Experiential Exercise - Creating and Maintaining High Performance Teams - Copy
- 1. CREATING AND MAINTAINING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS I. Understand Team Player Styles http://www.clemson.edu/OTEI/documents/teamwork-handbook.pdf Successful Strategies for Teams - Team Member Handbook (Team Player Questionnaire, pgs. 17 – 19) PURPOSE: The Team-Player Questionnaire will help you identify your style as a team player. The results will lead you to an assessment of your current strengths and provide a basis for a plan to increase your effectiveness as a team player. Teams may use this questionnaire to develop a profile of team strengths and to discuss strategies for increasing team effectiveness. DIRECTIONS: Answer each item according to how you honestly feel you function now as a team member rather than how you used to be or how you would like to be. You will be asked to complete eighteen sentences. Each sentence has four possible endings. Please rank the endings in the order in which you feel each one applies to you. Place the number 4 next to the ending which is most applicable to you and continue down to a 1 next to the ending which is least applicable to you. The GOAL is to have a good mix of team player styles on the team. TEAM PLAYERS Every team member has a natural team-player style. All of these styles are important ingredients of successful teams. Contributor This member gets the team to focus on the immediate task. Collaborator This team player emphasizes the overall purpose of the team. Communicator This member encourages positive interpersonal relations and group processes. Challenger This style asks the tough questions and pushes the team to take reasonable risks. It is important for a team to understand the team player styles of its members. This helps to highlight both strengths and weaknesses. And if a player style is missing, then the team can talk about how to fill this gap.
- 2. CREATING AND MAINTAINING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS II. Too much of a good thing . . . Teams with members who have similar styles may sometimes have trouble reaching their goals. If a team has only . . . challengers, it spends a great deal of time in non-constructive conflict, constantly questioning the goals and mission, and finds it difficult to complete the project tasks. If a team has only . . . communicators, it focuses on the team processes and may set these as an end in itself, with the project goals taking second place. If a team has only . . . collaborators, it tends to become overcommitted, too global, overly ambitious, and it does not know when to stop. If a team has only . . . contributors, it may be data-bound, shortsighted, perfectionist, and may have trouble completing the whole task. What if the team doesn’t have an even mix? What if the team is missing a style? Consider at least 3 ways a Team Manager can handle this issue and outline your strategy below: _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________
- 3. CREATING AND MAINTAINING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS III. Team Dysfunctions Managing Team Dysfunctions – Case Review: Cynthia heads the Project Management and Service Quality Departments. She was recently promoted and the IT Project Department is now under her leadership as well. Employees in IT are not convinced of Cynthia’s competencies and feel that their knowledge and experience may go unnoticed and their ideas and opinions may not be considered in the decision-making process. The IT Team members are also upset because no one within the department was considered for promotion so they have collectively decided to ‘wait and see’ how Cynthia will handle things and what she will do to get better production from them and the IT Projects they are responsible for. Sometimes teams unknowingly fall victim to at least some of these five team dysfunctions. These problems are not separate but are interrelated. 1. Absence of Trust Team members who don’t feel free to be open with one another will not feel comfortable expressing ideas and opinions. 2. Fear of Conflict Teams lacking trust are not capable of having an honest debate about ideas. Instead they “back off’ and don’t pursue the discussion. 3. Lack of Commitment When team members hold back in their discussions due to a fear of conflict, then they will not fully buy in or commit to team decisions, even though they seem to agree. 4. Avoidance of Accountability When some team members do not fully commit, others hesitate to mention when their behaviors appear counterproductive. 5. Inattention to Results When team members fail to hold each other accountable for results, they put their own needs before those of the team. This usually results in lower team performance.
- 4. CREATING AND MAINTAINING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS What types of team dysfunctions are happening in this scenario? _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ How should Cynthia address these issues to improve team effectiveness? (ie.. how can she manage change, empower and engage her new workforce, understand and motivate the team?) _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
- 5. CREATING AND MAINTAINING HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG Effective teams have a shared understanding of the team’s goals, and the team members consistently move together towards those goals. The best way to ensure that your team has this shared understanding is to make sure that you have paid attention to the basics: Organizing your team: � Did you establish Ground Rules? � Have you talked about everyone’s expectations? � Did you talk about the facilitator, recorder, and team member roles? � Has the team included everyone in these discussions? � Do you know what player styles are on the team? � Have you discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the team? � Did you identify which skills everyone contributes? Focusing meetings: � Does the team draft an agenda at the prior meeting? � Does the team use meeting summaries? � Was the meeting summary distributed promptly? � Did everyone participate at meetings? � What decision techniques have you used? Did everyone participate? � Does everyone come prepared? � Does the meeting end when it should? Keeping projects on track: � Did the team develop a project plan? � Did the team use a milestone chart to spread out responsibilities and establish due dates? Absolutely the BEST way to avoid problems is to develop an environment where team members are comfortable expressing opinions.