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TEAM TEAM INTERVENTIONSINTERVENTIONS

Teams & Work Groups: Strategic Units of an Organization

1. TEAMS The result and quality of teamwork is easily

measurable by analyzing the effectiveness of collaboration in the following ways: Communication Coordination Balance of contributions Mutual support Effort Cohesion

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Team & Work Groups : Strategic Units of an Organization

2. WORK GROUPS Group of two or more individuals who work together They work temporarily until some goal is achieved They routinely function like a team but they are

interdependent in achievement of a common goal and may or may not work in the same department or same locations

External knowledge sharing is one of the major task of work groups which essentially means the exchange of information, a proper know-how about, and feedback from customers, organization experts and others outside a group.

All teams are work groups but not all work groups are teams

FUNCTIONAL LEVELS OF WORK GROUPS

1. Dependent-Level Work Groups This is the most traditional work unit. It has a supervisor who plays the role of a boss. In this work group each person is assigned a job

and is closely supervised by a boss. The boss approves if one can help another. Problem solving, work assignments and decision

making is done by boss or supervisor. Rarely the group creates improvements, increase

in productivity or leveraging resources to support one another

FUNCTIONAL LEVELS OF WORK GROUPS

2. INDEPENDENT LEVEL WORK GROUPS This is the most common type of work group Each person responsible for their own area of

operation The manager does not function like controlling boss Staff members work on assigned jobs with minimal

supervision

Example: Sales Rep, Research Scientists, Accountants, Lawyers etc

FUNCTIONAL LEVELS OF WORK GROUPS

3. INTERDEPENDENT-LEVEL WORK GROUPS People rely on each other to get the work done At times they have their own roles and at other

times they share other responsibilities. But in either of the cases, they have to coordinate

with one another in order to produce a final product or outcome.

Difference between Work Groups & Teams

WORK GROUPS TEAMS

Individual Accountability Individual and mutual accountability

Come together to share information and perspectives

Frequently come together for discussion, decision making, problem solving and planning

Focus on individual goals Focus on team goals

Produce individual work products Produce collective work products

Define individual roles, responsibilities and tasks

Define individual roles, responsibilities and tasks to help team do its work; often share and rotate them

Concern with one’s own outcome and challenges

Concern with outcomes of everyone and challenges the team faces

Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by manager

Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by team leader with team members

Groups and Teams

Experts suggests that teams are more effective than groups in organizations.

According to Katzenbach and Smith (1993), there is a clear distinction between work groups and teams.

Work group is a collection of people working in the same area or place in order to complete a task.

Teams are just a special subset of groups.

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TEAM BUILDING INTERVENTIONS

Team building intervention can be defined as a process of getting either a new or poor performing group on track.

Example of team building intervention can be analyzed by taking two extreme categories of teams such as teams for ‘fun’ and teams for ‘development’

At fun end, there are icebreakers, ropes courses, camping trips etc and at the developmental end there are workshops and intensive team building exercises that are goal specific and suited to a group of professionals.

STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT

There are various team building models in management science

Although the models vary from each other, they usually agree on two basic elements.

First, that there are quite number of predictable stages before the team becomes highly productive and efficient and secondly, the leaders and team members who are already aware of these stages can work towards improving the quality of their team’s interaction during each stage.

BRUCE TIUCKMAN’S MODEL

FormingStormingNormingPerforming

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GOALS OF TEAM BUILDING INTERVENTIONS

To improve effectiveness of a group in achieving results

Work group should be engaged in a continuous process of self examination

Provide opportunity to the team to analyze its functioning, performance, strengths and weaknesses

Identifying the areas of problem for team members and taking corrective measures for the same

Developing a model of team effectiveness specifically designed to help the work unit

FAMILY GROUP DIAGNOSTIC MEETING

All OD group interventions are designed to help teams and groups to be more effective

These interventions assume that most of the groups communicate well among each other and facilitate a healthy balance between both person and group needs.

Group diagnostic interventions consists of meetings wherein members of a team analyze their unit performance, the area that needs improvement, and discuss potential solutions to problems.

