Team Building

The foundation of all team building is having shared goals to which all team members are committed. Team building can be productive if it establishes or builds on those goals. Check there is ownership of common goals as a first step, then progress to other forms of team building, otherwise your team building efforts may be be a waste of time/money, or even counter-productive. In the Tuckman model of team development, the difference between the first stage (Forming) and the others (Storming, Norming, and Performing) is that each member of a Forming team is focused on his/her own objectives, perhaps guided by the manager, whereas in the later stages there is some commitment to the shared goals. For example, to go through the Storming stage can be an uncomfortable process, so for team members to persist with it they have to be convinced that it is worth engaging with other team members in a 'storming dialogue'. That is, there have to be shared goals that everyone thinks are more important than their own individual goals (or, for a management group, more important than the goals of the their own section). Establishing shared goals and engendering commitment requires a particular set of skills that are more often associated with a transformational rather than transactional style of leadership. There is a frequent mistake made by transactional leaders think that if they have a group of self-motivated individuals then they do not need to engage in this type of work. However, this often leads to a pseudo-team - one that appears to be Performing but, beneath the veneer, it is only Forming. That is, the members are very effective at delivering their own goals, but they fail to capitalise on the potential of working collectively, they fail to exploit the "whole that is greater than the sum of the parts".

Another frequent mistake is to fail to appreciate the important difference between supporting others in the achievement of their goals with the commitment to a shared goal. Whilst the former can be an important component of teamwork, genuine teamwork involves capitalising on collective potential, rather than just maximising individual performance. Once the foundation of commitment to shared goals has been established, there are many approaches that can be taken to improving teamwork. More information on these approaches can be found in our article on the choice of teamwork exercises. However, underpinning all these approaches is always the shared goal, and a general methodology that is similar to a force field analysis:

Establishing ownership of shared goals Removing inhibitors/blockages to achievement of those goals Introducing enablers (awareness, resources, information, processes, etc.) to help achieve those goals Using health checks, performance management, 360 feedback, etc., in the correct sequence, to gradually raise performance, akin to climbing a ladder one rung at a time

Team Dynamics Team Dynamics are the unseen forces that operate in a team between different people or groups. Team Dynamics can strongly influence how a team reacts, behaves or performs, and the effects of team dynamics are often very complex. This page considers what team dynamics are and the impact they have on the team. Suppose in a small team of six people working in one office there are two people who have a particularly strong friendship. This friendship is a "natural force" that may have an influence on the rest of the team, and can be manifest in various ways, either positively or negatively. Other factors can also play an influence. For example, if a wall of cupboards were to be placed across the middle of the office, this would also form a 'natural force' that influences the communication flow and may separate the group into two further sub-groups. Sometimes, an "absence" of a natural force can also be a team dynamic. For example, if the leader or manager is permanently removed from the office, the group may be drawn into a change of behaviour.

How do you recognise team dynamics?

You can recognise team dynamics by looking for the forces that influence team behaviour. These forces might include:

Personality styles (eg: including or excluding people) Team Roles Office layout (eg: cupboards dividing teams into two) Tools and technology (eg: email, bulletin board, information pool enabling hidden communication). Organisational culture (eg: company cars acting as status symbols to separate groups of employees) Processes/methodologies/procedures (eg: problem-solving methodology) etc.

How can team dynamics be managed constructively?

You need to: a. look for the team dynamics - the 'natural forces' at play b. determine whether they are acting for good or ill, c. make interventions to make the effect of those dynamics more positive. For example, if a wall of cupboards is inhibiting communication within a group, that wall can be repositioned and the room layout designed to encourage communication (without making the environment too uncomfortable for those who value their privacy when working on individual tasks).

Example: The impact of a friendship

The positive effect of a strong friendship in a team might be:

the friends communicate a lot together... ...which naturally results in other members being drawn into the discussion ...which results in a good 'social' feel to the group ...which makes people enjoy being in the group ...which improves motivation and commitment

The negative effect of a strong friendship might be:

to cause the other four people to feel excluded... ...which means they are less likely to include the two friends in decision making ...which means that there are likely to be two sub-groups ...which means that information may not flow across the whole group, but only within the subgroups ...which means that miscommunication may lead to misunderstanding and poor collective performance

This friendship has an impact on the group's performance, and is therefore a team dynamic. Whether it is good or bad depends on other factors. In the first,

positive, example, there is a natural force of "inclusion" which results in people being drawn into productive discussions. In the second, negative example, there is a natural force of "exclusion" which results in communication between groups being stifled.

