The Ability to Build Relationships and Effective Teams - Essay Example

Team Synergy: My ability to build viable Relationships and Effective teams

• 1. Introduction

Teamwork is the process of performing a set of activities by a group of people in an organizational framework, with a common purpose. Structured and well coordinated team work is the primary requirement for proper functioning of any organization (Morgeson et al., 2010).

It also builds mutual trust of the employees amongst each other as well as the management, which in turn helps the organisation grow into a strong entity. With each employee belonging to a different background and having different skill sets, it is very essential to work together by ignoring these differences.

In this paper, a discussion will be provided on my ability to build relationships and effective teams. A conclusion will also be drawn by addressing the areas that I need to focus on in order to enhance viability and effectiveness of teams.

• 2. Team Building and Performance Analysis

Forming a good team and maintaining unity and integrity of the team are a challenging task. An efficient team requires a good leader and understanding team members in order to achieve the desired results of the teams.

There are various models for analyzing the performance of a team. One of the most important models is The Tuckman’s Stage Model (Clements and Jones, 2008). According to this model, leaderless groups go through various stages of formation. The first stage is the Forming Stage (Wilson, 2010). Here the teams access the opportunities and challenges that they are facing and allocate tasks to deal with the problem. The next stage is the Storming stage, where the team members access each other and speak up if someone is found not being responsible enough about their roles. The next stage is the Norming stage, where the disagreements and personal conflicts are resolved in order to form a productive team that functions together to achieve the goals. The final stage is the Performing stage, where the team members actually deliver the result by working together.

I found Tuckman’s Stage Model to be very effective in assessing the team’s performance. Clearly, every stage represents the changes that the team is undergoing, and reflects the mutual trust that the team members grow on each other by the time they reach the performing stage. After the team is formed, it is important to assign the correct role to the correct person in order to put the skill sets of each person to a proper use.

Belbin’s model for team roles describe a set of nine roles that must be played by the team members in order to create a successful and effective team (Belbin, 2012; Gunduz, 2008). These roles are team worker, plant, coordinator, monitor evaluator, shaper, implementer, resource investigator, complete finisher and specialist. In a team, plant is the person who is creative by nature and generates new ideas of solving the problems. The resource investigator pushes the team in the beginning of the task by bringing new opportunities and enthusiasm to work. The coordinator is the person who has a focus on the goal and has his eyes set on the future. Shaper is the person who is completely focused on the task. Monitor evaluator judges the team on a fair basis and is open to options. The team worker is cooperative and gels the team together. The implementer is much disciplined and is focused on achieving results. Complete finisher is the person who delivers the project on time. This person searches for errors to omit and do a perfect job. Specialist is person who enjoys learning. They are very focused on their particular fields and share knowledge with other team members (Belbin, 2012)

It was clear to me from Belbin’s model that these roles are irreplaceable and each team requires people who can play these diverse sets of roles for the team to succeed.

There are various situations where I have worked in teams and played different parts, from being a team leader to being a subordinate. One of the companies that I worked for in the past had me appointed as one of the Corporate Sales Managers, in one of the departmental teams. The role that I was playing in the team was that of an Implementer. There was a team of six members under me, including an assistant manager and five executives. The assistant manager was reporting directly to me. The assistant manager on the other hand was responsible for getting reports on a daily basis from the executives. Once, while going through the daily data sheets about client’s details, I found that few columns were not filled. When I enquired about the issue, I was informed that only the assistant manager had those details and the executives were unaware of those details. I found that in spite of repeatedly notifying the assistant manager about the issue, the person had not taken the necessary steps to forward the details to the executives. The communication and designation gap was not letting the executives approach me directly, which in turn was showing its impact on the quality of work.

Another assignment where I had to work in a team was during my under graduation. We formed a self empowered team, where there were no leaders and the team members had the power to take their own decisions. There were three members in each team. I was playing the role of a team worker. All three of us were given the task of collecting primary data by visiting different educational institutions. I had divided the work into seven days and visiting the one or two institutions everyday. The other two members had covered all the institutions within two-three days, giving them ample time to work on the data. Working in an unplanned manner increased my workload and made me waste a lot of time unproductively.

In the first example of working in a team, I was handling a leadership position. There were different factors that affected the performance of the team. Being in the leadership position, my responsibility was taking care of all the resource requirements of the team. I was expected to take a daily report and work progression from the assistant manager. The leadership position demanded that I maintain unity and integrity of the team. The cultural differences had to be brought to a balance, where these differences would only be used in a productive way and not as a source of conflict within the team. Motivating the team whenever required was also another responsibility I had. The leadership technique that I used was that of autocratic, where I would only consult my immediate subordinate, before taking any decisions.

