Lecture Outline:

Introduction

A model for teamwork

Factors That Promote Effective Teamwork

Components of an effective team work

Conclusion

Effective teamwork can take an organization a long way towards meeting its objectives.

Teamwork is a much flouted term in the workplace today, but it is actually only a few organizations that are really committed to fostering and nurturing this important commodity.

For employees to become part of a team, it is necessary for them to feel engaged in something that is larger than their everyday job function, in something that identifies them as individually integral parts and unifies their efforts towards reaching organizational goals and ensuring overall strategic success.

Creating teamwork is a daunting task/discouraging task at its early stages, but it can definitely be achieved through good leadership skills and a sound commitment and the results are worth the hard work.

Teamwork must be driven by a strategy, have a structure and be implemented thoughtfully and effectively. When properly managed and developed, teamwork improves processes and produces results quickly and economically through the free exchange of ideas, information, knowledge and data.

Teamwork has many advantages:

A greater variety of complex issues can be tackled by pooling expertise and resources.

Problems are exposed to a greater diversity of knowledge, skill and experience.

The approach boosts morale and ownership through participative decision making.

Improvement opportunities that cross departmental or functional boundaries can be more easily addressed.

The recommendations are more likely to be implemented than if they come from an individual.

In developing a model for teamwork, John Adair understood that for any team to respond to leadership, it needed a clearly defined task, and the achievement of that task is related to the needs of the team and the individuals within that team.

The team leader or facilitator must concentrate on the small central area in the model where the three circles overlap the action to change area, and there are three inter-related, but distinctive, requirements of a team leader:

Define and achieve the job or task, e.g, achieve an improvement in the process Build up and co-ordinate a team to do this

Develop and satisfy the individuals within the team

To do this, the team leader or facilitator must perform the following functions:

Planning - Define the team task or purpose

- Make a workable plan

Initiating - Explain why the plan is necessary

- Allocate tasks to team members

- Set team standards/expectations

Controlling -Ensure all actions move towards the objective

- Guide the team to action and decision

Supporting - Encourage and discipline the team and individuals

- Create team spirit

- Relieve tension

- Reconcile disagreements/conflicts

Informing - Give new information to the team

- Receive information from the team

- Summarise suggestions and ideas

Evaluating - Test the consequences of a proposed solution

- Evaluate team performance

- Help the team evaluate its own performance against standards set

There are often dozens of internal and external factors that separate effective and ineffective teams. Moreover, what makes some teams strong, be it competitiveness, toughness or high energy levels, can make other teams weak; these traits may benefit sports and sales teams, but they are not what you look for in a doctor or nurse. That said, there are a few factors of effective teamwork that are common to teams of all types.

1) Diversity

Effective teams embrace and are constituted by a diversity of cultures, talents and personalities. Diversity can promote creativity and innovation, and raise awareness of and respect for differences, which will support effective teamwork.

By contrast, teams that lack diversity can find it difficult to solve particular problems; it is much harder to find innovative solutions when all of the team members think about problems in the same way, draw on similar experiences for support and come to the same conclusions.

2) Communication

Effective teamwork is facilitated by clear and open communication. All team members should be on the same page with respect to targets, responsibilities and timelines. This cohesion/work structure is facilitated by effective communication.

All team members should feel comfortable asking questions regarding the clarification of jobs and responsibilities, and they should feel free to make suggestions when they feel they can advance the teams objectives.

When a challenge or conflict arises, effective teams will engage and overcome it with effective communication, rather than avoiding the issues or participating in gossip.

3) Leadership

Teamwork is supported by effective leadership. All teams benefit from one or several sources of inspiration and direction; leaders can support collaboration by coordinating the efforts of team members and encouraging team members to speak their minds during team meetings.

They can ensure the teams projects stay on track by checking in with different contributors and measuring daily/weekly progress against overall timetables and objectives. Additionally, they can work to motivate and discipline team members to ensure that everyone is performing to their highest potential.

