Developing Individuals and Teams - Assignment Example

? Developing Individuals and Teams Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Part 3 Part 2 5 Part Question Tuckman (1965) gave the concept of Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing team development model. Tuckman (1965) defined the stages as: 1) Forming––In this phase, different individuals come together in order to form a team; 2) Storming––In this phase, classification of ideas and opinions among team members takes place; 3) Norming––Team members come to a common agreement regarding the objective through negotiation and communication; and 4) Performing—team members become goal oriented and their competence increases through knowledge sharing, which directly or indirectly increases performance. My team was at the storming stage of development and team members of my team were contradicting one another regarding team objectives. Question 2 While working in a team, I found that lack of trust or knowledge sharing between team members makes it difficult for the team to establish a common objective. I believe that factors such as a clear communication of the objective to team members, frequent communication between team members, knowledge sharing, willingness to help each other, a high degree of engagement of team members with the team objective and able leadership contribute to the effectiveness of the team. Absence of these factors can make a team ineffective. Question 3 I believe that working as a team increases the probability of success and chances of achieving project objectives. Cross-functional knowledge sharing between team members increases the overall competency of a team. Working as a team creates the scope for team members to share knowledge through interactive communication and a diversity of ideas increases the level of creativity within the team. Every team member has a distinct competency and skill level and combinations of such team members creates the scope for the team to sail through a turbulent environment. Question 4 I preferred the role of a team co-coordinator who communicates with team members and maintains coordination between them in order to eradicate any chances of disruption in the process flow of team activity. With integration of my systematic thinking capability and communication skills, I have increased the level of coordination among team members and performance in the team. I have successfully operated my role of a team coordinator while working with different teams, and I believe that my ability to adapt in difficult conditions has significantly helped me in such context. There were no such occasions while I was asked to work outside of your preferred role; hence it is not possible for me to answer these questions. Question 5 I believe a good team player should have the characteristics such as: 1) ability to respect other team members because without respecting opinions of other team members, it would not be able to trust the capacity of other team members, which can destroy the team objectives in the contingent period; 2) ability to coordinate with team members in fulfilling the project objectives because lack of coordination between team members can slow down the pace of project completion; and 3) ability to follow orders without asking unnecessary questions to authority because renouncing the direction of authority would increase disruption in the team. Question 6 In my team, a situational leadership model was followed and each of us had the chance to show leadership skills during the contingent period by exposing our skill set. Working in a democratic environment and encouraging team members to make decisions in the contingent period was the major strength of the situational leadership model. But, in some cases, absence of a particular leader had created chaos of ideas among team members. Part 2 Answer 1 Fitzsimons, James and Denyer (2011) and Pearce and Manz (2005) defined leadership as the ability of individuals to influence the thinking process of others and also move others in the direction of the very individual. Every institution needs good leadership without which it might become dead. By bringing a common vision together, shaping up the values of an enterprise or an organization, acting as catalysts and keeping things going, leaders help in overall growth and development of an organisation. Concerning the theory of leadership acquisition, people think that leadership is both innate and acquired. Effective leadership of teams and individuals can be established by not just fixing weaknesses but also increasing the inner strengths. The personality of an individual hardly changes. In order to grow into successful leaders, an individual should always focus on the strengths. As a leader, an individual can face many contexts such as cultural, social or situational ones. In order to gain control over various situations, the leader should have compassion, courage and humility. Also, in order to succeed in teams, the leader must create honest and open communications (Carson, Tesluk and Marrone, 2007; Rahim, Antonioni and Psenicka, 2001). An important principle of good leadership is application of values and skills in an effective manner so that the leader is able to use their intuition. Answer 2 An objective can be described as a specific result which a person expects within a stipulated time frame and with available resources. Objectives are futuristic. They are planned and prepared to reach a target. Objectives can be individual, team based, company based or even nation based. In order to make progress, a business needs to plan. These plans are set