Organizational Behavior

The University Of Lahore Islamabad Campus

Aurangzeb Shaukat Kiani BBA – VI Topic: Creating Effective Teams Dated: 05-06-09 Roll #: BAU-XS07-006 Assignment #: 3

Creating effective teams: People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your organization. In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organization, which means that you may belong to some other department of the organization but still your work is needed to perform the task and to contribute into the overall efforts of the other departments so that the organizational goals are achieved. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. Individually, your effort is not enough to complete the goals but collectively but combining all the processes and efforts taken by all the people and all the tasks completed combine and as a whole are said to be the goal attainment. Team building refers to a wide range of activities, usually in a business context, for improving team performance. Team building is pursued via a variety of practices, and can range from simple bonding activities to activities designed to develop a team, usually falling somewhere in-between. It generally sits within the theory and practice of organizational development, but can also be applied to sports teams, school groups etc. Work environments tend to focus on individuals and personal goals, with reward & recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees. "How to create effective teams is a challenge in every organization" Team building can also refer to the process of selecting or creating a team from scratch.

Factors that play a vital role in creating effective teams: Work design: In work design, the application of Socio-Technical Systems principles and techniques to the humanization of work. The aims of work design are to improved job satisfaction so that the employees feel good at their work places and work with honesty and loyally in favor of the organization and to improve quality and to reduce employee problems and their conflicts so that a healthy and friendly work environment is maintained and everyone is comfortable in their departments.

Composition: This part in creating effective teams is very important and determines whether an employee can work in a specific department or not or need to be rotated etc.For example; Harley-Davidson gave the option to their employees to write their own job descriptions, people might think this is a very inappropriate thing to do but this process was very

beneficial for them because the employees knew what their abilities, tendencies and capabilities were so they made it according to their skills that they could perform very efficiently and effectively. In composition there are several matters that are to be taken care of, those factors are: Abilities of members: There are two major kinds of skills; 1) Conceptual skills,(2) Technical skills. In creating an effective team the abilities and skills of its members are noticed so that they can be perfectly plotted into their fields of specialization and can be assigned the tasks that they have excellence in. 

Personality: Personality has a significant influence on individual’s behavior as well as on the team’s behavior. According to the Big Five model of personality there are many dimensions that have been shown to be relevant to team effectiveness. Specifically the teams that are rated more highly in mean levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability tend to receive higher managerial ratings for team performance. 

Allocating roles and diversity: A team has different kinds of needs that need to be fulfilled for the completion of their goal. to fulfill these needs, efficient and specialized members are needed for the vacant fields. There are nine kinds of potential roles: 

        

Creator Promoter Assessor Organizer Producer Controller Maintainer Adviser Linker

These are nine potential roles that are a must for an effective team to achieve their goal efficiently. Size of the team: This is a very important point that should be considered while creating a team that the number of members should neither be very low (3-5 members) nor be very high (over a dozen) because if the team is very precise then than team will lack the diversity of ideas as on the other hand if team has a large number of members, the diversity of ideas would be very rich, but having a large team can also create many 

difficulties for the team such as conflicts between members and group system will take place which is not favorable regarding the completion of the goals.  Member flexibility: In this factor we talk about the experienced members who have completed their assigned task can go and help the weak members or the members with some difficulties so that all the work is done in time and others can learn many different things from these tasks. Member preferences: What ever the number of members you have in the team or whatever their perception towards the work is, the truth is that not all the team members are players. Many people think themselves out of the team and they think that the other person will complete it. Some prefer working alone which is a direct threat to the team’s morale. Due to this fact, the personality attributes of an employee should be examined so that there is no problem in the future. 

Context: There are three most significantly related team performance factors which are as follows:  Adequate resources: This factors talks about the adequate resources because a team or a work place is a work unit inside the organization and they need to be fed with the required amount the resources so that they can perform their tasks in a best possible manner.  Leadership & structure: Team members should agree with who is to do what, and should make all the other members to contribute, so that the burden and the workload is minimized per person. Agreeing upon the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual skills requires team leadership and structure. It is not necessary to choose a leader, but everyone has to do their potential roles as told before so they get their own rankings inside the team.  Performance evaluation & reward system: Performance evaluation is the factor that scares all the employees from the beginning so that they try not to make mistakes by performing effectively. And on the other side we have reward system, It is a term closely related to the performance evaluation. Reward system is the process of rewarding and encouraging the employees who have done their job in a best manner and comes out to be a source of motivation for the other employees.

Process: This is the final stage in creating an effective team. In this function, there are certain variables that need to be discussed. Those elements are:

Common Purpose: Common purpose, regarding a team is that the direction of the team should be in the right side so that the goals are achieved. A common purpose is set in the beginning while planning, Organizing, Leading and controlling. A common purpose is a parameter that provides direction in any condition.

Specific goals: Successful and effective teams distribute their individual goals as smart goals ; o o o o o

Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Tangible

These are the processes how they operate and measure their workload and distribute their assignments.

Team efficacy: The effective and confident teams perceive themselves as confident and successful, this sense and feeling is known as team efficacy. In team efficacy the team members have confidence over the other members and have built trust on each other so that their tasks can be performed very easily and the employees feel comfortable while working in their stations.

Conflict levels: There are three types of conflicts, those types are:  Relationship conflicts (Interpersonal misunderstandings)  Tension towards others (disliking someone or being jealous)  Called task conflicts (helps in making better decision) Team conflicts are judged as bad but not always because in different organizational matters, conflicts can be proven to be helping in the goal attainment of the organization.

Social Loafing: Social loafing has been existing in all the societies from the beginning of the story and will remain because of the different perception and ideas of the people. In social loafing, some of the group members can not be identified collectively and get themselves out of the workload they have to bear, this is known as social loafin

References:  http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team.htm  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_building