4) Team-Building Exercises

Effective teamwork is developed through shared experiences and practice. The use or avoidance of team-building activities can be an important factor in determining the development of effective teams; in the age of advanced technology and fast-paced business environments, some team members would never see one another face to face if they did not make a point to do so.

Team-building exercises can be targeted to improve particular aspects of team performance such as communication, problem-solving or creativity. Games and drills are an effective way to bring people together to build relationships, boost morale and promote mutual understanding of interests, personalities, strengths and weaknesses.

In the establishment of teams in organizations, there are various objectives that are supposed to act as a guide to the process, such objectives include:

To learn how to release the potential and power within the teams. Top make discovery of new solutions so as enhance effectiveness and

cohesiveness/solid connection of teams. Explore ways as well as build teams' motivation and commitment. Discovery of the tools that can facilitate the strengthening of teams Gaining of personal insight on how individual behaviors and actions can

either add or detract from teambuilding and teamwork.

Understand:

The roles and values of leadership in teams in the achievement of the hoped for results.

The necessity of effective personnel as well as interpersonal communication.

The talents available in each and every member. Importance of vision within the team. The diverse methods of problem solving as well as the various ways of

handling conflicts and differences among the team members. Need for the unity and commitment of the team members for

cohesiveness/interconnectedness and conducive/favorable working environment.

Having a team work in place is not enough; the question that the management aught to answer in making a team be successful in its role is Are all the basic components of an effective team present in the team. Effective teamwork is very fundamental to the success of any organization.

There are four components that are essential for a successful and effective team, they include:

(i) Positive corporate culture: it's needful of an organization to have a positive and healthy corporate culture for effective teamwork. Potential team members within the team thrives best when the environment is challenging and with creativity opportunity. Positive corporate culture depends on top management.

The manager has a responsibility to foster good climate through: making the teams expectations and rewards clear, having a detailed job descriptions, which is followed by personal discussions directed towards clarifications and delegating responsibilities to each team members and demanding for accountability from each member and from the entire team. The team members should be placed in such a way that they have power to make decisions that affect their areas of accountability.

(ii) Give recognition: Giving of recognition to the employees is very important in facilitating their success. Team members are most likely to seek the recognition of the management. It has been identified that failure of the administration to do a positive recognition for successes of team members will drive them to seeking negative recognition which will most probably be at the expense of the business or the organization in question.

Among the things that an organization's management ought to consistently recognize in a team are: Outstanding performance, especially for those who exceed their goals or what is expected of them, continued performance for the team members who have a good record of consistency in positive production and improved performance, more so for those who have made efforts to improve their performance and those who have demonstrated progress.

(iii) Positive feedback: If the teams are not given feedback, they are not able to gauge their progress; whether they are progressing or retrogressing. Lack of feedback has been found to bring about confusion as the teams do not know whether they delivered according to the expectations.

Failure to give feedback to teams kills their morale bringing about disappointment to the individual members and to the organization at large. If feedback is positive it should be done in public as it acts a source of inspiration and recognition.

(iv) Provide new opportunities: despite the fact that a team member may be outstanding, the management should never overlook the fact that every person is an individual.

One need to keep the most effective team members through provision of more opportunities otherwise an alternative would interpret to boredom which may compel such a person to seek opportunities elsewhere.

The team members should be helped in planning of their long-term careers basing on the organizations needs. Help the team members to realize how their career goals can be of use to the organization.

Therefore the organization management should help in tailoring each individual in the team to achieve their desired goals and unique talents. This is achievable through providing an environment that has richness of creativity and energy without overlooking the importance of openness

Teams are very essential in relation to the performance of any organizations. Those who advocate for teamwork in organizations argue that together people can do much that they would as individuals.

The production process is quite complex, if individuals were to work alone in completing the process so as to get the end product, the highest possibility would be lowered production, increased cost of production and production of stagnated quality product, the effect of this would be lose of clients, and most likely closure of the organization.