on the basis of certain objectives. Objectives are themselves very well analysed and researched on the basis of short term and long term implications. In terms of human resource management, the objective of a human resource leader should be implementing and developing policies, strategies and programmes relating to the overall management of human resource capital. Answer 3 In order to provide guidance in setting of objectives, SMART criteria are used. SMART is composed of five criteria which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Bound. These criteria are used in a vast variety of management and business issues such as performance management, project management, personal development etc. Managing a team can be a cumbersome task. A leader will have to weigh the pros and cons of each of the goals and objectives and relate them with the characteristics of the team members. It can be said that with the help of a SMART objective, it is possible to attain goals in a team with the least interruption or internal issues. Setting a SMART objective will induce a sense of aim and purpose into the team members. Taking measurable steps such as ensuring a proper flow of HR processes will help in setting an environment of discipline and confidence among team members. Preparing an attainable succession plan also helps in achieving the desired goals. In order to prepare realistic goals, the leader can ask the team members to set goals by themselves and then prepare a final goal which will be accepted by each team member. And finally, in order to make the objective time bound, the leader can initiate performance review methods at certain intervals of time. Answer 4 A mission statement is essentially a purpose statement for an organisation, company or individual. A mission statement is written to guide the organisation’s actions, provide definite goals and paths, and guide in overall decision making. It can also be concluded as the context or framework within which the organisation’s strategies are made. The purpose of the organisation’s existence is essentially embedded in the mission statement. An effective and attractive mission statement generally includes the company’s aim, primary stakeholders of the organisation, a statement reciting value to stakeholders and a declaration of the company’s sole and core purpose. Answer 5 Vertical Alignment Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time scaled It is evident from the above model that mission statements are vertically measured as per the criteria such as: 1) Is there any specific target?; 2) Can the target be measured?; 3) Is the target achievable in the current resource condition?; 4) Is the target realistic in comparison to the external environment; and 5) Is there any specific time line for achieving the target? Answer 6 The specific objective was to achieve 100% customer satisfaction through the services. The object is reflecting the fact that the company treats every customer as a valuable asset and the company is ready to exploit its resources in order to provide excellent services to customers. Due to such objectives, employees of the company always try to listen to the customers in a careful manner and not to ignore the needs of customers. Answer 7 In my organisation, the top level management conducted weekly meetings, group counseling, seminars, project-team meetings, personal counseling etc to communicate individual and team objectives. In some cases, printed materials such as targets written on the board were placed inside the office and workers also received weekly mail regarding any update of the target. A performance review was conducted in order to ask workers regarding their progress in target achievement. Answer 8 A person competent to perform a particular task means the person has necessary skills, a sense of responsibility, knowledge and experience to perform the job duties that have been assigned to the person. Answer 9 Competencies are a set of knowledge, interpersonal and professional skills, motivation, engagement level, experience and a sense of responsibilities which can help a person to perform a particular task. Answer 10 First line managers can use three techniques such as: 1) observing workplace behavior of an individual for a certain period of time; 2) asking colleagues and peer groups to rate the competency level of workers; and 3) giving rating to the performance of workers and assigning particular rating point levels to judge the competency of workers. Answer 11 Kaplan and Norton (1996) suggested that four elements such as business process perspective, learning and growth perspective, financial perspective and customer perspective should be measured by organisations in order to measure overall performance. I believe that my organisation should measure the cross member knowledge sharing within the team as a fifth additional measure of performance. Answer 12 Employee 1 Employee 2 Employee 3 Characteristics One who underperforms One who performs acceptably One who performs better than acceptably Pivotal Aspect Promote company products, convert potential leads into new customers and offer customer support service Promote company products, convert potential customers into new customers and offer customer support service Promote company products, convert potential customers into new customers and offer customer support service Pivotal Situation Achieve at least 80% of the sales target and convert 5 potential leads into new customers. Achieve at least 90% of the sales target and convert 7 potential leads into new customers. Achieve at least 100% of the sales target and convert 10 