The benefit of such interventions is that members often communicate problems that their coworkers are unaware.

FAMILY GROUP TEAM BUILDING MEETING

The following structured team building activities that family members of all ages can be performed:

FAMILY GROUP ACTIVITIES Story telling Sharing your fears Playing team games like ice breaker, blind man’s walk etc TEAM BUILDING GAMES Team building games helps in :

Building teams Develop employee motivation Improving communication Enhance business prospects Giving specific business outputs and organizational benefits

ROLE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE INTERVENTION

RAT in OD intervention has been adapted for use as an experiential learning activity in academics.

The primary functions of RAT are assisting groups in clarifying and understanding roles and role expectations in organization

RAT is also sometimes better used to help employees get a grasp on their role in an organization.

In the first step of a RAT intervention, the perception of one’s role and contribution in an organization is defined by people in front of a group of co-workers.

Then the group members give a feedback to define and clarify the role more In the second phase, the individual and the group examine ways in the

which the employee relies on others in the company RAT intervention also help in reduction of role confusion in people Another popular intervention technique like RAT is Responsibility Charting

which uses a matrix system to assign decision and task responsibilities

ROLE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE

The process of Role Negotiation was originally described by Harrison This is a real world oriented one that can lead to workable solution in cases

involving competition, coercion and power struggles. Role Negotiation provides a method for one person or group to negotiate

and structure the role, or working arrangements, with respect to the other. It includes:

Nature of activities that one expects out of the other The reporting relationships Rules for escalation Who is responsible for what decisions Who will carry them out The consequences of non-performance

The fundamental assumption of Role Negotiation is that reasonable people prefer a state of negotiated settlement to one of ongoing unresolved conflict.

ROLE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE

ADVANTAGES OF ROLE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE RNT makes things explicit The facilitator helps everyone understand that each

participant has some degree of power from the positive rewarding good behavior in others during the contracting process.

This avoids guesswork about expectations and thus helps in understanding well how to influence others in the group.

NEGOTIATION After each person has clarified the messages he or she has

received, issues are selected for negotiation. At this stage everyone should be prepared to make some

sort of changes to get what he or she wants.

ROLE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE

By an iterative process, each person selects and communicates his or he most important issues and eventually the group comes to a consensus about which one will be dealt with at this point.

After all parties agree, the participants write down the agreement to formalize it as a contract.

All agreements are published openly and discussed openly in group

The facilitator should bear in mind that some of the people negotiate in bad faith and certain things cannot be changed by these techniques. These people may push the group into unproductive or politically dangerous territory.

ROLE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE

DYNAMICS OF ROLE NEGOTIATION This process focuses on working relationship between

people. So it is less threatening to most groups and more

accessible than other techniques that places greater emphasis on interpersonal dynamics.

RNT addresses issues of resistance to change as there is a natural tendency on the part of people to resist writing down the changes they would like to see from others.

RESPONSIBILITY CHARTING

Responsibility charting is identification of functional areas which include ambiguities in a process, bringing the difference out in the open and resolving them using cross functional collaborative measures

This helps managers to actively participate in a focused and systematic discussion about process related descriptions of the actions that must be accomplished in order to deliver a successful end product or service from same or different organizational level.

THEORY OF RESPONSIBILITY CHARTING Accountability is a prime thing that is ensured by RCT It creates accountability for actions that is moved down from the top to

bottom of an organization It helps to know role perceptions and role ambiguities and the changes

in role perceptions by passage of time. There are three basic assumptions in any role. They are:

RESPONSIBILITY CHARTING

ROLE CONCEPTION How or what a person thinks his/her job is completely dependent on

how the person has been taught to do it. His/her thinking will be influenced by many false assumptions ROLE EXPECTATIONS Role expectation is defined as what others in the organization think the

person is responsible for, and how he/she should carry out those responsibilities

These ideas also may be influenced by incorrect information The role expectation is based on output of results expected from the

role ROLE BEHAVIOR Role Behavior is defined as what a person actually does in carrying out

the job. RC reconciles role conception with the role expectation and thus, role

behavior becomes more predictable and productive.

