exist within any organization:

• Executive team – is the top management team in an organization. The purpose of an executive team is to develop business plan and corporate plan of the company, to make major decisions that will affect the running of the company in the short- and long-term periods, to develop policy of the company, etc.
• Line management team – such teams consist of managers who are responsible for the running of various organizational units or departments within the company. The task of these managers is to implement plans developed by top management teams, to coordinate and control the work of their subordinates, to adjust or change their behavior if necessary, and to motivate employees for the better performance. Usually such departments are those that produce, sell, or deliver products or services of the company.
• Staff management teams – these teams consist of managers and employees who work in the departments that support running of the line functions. Such staff departments should possess knowledge and experience in such specialized areas as Human Resources Management, Information Systems Management, etc.
• Board or Council – these are groups that meet periodically in order to solve some particular problems or to make certain specific decisions. Boards usually provide governance and oversight, while Councils offer input, advice, and coordination of activities (McIntyre, 1998).

In order for the employees to work effectively as one team it is necessary to establish a team culture. The process of developing this team culture is not an easy one, and is requires a lot of time and effort. Only after team members have gone through some shared experiences and have achieved some common goals or success, the sense of unity and value can occur. A very important aspect that can greatly contribute to the establishment of a team culture is the high degree of clarity in the communicational system of the team. Another crucial issue in the formation of the team culture is an attempt to overcome competition in the workplace. Individual skills of team members should compliment and add value to one another rather than compete with one another. For this reason responsibility for each particular task must be assigned to a person who is the most capable of performing it.  And also the company must establish an effective system of employees’ training and development.

Although decisions must be made by the whole group, it is very important that each member of the team should be given an equal opportunity to express his/her own opinion on the subject openly and without any hesitation, and this opinion must be taken into account by the team while making the final decision. Brainstorming must be also encouraged within the team in order to realize team’s innovational and creative thinking. It is very important that each member of the team is being delegated certain degree of authority in performing some particular tasks. This will provide an employee with sufficient challenge and motivation necessary for productive performance.

Very important aspect in establishment of effective team cooperation is the presence of off-site team activities. For this reason such activities as team buildings should be conducted at least once in a quarter. Such events as social gatherings, laser tags, athletic competitions, and so on, give an opportunity to team members to communicate with one another in informal atmosphere, and this greatly contributes to the unification of team members, development of trust in one another, and such activities bond individuals into a common purpose.

So I can draw a conclusion that effective teams can be a life blood of an organization, they provide major contribution to the company’s success on the market and they can be the main reason for the company’s survival and flourishing in the present highly demanding conditions of doing business.  Individuals who work in the organization do contribute to its success, but it is effective teams that help companies to cope with the ever-increasing demands from customers, with the high speed of technological changes, challenges of globalization, etc. If to sum up all the statements about effective management of teams that were presented in this essay, the key points will be: 1) the necessity to make sure that all team members know what the purpose of their work is; 2) involvement of all the members of the team in the processes of target setting and decision making; 3) development of trust and respect within the team; 4) establishment of positive atmosphere at the workplace.

References

McIntyre, M.G. (1998). The Management Team Handbook: Five Key Strategies For Maximizing Group Performance. Jossey-bass.