Good or Bad?

•England Football 2010?

•GB Rowing team?• (the last 30 years!)

Teams

Entrepreneurship is a team sport!

Dr Andrew Hirst Room 9339 2

Objective of the session

• Consider attributes of good teams• The evolution of good teams• Understanding how to build a teams

What is a Team?• A group of people with a common purpose• A synergy of talents that is more that the sum of the

parts• What is a good team?

– Seeks agreement on the objective– Has a leader and a mix of skills– Has a balance between the task, the process and people– Supportive atmosphere– Learn from experience– Its enjoyable and/or exhilarating - "Work hard and play hard"– High success rate– Memorable!!

“People are in bands, and I know in our case it’s because we are better than we would be as

individuals’

The Edge, U2

Three key ideas

• Tuckman's Group development process• Belbin Team Roles• Guttman's basis for high performing teams

Why team work theory?

• Advice on best practice• Helps when not certain about how to do it• Speeds up synthesis of the group• Aids higher performance and reduces

dysfunction

Tuckman's group development stages

A widely accepted model of teambuilding

Tuckman's Group stage Development (simplified)

Crisis of confidence Crisis of

confidence

Stage 1 - Forming

• Underestimate complexity – undefined role– unsure of previous experience

– No time given to setting clear objectives – Inadequate planning – leadership role is unclear and challenged by group– Ideas are not listened to or developed, dominant

members pressure team

– Abilene Paradox• 'Matching Morons' Lemmings

Storming and Norming

• Enforced conformity– Rigid processes and procedural plans

are developed– Autocratic leadership– Rules driven

Performing

• Breaks away from rules and codes• Shared ownership• Understand role and trust others• Trust developed• Solution seeking and not problem finding

• Strong identity and culture

• Ringelmann effect - Social Loafing

Issues with the model• Assumes linear development • Assumes no prior knowledge• Ignores multiple objectives• Difficult to determine transition between stages • Perhaps, over simplified process, but a good

starting point

• Key Leadership Takeaway – Teams change over time– Crisis of confidence is a bite point, – Expect conflict to develop

Guttman's (2009) Alignment principle for High

Performance Team

Key Issues

• Looked at high performance organisations – e.g Mars, Johnson and Johnson etc.

• Alignment– "Collective deep think"– "re-evaluation"– "Enrol on the vision"– Agreement

• What the team will achieve• What will everyone contribute

What is Alignment?

• Business Strategy• Business deliverables from strategy• Roles and responsibilities at individual / SBU /

function• Protocols/ ground rules for decisions and conflict

res.• Interpersonal relationships and

interdependancies• Linked to vision and values

Alignment stages

Testing

Infighting

Getting Organised

High PerformanceClear team goals

Right players in place

Clear role / responsibility

Agreed-upon protocols

Sense of Ownership

Comfort dealing with conflict

Periodic self assessment

Developing a strong identity• Schein (1990)

– Culture A pattern of basic assumptions, invented, discovered or developed, as it learn to cope with external problems, which has worked well enough to be taught to new members.

• Three layers

1. We will act with integrity.2. We will ensure clear purpose and priorities. 3. We will communicate effectively with colleagues and stakeholders. 4. We will value colleagues' opinions and judgement. 5. We will invest in our colleagues' development. 6. We will work collegially, exercising shared and collective leadership.

The Brotherhood of the right stuff- extract from The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)

Figure 1 A film that examines the people attempting to make the first attempts to enter Space

A young man might go into military flight training, believing that he was entering some sort of technical school in which he was simply going to acquire a certain set of skills. Instead, he found himself all at once enclosed in a fraternity. And in this fraternity, even though it was military, men were not ranked by their outward rank as ensigns, lieutenants, commanders, or whatever. No herein the world was divided into those who had it and those who did not. This Quality, that it, was never named, however, nor was it talked about in anyway.As to justify what the ineffable quality was….well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the enclosed fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to put it back in the last yawning moment- and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every day, even if the series should prove infinite-and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humility, to god. Nor was there a test to show whether or not the pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had THE RIGHT STUFF and could move higher and higher and even - ultimately, god willing, one day - that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men's eyes, the very brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.