potential leads into new customers. Part 3 Question 1 Kolb (1984, p. 228) defined learning as ‘the continuous balancing of facts and feelings, what we feel is a result of our individual interpretation in a concrete situation and this makes us human and gives us personality’. The experiential learning cycle of Kolb (1984) can be depicted in the following manner: Figure 1: Kolb’s Learning Model (Source: Yeo, 2013, p. 5) According to the above model, there are four parts of the learning process, such as: 1) having experience from the external environment; 2) analysing the experience with the help of personal reflection; 3) developing a silhouette about the experience; and 4) testing the application of the experience in a real world scenario. Question 2 Understanding of a learning style can help the trainer to identify learning factors that are relevant among staff and based on their relevance, a training schedule can be designed in such a fashion which can increase productivity among staff. Question 3 Training means asking individuals to go through a formalised curriculum and structured learning environment and making the individuals competent enough to perform certain job responsibilities. In case of development, capabilities of the individuals are increased in order to make them prepare for both current and future responsibilities. Development is a long sighted learning process which depends heavily on experience-based learning, while training is a systematic but short-term learning process. Question 4 Benefits of Training for Employee Benefits of Training for Organisation Enhancement in knowledge Increase in the employee level performance Enhancement in competence to perform a task Increase in average revenue/employee Performing a task in a better manner Increase in the personal competence level of employee can help organisations to assign more critical responsibilities in future. Question 5 In my organisation, training was needed due to ‘triggers’ such as: 1) new technology has been integrated and existing workers needed to be trained regarding the operation of the technology; 2) new recruits were trained on future job responsibilities; and 3) employees were trained on ethical conduct. Question 6 Figure 2: Systematic Approach of Training & Development (Source: UNODC, 2003) A systematic approach should be taken in order to gather proper guidance regarding the exact steps that would be needed during the course of training without wasting resources and time. Question 7 In my organisation, different types of formal training were: 1) going through company instructions; 2) counseling sessions with training experts; and 3) on the job training. Different types of informal training include: 1) learning by observing workplace behavior of others; 2) learning from informal conversation; and 3) informal mentoring. The major advantage of informal training is that employees can learn in an open environment while lack of measurability is the major drawback of informal training. The major advantage of formal training is that the model is good at offering structured learning while lack of scope and open environment learning is its major drawback. Question 8 The three constraints in developmental opportunities in my organisation are: 1) senior officials do not communicate with juniors in an informal manner; 2) there was no formal strategic human resource intervention; and 3) fairly much confusion exists regarding the job responsibility instruction, which hampers the training aspect of employees. Question 9 Cost effective training and development means providing training without wasting much financial resources such as money, and non-financial ones such as time. A cost effective training process can increase return on investment in training of employee for a given organisation. Question 10 Training needs analysis (TNA) is the process of identifying important training steps and requirements and what the most cost effective measures are to perform these steps. Levels of TNA can be explained in the following manner: Figure 3: TNA (Source: TST Training, 2013) Reference List Belbin, R. M. (2010). Management teams: why they succeed or fail. 3rd ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Carson, J. B., Tesluk, P. E. and Marrone, J. A., 2007. Shared leadership in teams: an investigation of antecedent conditions and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 50(5), pp. 1217–1234. Fitzsimons, D., James, K. T. and Denyer, D., 2011. Alternative approaches for studying shared and distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13, pp. 313–328. Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P., 1996. The balanced scorecard: translating strategy into action. Harvard: Harvard Business Press. Kolb, D. A., 1984. Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pearce, L. P. and Manz, C. C., 2005. The importance of self-and shared leadership in knowledge work. Organizational Dynamics, 34(2), pp.130–40. Rahim, M. A., Antonioni, D. and Psenicka, C., 2001. A structural equations model of leader power, subordinate’s styles of handling conflict, and job performance. International Journal of Conflict Management, 12, pp. 191–211. TST Training, 2013. Training needs analysis. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 10 September 2013]. Tuckman, B. W., 1965. Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), pp. 384–299. UNODC, 2003. Systematic approach of training. [Pdf] Available at: [Accessed 10 September 2013]. Yeo, R. K., 2013. Building commitment through reflective practice: an inside-out approach. Industrial and Commercial Training, 45(1), pp. 3–11. Read More