In the second example, I played the role of a team worker. While playing the role I understood the importance of maintaining a friendly relationship with the team members, as it would help in the constructive development of the whole team. The team work becomes much more productive while working together and learning from each other at the same time. It is not always possible to approach the team leaders to clarify the queries. The team members in such cases help each other and arrive at a conclusive solution. It is also important to be respectful towards the belief and values of the other team members. Keeping an open mind and listening to the ideas of others are other important factors, which I found to be helpful in the constructive development of the team.

In my experience, I found that I will be very efficient in working as a part of a departmental team. I find working in a departmental team to be much more structured than working in any other type of teams. It also provides a proper hierarchy to the team, which makes it easier to approach the authority while facing some problems.

I will not be very productive while working in a self empowered team. This is because although it provides the team members with the power of decision making, there is also a lack of guidance. In case the team members do not understand the goals and objectives of the project clearly, it will be difficult for them to stay in the right track in achieving those goals.

From my experience of working in teams, I have found myself to be the one who gels the team together. I am also capable of working in a diverse cultural background, where the team members belong to different communities and religions. I am also good at keeping my personal life away from my professional life, without showing any kind of disliking or favoritism to particular people at workplace.

It took me sometime to gain trust of my team members and the superiors. In the beginning the superiors were not able to trust me if I could handle the responsibility I was entrusted with. With my performance I gained their trust, proving my worth for the role that I was expected to play. The team members were not very confident about my ability to adjust in a team by cooperating with the team members. This trust was built slowly over time, when they realized that I am cooperating with them and helping them whenever needed. They were also satisfied that I am performing my task well, which in turn is improving the performance of the whole team.

I also understood that cultural plays a very important role when it comes to teamwork. Diverse cultural background had a huge impact on our performance as a team. In the second example, where I was working as a team worker, the group was quite diverse with all three of the members belonging to completely different cultural backgrounds. The other two members had a laid back approach towards work, while I was always very serious about the responsibilities that I was given and wanted to be very productive at my work. Although the other two team members were very relaxed about their responsibilities, they had a proper plan of doing it. I on the other hand, had a wrong plan. This not only reduced my productivity, but also increased the time taken to complete the work.

Another thing that I noticed in my team mates is their helping nature. They were very helpful about explaining the concepts to me when I had small doubts. They were also very supportive and motivating wherever there was a need to buck up the team. This nature helped the team in moving forward.

The way people communicate with others and the way they express themselves at workplace, have a significant impact on interpersonal bonding and keeping the team together, ignoring the impact of conflicts within the team. It was clear to me from the above mentioned factors that for a team to function properly in a given format, it is important to accept the cultural differences of the team members. A mutual understanding is also required amongst the team members.

Another factor that played an important role while working in a team is the power difference between the members. In the first example, where I was working as an implementer, the executives could not approach me directly to deal with their problems. They thought it would not be a good idea to reach out to a higher authority and it would be much more logical to reach out to the supervisor under any circumstances. This power difference often creates a communication gap between the team members and the management, which affects the functions of the organisation drastically in the long run.

The main area I need to focus on is my leadership skills. It is good to be disciplined and expecting on time results from the team members, but the work environment should not be so rigid that the team members are hesitant in reaching out to me as their leader. I also need to pay particular attention on end to end communication aspect, where I will be communicating with each and every level of the organisation. This will help in sorting out many problems that arise due to communication gap. I would also have to work on my planning technique for implementing the task that was assigned to me. Only by having a proper plan I will be able to implement the actions properly for more productive results. I also have to learn to trust my team members and their ability to perform the task. This will also strengthen the bond that we have as a team.

• 3. Conclusion

The most important factor needed to build a successful team is trust and mutual respect amongst the team members. A good team is build not on the basis of enforced rules, but on the basis of self discipline. The leader plays an important role in guiding the team towards its goals and helps in achieving them. It is also the responsibility of the leader to gel the team members together, in order to increase the productivity of the team as a whole. The cultural differences that exist in a team must be used for its constructive development, instead of letting them act as a differentiating factor between the team members.

• Reference List

Belbin, R. M., 2012. Team Roles at Work. Abingdon: Routledge

Clements, P. and Jones, J., 2008. The Diversity Training Handbook: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Changing Attitudes. London: Kogan Page Publishers

Gunduz, H. B., 2008. An Evaluation on Belbin’s Team Roles Theory. World Applied Sciences Journal, 4(3), pp. 460-469

Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S. and Karam, E. P., 2010. Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes. Journal of Management, 36(1), pp. 5-39

Wilson, C., 2010. Bruce Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing Team Development Model. [PDF] Available at: < http://www.sst7.org/media/BruceTuckman_Team_Development_Model.pdf> [Accessed 9 July 2016]