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Team Development
Many organizations have introduced self-managed teams where the employees’ jobs change regularly and a lot of effort is made to avoid having these employees view their job as a limited and specific set of responsibilities. In these organizations employees are encouraged to rid themselves of the “it’s not my job attitude” and focus rather on what are the best interests of the organization. A team therefore is: “A small group of people, with complementary skills, who work toward common goals for which they hold joint responsibility and accountability.” Thus team based jobs are: “Jobs that focus on giving a team rather than an individual, a whole and meaningful piece of work to do, and empowering team members to decide among themselves how to accomplish the work.” Attributes of Team Members The ideal team member has the following characteristics:
Team Building
Like any other organizational initiative, teams have to be reviewed periodically to asses their performance and how effective they are as a team in meeting organizational goals. This process is called team building. Team building is essentially a process of self reflection facilitated by a facilitator. The facilitator could be an employee not associated with the team or someone engaged externally. Regardless of which approach is utilized – an internal or external facilitator – the following process is the same: Prior to the team building meeting, the facilitator will interview each of the team members and the team leader separately. During these discussions, the facilitator will ask the team members to identify problem areas, how they believe the group functions and to identify any obstacles that are preventing the team from performing better. Following these interviews, the facilitator may categorize the responses received into such categories as: the team is not focused; the meetings are rushed, etc. With the responses categorized, the facilitator calls the team together and places the items on the agenda. The team is then charged with ranking the items in terms of importance, identifying any underlying issues and decide on a way to address the issue(s). A final step in team building is to review the team’s effectiveness again at a predetermined time to determine if the identified solutions are addressing the problem(s) and to take whatever corrective action is required at that time. With the right characteristics of team members and regular team building exercises such as that described above, organizations can be assured of having very effective teams. Source: Human Resource Management in Canada, Eighth Edition, Dessler, Cole, Sutherland, Prentice Hall If anyone has ideas for future articles or human resource issues you would like to see covered in this column please contact me at the address below.
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