Understanding people in teams

Good team players

• Personally accountable and hold others accountable

• Coachable - adapt to change• Collaborative - open and direct• Trusting of others - able to let go• High integrity - keep your word• Committed - act as owner, engage and add

value

Personality theory• Myers - Briggs Type dynamic indicator

– A Psychometric test– based on Carl Jung

• The "rational" (judging) functions: thinking and feeling

• The "irrational" (perceiving) functions: sensing and intuition

• Issues– 16 personalities – Complex – unrealistic as it anticipates a choice in team

membership

Belbin's Team Roles

Identifies your typical behaviour in a team

What roles can we take?

• Honey, P (1984) Teams and leaders video– Doers, thinkers, carers and leaders• BELBIN team roles

Team Roles Combined

• Doers (action roles)– Shaper, Implementer (Company Worker), Completer-

Finisher

• Carers (Social Roles)– Co-ordinator (Chairperson), Resources Investigator,

Team-worker

• Thinkers (Creative and analytical)– Plant, Monitor Evaluator, Specialist (not used)

Belbin

• Team player considerations

– Can change, can be more than 1 type– Dynamic– Shows preferences and biases in a team– They are behaviours not attitudes/personality

• Key Leadership consideration– Promotes harmony and a balance

Team Selection Analysis

Dealing with difficult people

• Difficult people can be:– Highly creative– Driven– Clear thinking

But they can be:– Aloof– Difficult and awkward– Divisive

Teamwork caveat

• A lot of contradictions in the theory– Luck– Conflict might stimulate superior performance

– Luis Suarez / Eric Cantona/ Di Canio?– Donald Trump

GROW Mark de Rond (2012)

Acronym for team development planning

process used in the development of the Cambridge boat team

The process

• Goals– What and When

• Reality– Now, effect of negative influence, who thinks what

• Options– Magic wand, what if?

• Will– Commitment, first steps, blocks, support?

Summary

• What did we learn from this?• A team must have:

– Teams go through several stages of development– A mix of styles and skills– High performing teams

• Clear challenging objectives that everyone wants to achieve• A consensus on how to achieve the objectives• Needs clear process

Further Reading

– Effective Teambuilding by John Adair – Management Teams by R. Meredith Belbin– Fire, Toast and Teamwork DVD 658.402 (ref only)– The Leadership Pickles 658.4092 FA (ref only)– Great Business Teams by H. Guttman (2008)– Leadership Under Pressure by Bob Stewart

Belbin roles summaryName Role Strengths Potential

Weaknesses

ChairmanControls the way the team moves forward,

recognizes team strengths and weaknesses, utilizes team's resources

Commands respectinspires

enthusiasmtiming & balance

May not possess creative or intellectual power

Shaper Sets objectives & priorities, imposes shape on discussion and activities Drive & self confidence

Intolerant towards vague ideas and people

Innovator Creates new ideas & strategiesIndependence, intelligence

imaginationMay be impractical or weak

in communications

Monitor/ Evaluator

Analyzes problems evaluates ideas Critical thinking Overserious, hypercritical

Company worker

Turns concepts into plansCarries out agreed plans systematically and

efficiently

Self discipline, realismPractical common sense

May lack flexibility Unresponsive to new, un-

proven ideas

Team WorkerSupports team members strengths

Underpins shortcomings, Improves internal communications, team spirit

Humility, flexibility, popularity & toughness,

distaste for friction & competition

Tends to gossip if underemployed

Resource Investigator

Explores & reports on ideas & resources outside the group

Creates external contacts and conducts any subsequent negotiations

Outgoing relaxed personality, inquisitive strength, ability to see

possibilities in new things

May be overenthusiastic with a lack of follow-up

CompleterProtects team from errors of commission or

omission. Actively searches for aspects needing more attention. Sense of urgency

Combines a sense of concern with sense of order & purposeSelf

control.

May be impatient & intolerant to those of casual disposition

and habits

How do teams develop?

Time

Perform

ance

Hypothetical Performance curve

Aided

Unaided

?