Creating effective team will require bringing together all the characteristics worth of effective team. Such as clear purpose, implementation, role and accountability, and monitoring and evaluation.Before bringing together people of diverse background, there should be a declaration of purpose. Purpose is what holds the team together regardless of differences.
It’s very important, the clarity of purpose. It gives understanding of the need to come together, it sets the goals and objectives. Clear purpose leaves no doubt and allows a better judgment to whether or not be a team member.The purpose of the team should not be in a vacuum. Effective team has the sense of implementation; making it happen, the purpose. Therefore, there should be a common platform for the team to work to achieving these corporate goals. There should be implementers who “are reliable and disciplined members of the team and are useful to an organization because of their inclination and capacity to do whatever work needs to be done”.
(Belbin).Implementation involves roles and accountability. Members of the team should be given specific roles to play or they should find themselves inadvertently playing diverse roles; chairman, shaper, plant, team worker, resource investigator, and completer finisher, among others. (Belbin). This creates recognition and sense of belonging which makes the team a participatory one and hence very effective.
However, there should be accountability to hold individuals responsible for their actions. It means that whoever is entrusted an activity is required to provide the team with feedback.Regardless of how effective a team might be, there should be measures to maintain and sustain the team lest it becomes ineffective.These measures may include:Training and Empowerment; when a team member could no longer match their skills with the task perhaps, technological advancement, they feel uncomfortable and become reserve. They feel no reason to do it and tarnish their reputation. To maintain an effective team, timely training should be organised for team members to set them at par.
It bridges the gap and allows full participation both in decision making and on the field of work.Monitoring and Evaluation; there should be a close supervision to monitor how things are done which include marching individual skills with task specific, and attitude to work. It helps bring out flaws, weaknesses for redress before they escalate.
It again gives room for performance measurement; input to output. All of which contribute significantly to know whether or not the team is performing. It also helps identify certain character traits that do not blend well with the team.
Appraisal and Reward; to effectively maintain the team, there should be individual appraisal. A common platform should allow for assessing individual input. It brings recognition to individuals and the team at large for good work done and rewards for milestone deliverables. Where a team is recognised and rewarded, it keeps the team effective at all times. Respect and Tolerance; effective team should be sensitised on respect for time, others and individual contribution. For example, where there is the lack of respect and kind words as ‘please’, ‘thank you’, it breaches tolerance and corporation among team members.
Again, in the case of discrimination, the individual feels indifferent to sharing workloads. Therefore, there should be respect among team members and between management as well. Thus, management should not look down upon team.Get Along and have Fun; finally, maintaining effective team, there should be intermittently fun to take away stress and tension at work. It bridges ‘all work and no play makes jack a dull boy’ and ‘all play and no work makes jack a lazy boy’ (Anon). “We spend practically 98% of our lives working or at least trying to find a balance between work and life.
With this in mind, make sure the teams you build at the end of the day enjoy working together”. (10 Tips on Building and Maintaining an Effective Team with Strong Dynamics, Nov. 25, 2015).
