ARTICLE TITLE: DO THE LEADERSHP AND TEAM DYNAMICS OF A SMALL SPORTS TEAM REALLY HAVE APPLICATION TO TEAMS IN THE WORKPLACE?

Article Title: Do the leadership and team dynamics of a small sports team really have application to teams in the workplace?

Article Title: Do the leadership and team dynamics of a small sports team really have application to teams in the workplace?

Team Dynamics

A team is a group. Teams differ a bit from groups though. A team is any group of people that work together to accomplish a shared goal. Team members and team dynamics have to depend on and support each other to accomplish a shared goal. (Frost, 2006, Morales Mann and Kaitell, 2001 and Cooke and Moyle, 2002, 76-89)

Business Management as a Team Sport

Management is a team sport that makes similar demands on its players. Unfortunately, many managers do not understand how managerial jobs are similar and yet different across organizational levels and functions. This lack of mutual understanding makes it harder to appreciate each other's contributions and to coordinate work activities. In addition to work coordination, executives who understand the similarities and differences in managerial jobs are better able to:

Communicate performance expectations and feedback to subordinate managers

Prepare others and themselves for transitions to higher levels of management

Predict how an individual manager would perform if placed in a higher level job

Ensure that management development efforts are targeted at the proper skills

Diagnose and resolve confusion regarding managerial roles, responsibilities and priorities

Strict behavioural norms

High performance teams establish a norm of acceptance and respect of individual differences in personality, style and functional background. Establishing these norms minimizes personality and style conflicts that can damage work relationships. It increases innovation and creativity by assuring the team benefits from the different opinions and perspectives that result from individual differences.

High performance teams and Interpersonal Dynamics

High performance teams establish a norm of strong work relationships to increase trust and personal risk taking. Increased trust builds strong personal networks that encourage openness and honesty when dealing with complex and emotional issues. Increased risk taking drives action on complex and difficult issues. High levels of trust and personal risk taking create an information rich environment for determining the right things to do and for doing those things right the first time. High performance teams develop a norm of creating shared understanding on complex and emotional issues. Failure to create shared understanding on critical issues results in bad decisions, in-action, unproductive conflict, damaged relationships, blaming, and different views of “reality” — all of which reduce performance. Creating shared understanding on critical issues increases a team's ability to accurately and realistically assess a situation and find innovative and creative ways of dealing with the situation.

High performance teams and conflcit management

High performance teams develop a norm of resolving conflicts quickly and productively. This norm includes:

Creating shared understanding so everyone knows what everyone else knows

Diagnosing the conflict to identify its root cause

Selecting and implementing the appropriate conflict resolution strategy

Escalating conflicts they cannot resolve

High performance teams also establish norms to set the boundaries for ...