Leading Teams

Leading Teams

1. "Doy mi palabra que he realizado esta actividad con integridad académica" Daft,R. (2008) Management. South-Western Cengage Learning: Ohio, E.U.A

2. A team is a unit of two or more people who interact and coordinate their work to accomplish a specific goal.

3. Working in groups can be of dislike for some, the reasons may be that they stop working independently, they have to put up with free riders (someone who takes benefit but doesn't contribute) and because teams may sometimes be dysfunctional.

   • Team Processes
     • Team development has different stages, these are:
       • 1. Forming, friendships are tested, worker is worried of his performance.
       • 2. Storming, individual personalities emerge.
       • 3. Norming, conflict is resolved, there's harmony.
       • 4. Performing, major emphasis is on problem solving and the accompishment of tasks.
       • 5. Adjourning, occurs in committees and teams when they have a limited task.
     • Team Cohesiveness is the extent to which members are attracted to the team and feel motivated.
     • Team Norms are informal standards of conduct that are shared by team members and guides their behavor.

4. Effective teams

   • There are many factors that influence team effectiveness, beggining with the organizational context in which the team operates. Team type, characteristics and composition also has a big weight on it along with team processes.
   • Leadership
     • Team leaders are key for the achievement of effectiveness. There are three ways in which leaders contribute: by rallying people around a purpose, by sharing their power and admitting ignorance

5. Types of teams

   • Formal Teams
     • Vertical Team, composed of a manager and his/her subordinates in the chain of command.
     • Horizontal Team, composed of employees from the same or near hierarchical level but with different areas of expertise.
   • Self-Directed Teams
     • Problem-Solving Teams are those that dedicate around 5 to 12 daily hours, voluntarily, to solve a problem within the same department.

6. Innovative Uses of Teams

   • In a virtual team, members are linked because of advanced information and telecommunications technologies.
     • Some of the challenges virtual teams may encounter are using technology to build relationships, shaping culture through technology and monitoring progress and rewarding members.
   • Global Teams are cross-border work teams made up of members of different nationalities. They are a big challenge for leaders and also require a big deal of training.

7. Team Characteristics

   • SIZE// They must be large enough to incorporate the skills needed for the tasks.
   • MEMBER ROLES// Team effectiveness is achieved when both members' social well-being and ask accomplishment.
     • A task specialist role consists on spending time and energy helping the team reach its goal.

8. Managing Team Conflict

   • Conflict can come out of nowhere, so the organization must be prepared to solve these.
     • Groupthinking- the tendency to be so committed to a cohesive team that they are reluctant to express monetary opinions.
     • Conflict can be caused from communication breakdowns, poor communication and lack of nonverbal cues.
     • Some of the ways to handle conflict are:
       • Competitive style (assertiveness to get away with one's own way)
       • Avoiding style (reflects neither assertiveness nor cooperativeness)
       • Compromising style (is both assertive and cooperative)
       • Accommodating style (reflects high degree of cooperativeness)
       • Collaborating style (reflects both high degree assertiveness and cooperativeness)
       • Superordinate goals are those that cannot be reached by a single party.
       • Meditation is the process of using a third party to settle a fight.
     • Negotiation is a distinctive type of conflict management. It has many types:
       • Integrative, based on a win-win assumption, all parties come up with a solution.
       • Distributive- is a competitive and adversarial negotiation approach, each party tries to get as much as they can.

9. Work Team Effectiveness

   • It can be assessed in terms of productive output, personal satisfaction and capacity to adapt and learn.
     • Productive output, if it meets the requirements to be so.
     • Satisfaction of members
     • Capacity to adapt and learn