Effective group/team relationships development - Essay Example

Developing effective teams is one of the most important aspects of a job that a manager faces in modern organisations. After years of thorough research, it can be safely said that team work is more productive for organisations than individual work. The reason why team work is more productive than working alone is because work-teams create high levels of synergy that are missing in individual effort. Hence, many organisations divide work in projects and create teams and task groups to complete this work.

Similarly, creating effective teams have become an important part of a manager's job. (Daft) Teams are defined as set of people working to achieve a single common objective. There are four stages in team formation. These stages are forming, storming, norming and performing. In the fist stage managers usually identify correct people for a team and decide how a particular member fits into the team.In the second stage, the manager tries to resolve issues and conerns of team members and resolve their problem.

In the third stage, problems are openly discussed among the team without the manager playing any role in this stage. Once all the problems are solved, the team set about performing their tasks and duties. These stages determine the team formation. After the formation of the teams, it is one of the fundamental duties of a managers to evaluate the performance of the team. In this stage, it is determined whether the team is effective for the organisation or is there a need to dismemberment. According to theory, a team's effectiveness depends upon a number of factors.

These factor include properly and accurately defined goals, roles, procedures, relationships and leadership. (Robbins and Judge) There must be clear goals, vision and values for the team to follow. If it does not have clear goals it will wander and fail to achieve the ultimate objective. Similarly, there must be some degree of specialization and division of responsiblity. If tasks are not defined for individual members of the team then it will be very difficult to hold individuals accountable and to evaluate individual performance of the team.

There must also be formal procedures and rule to settle deadlocks and conflicts. The organisation or the manager should provide the team with services like arbitration and settlement to make sure that the work is not halted due to deadlocks or conflicts. An effective team has mutual respect for individual members because of importance of coordination and trust among members. A team dies if team members do not respect each other. (University of British Colombia) All of this leads to the most important factor of an effective team building i-e leadership.

A team leader is a person who is respected by all members and enjoys their support. However, apart from respect there are a lot of skills that must be present in his CV. He must have a strategic focus and vision to get through all obstacles by using his skills and visions. He must be able to communicate well with the team and is not an introvert. He must also be a transactional leader and enjoy leadership power and not only the power provided to him by the chain of command and lines of authority.

It is also very important for a good leader to develop people and teams and identify talents. (Buzzle) Another important aspect of leadership is motivating an encouraging the team. That is when evaluating a team and individuals comes into play. A good leader creates a fine line between team goals and individual goals. Accomplishment of team goals doesnot necessarily mean the accomplishment of individual goals. In simple words, good leaders usually adopt MBO approach. MBO or management by objectives defines goals for individuals and then addup these individual goals into larger goals for the team.

A good leader,therefore, monitors the accomplishment of individuals goals on which the performance of individuals is evaluated. The reason why people or team members aren not evaluated on achievment of team goals is because accomplishment of team goals might mean that some people have worked harder than others and it would be unfair that if everyone gets equal compensation(Team Building Information). Hence, good managers usually evalulate people using MBO approach. Works CIted: Daft, Richard L.

Management. New York: The Dryden Publishing. 1994,Print Robbins, Stephen P and Judge, Timothey A. Organisation Behavior. London: Prentice Hall, 2008. Print University of British Colombia. Developing Effective Teams Workbook (2011).. Retrieved on: 28 June 2011. Web. http://web.uvic.ca/hr/hrhandbook/organizdev/effectiveteamwkb.pdf Buzzle. Developing Effective Team Leadership and Communication Skills. (2011). Retrieved on 29 June 2011. Web. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/developing-effective-team-communication-skills.

html Team Building Infromation. Effective Communication Skills for Your Team. (2011). Retrieved on 30 June 2011. Web. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/developing-effective-team-communication-skills.html