Team Building

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to provide advice on building an effective and productive team. The application of the information contained herein is applicable to both team leaders and team members. The author has found that when using these tips the team experience is much more productive and certainly much more positive.

Building a High Performance Team Through Structure and Communication

The term team has become common in the workplace. Now that the world lives, breathes, eats, and works in a global economy, teams are necessary now more than ever to accomplish tasks that have grown in scale. Companies are no longer just selling their products and services in one’s neighborhood; now those same products are literally everywhere. Selecting a team is easy, all one has to do is pick a group and a team is formed. Building a high team performance team is difficult. Team building is not something accomplished in a quick meeting or conference call. In fact, I do not know that the team building process ever truly ends. In my experiences, the team building process is a living, breathing, and changing organism that through time, hard work, and the efforts of everyone involved grows. Whether the team grows into a beautiful flower or an invasive weed is to up to the team. The author’s goal is to offer some constructive advice on team building and while this advice will not guarantee success, this advice will enhance the reader’s team experience. Heathfield, S. (2007)

Before offering any advice, I would like to take a look at how a team operates. For any team to be successful, effective, and productive, the team’s effort must be coordinated in an effective and detailed manner. The three components utilized by teams are; structure, design, and communication. Team structure deals with how the team is built and who is on the team. A team is certain to fail if the team does not have the right team members. Consider this, if you, the reader were on a team marketing a new software product would in not be beneficial, even vital, to have someone on the team that understood the product? Team design encompasses the way work is planned and the tools used to manage and complete the task. Team communication is the methods used to talk to each other such as; e-mail, phone, and meetings. These two components go hand-in-hand with one another Heathfield (2007). These components can break down and the teams’ ability to work together is tested and the teams’ strengths or weaknesses are exposed.

The most common problem, I have seen in all my research, deals with team structure. This includes the team leader and all team members. In so many cases, teams fail because they didn’t have the right team members. For example, one of my first “real” jobs was at a bank in Baltimore, Maryland. I was assigned to a project that entailed managing a loan portfolio. I was part of a six person team that reported to the bank’s Chief Credit Officer, who was acting as the team leader. In this instance, I believed the bank selected and assigned employees from the appropriate departments to take on the task. However, the bank made a mistake that is all too common in even the strongest team-based cultures by assigning the Chief Credit Officer as team leader. I had no negative feelings towards this gentleman; in fact, he was an excellent analyst of credit. However, he was in a high level position with pressing responsibilities on a daily basis, and had no real team leading skills. As you can imagine this led to multiple problems including, but not limited to; difficulty understanding the goals and objectives encompassed in the task and undefined and unidentifiable roles for each team member. Fortunately, the Chief Credit Officer is a smart man. After about a month later, he realized the problem that was created and quickly delegated the team leadership position to another manager. Because he identified and communicated about the problem, he was able to affect a change to the team dynamic. Often these types of actions are the exception rather than the norm. From that point, the project went seamlessly. As my experience has demonstrated, selecting the right team members is without a doubt vital to the success of the project Quick et al (2007).

Another major issue that arises in team projects is communication in particular; feedback. Each team member must provide feedback to one another for a team to be a high performer. Feedback promotes; openness, honesty, candor, and trust these are the attributes of high performing teams and individuals. Teams that offer feedback see it