Build team effectiveness

Building Team Effectiveness Team effectiveness can broadly be defined as being the capa for a team to be able to successfully work together and eventually attain the various objectives and goals that have been set for them by the organization. Effective teams are evidenced by the fact that its members are able to attain the team’s objective in a timely manner. According to Mears and Voehl (8), there are a number of characteristics that can aid in distinguishing an effective team, these include high levels of trust between the different team members, shared decision making as well as an open climate for communication. Ineffective teams have low unity of purpose; the group members show a great deal of indifference, disagreements are dealt with ineffectively.
To build team in a new team that has never worked each team member must engage themselves in a number of team building activities that will assess the strengths and improvement opportunities of the new members of a team, and thereafter formulate and implement plans designed to increase the overall effectiveness of a team (Parker and Kropp, viii).
According to Heinemann and Zeiss (79), conflict is considered to be part of group development. Without effective conflict management mechanisms, conflicts between the members of a group can result in hostility, anger and misunderstandings. The members of a team are encouraged to not suppress their discomfort as suppressed or unresolved conflict can serve to increase hostility in team in addition to greatly polarizing the team members. Team leaders on the other hand should ensure that they create an atmosphere where the team members can be able to express their discomfort or give their opinion. The leaders can also employ the use of some of the conflict management styles such as accommodating, compromising and competing method where suitable to resolve conflict in the team.
For a team to be highly effective, it must first set goals that are designed to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bond. As much as possible, all the team members should be allowed to make their input during the designing and wording of these goals. Individual team members should consistently communicate with each other to ensure that all the members are able to receive and understand similar information pertaining to the group. The team leader should work to ensure that the team is well staffed, each members understands the purpose of the group as well as their respective roles within the group. In addition to this the group leader should be able to utilize the set procedure for solving problems and decision making.
There are a number of behaviors that are considered to be most effective in the building of a strong and effective team, these include enthusiasm among the group members, good communication, honesty, openness, being goal oriented as well as Innovativeness. Some of the behaviors that are considered to work against the building of an effective team include dishonesty, bad communication and lack of enthusiasm among the group members (Baldwin and Migneault, 70).
Some of the behaviors that I personally demonstrate that I believe to work towards the building of team effectiveness include honesty, enthusiasm, good communication and innovativeness. However, I sometimes tend to demonstrate behaviors that can be deemed as working against team effectiveness, these behaviors include lack of enthusiasm and not believing in the ability of some of my fellow team members to deliver.
To ensure that my Course Project Team is highly effective and will produce high quality course project results, I will endeavor to promote good communication among the different team members. In addition to this, I will also try to ensure that the team is well staffed in addition to organizing team building activities that will allow for us to understand each other’s weaknesses and strengths.
Works Cited
Baldwin, David and Migneault, Robert. Humanistic management by teamwork : anorganizational and administrative alternative for academic libraries. Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 1996. Print.
Heinemann, Gloria and Zeiss, Antonette. Team performance in health care : assessment anddevelopment. London : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002. Print.
Mears Peter and Voehl Frank. Team Building: A Structured Learning ApproachTotal Quality Series Cultural Materialism. CRC Press, 1994. Print.
Parker, Glenn and Kropp, Richard. 50 activities for team building. / Volume 1. Amherst, Mass.: HRD Press, 1992. Print.