ORGANIZATION MIRROR INVENTIONS

INTER-GROUP MIRRORING AS AN INTERVENTION What appears to be a simple problem between groups is the result of a

deep seated and largely unrecognized emotional conflict within the group and within its members.

Both the involved groups will use the surface problem as a social defense against the anxiety of having to face the real underlying cause of tension between them.

This type of problems can be approached by using the technique of Group Mirroring developed by Gemmill and Costello in 1990.

The use of the term group mirror is close to the literal meaning of the word mirror.

This is developed on the basis of the concept that every in-group needs an out-group to provide itself with a mirror of its shadow.

The presence of out-group provides opportunity for the in-group to externalize denied emotions and issues contained in the group shadow so that they can be easily identified. Example (Refer Page No:132)

GESTALT ORIENTATION TO TEAM BUILDING

Gestalt psychology as the study of human perception and learning developed during the early and mid 20th Century.

When Gestalt principles are applied within an organizational-consulting situation, perception and awareness becomes focal points.

The Gestalt The Gestalt TheoryTheory

SENSATIONSENSATION

AWARENESSAWARENESS

ENERGYENERGY

MOBILIZATIONMOBILIZATION

ACTIONACTION

CONTACTCONTACT

RESOLUTION RESOLUTION CLOSURECLOSURE

WITHDRAWAL OF WITHDRAWAL OF ATTENTIONATTENTION

INTER-GROUP TEAM BUILDING INTERVENTIONS

AIM To increase communication and interaction To reduce unhealthy competition THE PROCESS Groups are put in different rooms and given the task of

generating two lists of: (i) Put down thoughts, attitudes, perceptions and feelings

about the other group (ii)Predict what the other group will say about them Then the groups are brought together and made to share

their lists. No comments or discussion will be made now.

INTER-GROUP TEAM BUILDING INTERVENTIONS

The group will be reconvened to: (i)To discuss their reactions to what have learned about

themselves from what the other group has said (ii)Identify issues that still need to be resolved between

the two groups. The groups come together and share their lists, they set

priorities and they generate action steps and assign responsibilities.

A follow up meeting is convened to ensure that the action steps have been taken.

THIRD PARTY PEACE MAKING INTERVENTIONS

Third party or intermediary is the person or team of people who become involved in a conflict to resolve it.

Third parties may act as consultants either by helping one side or both the sides

They may act as facilitators, arranging meetings, setting agendas and guiding productive discussions also.

CHARACTERISTICS OF INTER-GROUPO CONFLICT Perceive others as enemy Stereotyping Decreased communication Communication get distorted or inaccurate Each group praises itself and its products more positively Each group believes that I can do no wrong and the other can do no

right There can be act of sabotage also.

THIRD PARTY PEACE MAKING INTERVENTIONS

General strategies to deal with Inter-Group Conflict Bring a common enemy from outside Increase interaction and communication under favorable

conditions Find a super-ordinate goal Rotating members of the group Providing training

PARTNERING

Partnership can exists inside as well as outside the organization

PARTNERSHIP INSIDE THE ORGANIZATION This involves partnership with direct reports, partnering with

co-workers and partnering with managers. PARNERING WITH DIRECT REPORTS One of the greatest challenges of leaders of the future will be

breaking down boundaries of hierarchy The effective leader will be able to share people, capital and

ideas across the organization. The success depends upon stronger partnership with co-

workers Biggest challenge will be patterning with co-workers than

partnering with direct reports

PARTNERING

PARTNERING WITH MANAGERS The relation between managers and direct reports will have to

change in both directions Not only managers need to change, direct reports will need to

change. Many future leaders have to operate like an MD of a consulting firm

than the operator of an independent small business PARTNERSHIP OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION Partnering with customers This is needed for creating economies of scale The basic objective should be to create long term customer

relationship than short term so that partnering becomes more effective and profitable

This implies that suppliers need to develop a much deeper understanding of the customer’s total business

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