The Team Trainer: Winning Tools and Tactics for Successful Workouts by Gorden - Book Report/Review Example

Book Review: The Team Trainer: A walk in the park Doing business in a fast changing economic environment due to new technology, modern information and communication facilities and globalization necessitate quick response if a business is to prosper. In this context, team approach takes on a new premium. This is the basic theme of Gorden et al’s “The Team Trainer: Winning Tools and Tactics for Successful Workouts.” The book published by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. in 1996 is a product of multi-disciplinary team effort which according to Gorden is practicing what you preach, that is to learn to play and work together. The authors stress the basic strength of a team. It harnesses the potential of team members to a level of achievement impossible for an individual. The book takes a close look on how a team operates and provides the workouts to develop the knowledge, skill and proper attitude for an effective team. To the authors, the importance of the team spirit in an organization is fundamental not only in operating in a world full of uncertainties but important to the individual person with his/her basic needs to develop his/her potentials to the fullest. The team approach stresses the importance of the human beings making up the organizations. People make things happen and how they behave and treat each other is make the core relationship either a hellish or a meaningful experience. Principles and practice The “Team Trainer…” is essentially divided into two parts – principles and practice. Numerous cases and examples are used to illustrate how and why team operates. Quotes from respected personalities from the academe and business world are used to stress the arguments for team approach. Using simple language and almost conversational, the authors narrate specific experiences of different organizations from which basic operative principles of a team are illuminated. Thus the experience of Xerox Corporation for example, was used to illustrate the difference between teams, essentially two types, traditional and transformative. A difference anchored on the degree of involvement and participation in the team effort. Traditional teams tend to be authoritarian, with members compartmentalized in their specialized functions and communication centralized. Transformative teams tend to encourage dialogues and consensus, members perform multi-tasking and communication is both horizontal (between members) and vertical (across the hierarchy). The distinctions are fundamental in how the book was organized around the notion of how a self-directed team works. More substantial, the “The Team Trainer…” provides the tools and workouts or group exercises in creating the proper work environment and the appropriate combination of knowledge, skills and attitude to forge such team. The authors contend that priori in getting the involved participation from members – trust and sense of ownership of the organization. Inequities deters formation of self-driven teams. Perhaps, ownership of the venture is the single limiting factor to team building. Combining principles with case studies is illustrated by accompanying essays providing the context and theoretical framework for each of the team workouts outlined in the book. Such a technique in presenting the book enhances easy comprehension of the ins and outs of team building as a transformative experience. The trainer-facilitator To Gorden et al, team behavior is a learned behavior hence, workouts could be designed to suit such a purpose. A short section especially written for trainer-facilitators and for those who would embark unraveling the secrets of team dynamics and are willing to exert the effort is included by the authors. The authors provided a model of a learning situation which could explain the general process of conducting the exercises provided in the book. The model describes six core activities involved in sense making or gaining meaning out of real or simulated experiences. These activities include engaging in an exercise which could be either real or simulated; describing verbally what happened in the exercise; interpreting the significance of the exercise, that is how the items raised in the exercise relate to the past experiences and stock knowledge of the participants; applying the knowledge and insights gained to actual experiences – past and future; reflecting and sharing feelings and thoughts and trial testing of the application. The book provides trainer-facilitators with 22 exercises or workouts to suit the requirements of their team. The workouts are categorized into knowing the big picture or the systems view and approach, motivation, listening, roles, decision making, goal setting, and non-verbal elements. The authors maintained that understanding these aspects of a team is important to foster the openness and awareness of the whole organization as well as highlighting the uniqueness of each individual in relation to the whole organization. The core concept which seems the underline the exercises is awareness of an organization as made up of living and prescient beings with specific attributes and functions from which a complex web of relationships are built over time and exposure with each other. Furthermore, each individual is unique thus an organization is made up of diverse personalities and motivations but are united by common goals and aspirations for the organizations through which they belong. The different workouts help to bring this team consciousness to the fore for the benefit of everybody. Evolution of work groups The authors of “The Team Trainer…” are thoughtful enough to include work group researches across generation from the pioneering studies in the 1920’s through the 60’s up to the more recent trends. The early studies tends to support division of labor and formal organization corresponding to the introduction of the assembly line. The next important trend in work group research is focus on the individual workers in a collective endeavor. Though findings were limited by techniques and appropriate theories it opened new possibilities in the study of group behavior by recognizing individual needs. Trends in the 1930’s focused on the effects of the workplace conditions to the workers’ productivity and well being. Later on the emphasis shifted to the importance of management and supervision of workers which is significant as it gave focus on relationships in the workplace. Later the trend veered towards research to understand social interactions in the workplace affecting productivity. Findings on social interaction pointed to an insight that productivity and workplace learning was related to small group or team learning and not solely due to formal or hierarchical layout of the workplace. Contemporary research with better methodologies and more incisive conceptual frameworks tend to substantiate that teams contribute to high morale and deeper involvement of people with the concerns of their organizations. The section added the historical dimension on evolution of team or group work. The historical depth made the reader or trainers more appreciative of the collective effort of business people, employees, researchers which became basis for recent tactics in forging team spirit and creative cooperative relationship between people making up an organization. Downswings of team Comprehensive and all side understanding of team dynamics could make practitioners in human resource management avoid the pitfalls associated with teams which according to the “The Team Trainer…” include fostering the “we are right and good – they are wrong and bad” thinking. Another downswing which the authors consider the most serious is the unquestioning acceptance of authority, that is domination by an authority figure of the team. But the authors nonetheless contend that such risks is minimal as compared to the benefits which may accrue to the organizations by adapting the team approach. Gorden et al present two tendencies in human beings, self-interest motivated by survival or the Darwinian’s survival of the fittest scheme of things and the other view that human beings are also motivated by Robbin Derry’s concept of a collaborative self. The authors painstakingly outline the step by step procedures and appropriate workouts to develop fully this collaborative self to control and put in its proper place self-interest and self-survival. The book thus posits its arguments that people could rise up above their petty concerns to pursue higher ideals through involved team efforts. The “The Team Trainer…” in context of human resource management The book essentially focuses on the micro, on the group in the workplace and how members in such groups could optimize its contribution. Other authors such as Jack J. Phillips (Accountability in Human Resource Management) focuses on how people organized themselves to perform specific business functions in a common workplace. Phillips gives emphasis on measuring the contributions and evaluating performances. Although the core objective is the same for the two books they differ in approach. The “The Team Trainer…” is concerned with the internal dynamics operative in a group while “Accountability…” emphasizes outputs and the assumption of responsibility for the tasks associated with achieving such outputs. Phillips’ assumption is quite simple – accountability, which serves as the context in his approach to HRM. This makes “Accountability…” evaluative in nature, oriented in problem identification and solving such problems by acting at the right time given the right information on the right situation. Gorden et al emphasize that a group working as a team and combining their skills and talents will be able to accomplish their tasks and improve their performance. Meaning, the learning process for a self-directed team in meeting business and organizational challenges will be quicker than groups run in traditional manner. The two books could be seen more as complementing than contradicting. One is concerned with the internal factors while the other is concerned with outputs which external to the group. The “Team Trainer…” makes a fine contrast with Peter Dowling’s “International Human Resource Management: Managing people in a multinational context.” A good analogy would be a ship in the deep blue sea wherein the “Team Trainer” is the ship while the “International Human Resource Management…” is the chart to navigate in a fast changing business world. Team building is especially significant in a multicultural setting wherein forging a “work together” climate given the diverse backgrounds of people could be a serious concern for any human resource manager. Dowling stresses a borderless world, an international setting with its own rules of engaging and working with other people. It outlines the challenges and complications working in a foreign locality with different culture and language. In this sense, “The Team Trainer…” complements Dowling’s, that is intimate knowledge of how groups and teams work is critical even in high level international posting. Knowledge of team thinking could be a powerful tool in handling the complications of international posting as outline by Dowling. A walk in the park The field of human resource management is challenging in its expanse, in its broadness as provided by the individuals making up an organization. Team building could be like a leisurely walk in the park for the willing and involved practitioner of team-think. The “The Team Trainer…” provides the human resource manager with a powerful team which could be meaningful and at the same time enjoyable experience of sharing experiences with others. The workouts could be transformative of the individual by providing the means of breaking out of the individual shell by appreciating others and their contribution for the common good and benefit of the organization and hence common good and benefit for the individuals making up the organization. It shows us that in the scale of things individual accomplishments will be meaningless if not taken in relation to other people who day-in-day-out labor to accomplish their share of the work load. Together, all the people in an organization accomplishes the tasks. Together they rise and together are affected by the ups and down, and together must face the challenges ahead. HRM practitioners adept in team building not only contributes to the growth of the organization but contributes to the development of the people making up the organization to become better persons engaged in meaningful and productive relationships with their co-workers. Read More