Organizational Behavior The study of Organizational Behaviour (OB) is very interesting and challenging too. It is related to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational factors interact. The study of organizational behaviour to the expected behaviour of an individual in the organization. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. The scope of the organizational behavior is as under: (a) Impact of personality on performance (b) Employee motivation (c) Leadership (d) How to create effective teams and groups (e) Study of different organizational structures (f) Individual behavior, attitude and learning (g) Perception (h) Design and development of effective organization (i) Job design (j) Impact of culture on organizational behavior (k) Management of change (l) Management of conflict and stress (m) Organizational development (n) Organizational culture (o) Transactional analysis (p) Group behavior, power and politics (q) Job design (r) Study of emotions Conflicts To be a safe and predictable person for those around you at work and at home, it is essential that you are able to maintain your composure when you feel like your 'buttons' are being pushed. This strength will help you to achieve your goals in business as well as your goals for your personal relationships. 1. Share negative emotions only in person or on the phone. E-mails, answering machine messages, and notes are too impersonal for the delicate nature of negative words. What feels like a bomb on paper may feel like a feather when delivered in person. 2. Pepper your responses with the phrase, "I understand". This phrase will support your goals when the tension is high and you need to find common ground to form compromises or agreements with the other party.

3. Take notice when you feel threatened by what someone is saying to you. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or to "shut down" the other person's communication. It will take this kind of discipline to become an open, trusting communicator. 4. Practice making requests of others when you are angry. It is often much more useful to make a request than to share your anger. For example, if the babysitter is driving you crazy by leaving dirty dishes in the sink, it is better to make a request of them than to let your anger leak out in other ways such as by becoming more distant. 5. Try repeating the exact words that someone is saying to you when they are in a lot of emotional pain or when you disagree with them completely. This mirroring technique can keep both the speaker and the listener 'centered' in a difficult conversation, especially when the attitude of the person doing the mirroring is to gain understanding of a different point of view. 6. Take responsibility for your feelings to avoid blaming others. Notice when 'blameshifting' begins to leak into your speech. "I feel angry when you are twenty minutes late and you don't call me" is much better than, "You make me so mad by being late." 7. Learn to listen to the two sides of the conflict that you are in as if you were the mediator or the counselor. If you can listen and respond in this way you will bring peace and solutions to the conflict more quickly. For example, in response to an employee's raise request, you might say, "On the one hand I understand that you really need the raise, and on the other hand I represent the company, whose funds are very scarce at this time. Is there a way that I can work on your compensation package that does not involve cash?" Here, the mediator's point of view can look for the creative compromise that takes into account the limits and the needs of both parties. 8. Take a playful attitude towards developing the skill of emotional self-control in high conflict situations. You could view maintaining self-control in a tense, angry converstion as an athletic feat. You could also view developing this skill as similar to working out at the gym with weights - the more that you use your selfcontrol muscle the bigger it will grow and the easier it will be to remain calm when tension is great. 9. Wait a few days to cool down emotionally when a situation makes you feel wild with intense feelings, such as rage. As time passes, you will be able to be more objective about the issues and to sort out the truth about the situation more clearly. 10. Make a decision to speak with decorum whenever you are angry or frustrated. If you give yourself permission to blow up, people will not feel safe

around you. They will feel that you are not predictable and will carry 'shields' when they are near you. The fear and walls of others will not support your goals for success in relationships or at work. Professional ethics & values Professional Values and Ethics are a set of moral principles and standards of conduct, supporting the moral prestige of professional groups in an organization. The tasks of professional ethics are to identify moral standards and assessments, judgments and concepts, characterizing people as representatives of a particular profession. Professional ethics develops norms, standards, requirements, typical to certain activities. Ethics is designed to educate people, to help them to behave properly with others, to communicate at the workplace, etc. Professional ethics taught to follow the measurement standards of morality, adopted in order to regulate human behavior. These are the standards employees must navigate. Aligning themselves to these values, an employee should cultivate the appropriate personal qualities. The main types of professional ethics are: medical ethics, educational ethics, scholar ethics, entrepreneur ethics, engineer ethics, etc. Each kind of professional ethics is determined by the peculiarity of professional activity, has its own specific requirements in the field of morality. For example, the ethics of a scientist involves first such moral values as academic integrity, personal integrity, and of course patriotism. Judicial Ethics requires honesty, justice, sincerity, humanity (even to the accused in his guilt), and fidelity to law. For any organization it is very important the way employees follow organizations guidelines, because this can directly affect the common success as well as the organization collapse. Professional Values and Ethics make companys productivity to rise. It all depends on the way people communicate with each other, the attitude they take over their job and how well they meet their responsibilities and. In other words, for an organization, professional values and ethics guidelines shows how it expects the employee to behave while being employed and what moral standards should he meet.