MANAGING TEAM

Managing Team



Managing Team

Part C

Question 1) Important 'individual' differences to explore and consider

Team building is developing the cohesion of a team by fostering trust, communication and cooperation among members to make it more efficient and improve its performance. Team building is also the system of developing or promoting the dynamics of a team. Without dynamism in a team, a team cannot succeed. Dynamism is the cohesiveness in a team that determines how easy a team goes along. (Byars, 2004 pp. 45)

Team members are expected to be 'sizing-up' (studying) each other at the 'forming' stage when they are first constituted and the team is not expected to do much at this stage. It is mostly at the performing stage that teams perform task at their full capacity before they 'adjourn' after 'task-completion' or due to 'inefficiency of team'. (Broucek, 2006: pp.389-405)

Team leaders must also realise that there are different types of human traits that can be exhibited among team members. (Furnham, 2005: pp.200-20) These traits rarely have advantage over others as they are complementary. It is the duty of an effective team leader to identify the trait in individual members of his or her team and know how to use the qualities to advantage. (Furnham, 2002: pp.429-38)

All these traits have the qualities which effective team leaders can exploit and none is better than the other. There is also Myer-Briggs model (1956) which effective team leaders have to contend with. This model is about personality types. Myer-Briggs identified four ways people differ from each other. These are: the way they think; the way they view; the way they feel/perceive and the way they see things.

The Myers Briggs model of personality is based on four preferences:

E or I (Extraversion or Introversion)

S or N (Sensing or intuition)

T or F (Thinking or Feeling)

J or P (Judgment or Perception)

Understanding and managing differences in teams is an insightful and highly interactive workshop designed to enhance team performance by helping team members understand and manage personality and conflict style differences. (Kolb: 1984: pp. 104)

Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality profile, the most widely used personality instrument in the world, team members develop greater self-understanding and increase their understanding and appreciation of others. (Furnham, 2009: pp.1113-22.)

NLP, it goes without saying, has a massive amount to offer in terms of developing a greater understanding of an individual own behavioural styles, and how their respective styles come across to others. (Swailes, 2009: pp.1-11) It is almost impossible to overestimate the power of having a greater understanding of an individual's own behaviour, and the differences between when their behaviour delivers what the managers are looking for and when it doesn't. (Furham, 2003: pp.245-57)

Success in team management depends more on strategies than on team manager's stylesGreat team managers know that there is no one best way of managing a team and that there are no two great team managers that are the same, though their leadership styles may be similar. Team performance is the combination of team member's individual ...