Seminar 1 Managing Teams

Stage 2 Session 2

Introduction to Management 1

Overview

• To examine effective team management

• To explore further a model of teams and relate to others models – T7 published by Lominger

2

Learning Outcomes of this lecture

• To understand what comprises a team and what are the key elements of team management a manager needs to address

• To understand a model of team effectiveness

• To apply the framework to a team they are familiar with from public life or their own personal experiences

Best Team: Worst Team

• Into three groups

• Consider real example of the worst team you have worked under and with (no names!!!) – what specific things were they doing that made them ‘worst’

• Note your responses and be ready to share them

• Then, consider leaders who have been the ‘best’ team you have worked for and with – what specific things

• Note your response and be ready to share them

• 20 minutes and feed back to the main group the key items

Your team effectiveness

• There are many many models of teams – most often quoted is Belbin Team Styles – that is about individual style

• Most cover similar territory

– Goals

– Communication

– Getting and motivating people

– Working together

– Achieving things

• T7 Model was produced by Lombardo 1995, and forms a part of the Lominger suite of HR related products

The effectiveness of any team is directly related to how the team stands on five “T” themes or factors:

Thrust

Trust

Talent

Teaming

Task

Team Support from the organisation

Team Leader fit

T7

Team-Leader Factors

THRUST•Thrust Management

•Thrust Clarity

•Thrust Commitment

TRUST•Trust in Truthful Communication

•Trust in Actions

•Trust Inside the Team

TALENT•Talent Acquisition and Enhancement

•Talent Allocation/Deployment

TEAMING SKILLS•Resource Management

•Team Learning

•Decision Making

•Conflict Resolution

•Team Atmosphere

•Managing Process

TASK SKILLS•Focusing

•Assignment Flexibility

•Measurement

•Delivering the Goods

• There is a well oiled process for setting goals

• Goals are known, understood and discussed

• Lack of silence, holding back opposing viewpoints

• Lack of veneer agreement just to get along

• Each member states own thoughts about the goals

• Disagreement about goals is put on table for discussion

• Members articulate what it will take to achieve each goal

• Target performance is known as well as range (exceeds through

unacceptable)

• Members believe goals to be challenging but doable

• Observable sense of passion and commitment

Thrust indicators

• Totally open communication flow; full disclosure

• Everything is out in the open

• Works to get rid of ‘undiscussables’

• Espoused norms/values = actual observed behaviors

• No off-line processing

• Team member(s) acknowledge need to go above and

beyond own needs for good of team

• Lack of internal competition undermining collective group

effort

• Team works on being a team

T2

- Some Trust IndicatorsTrust indicators

• Team talent pool closely matches needs

• Team is willing to admit missing talent or knowledge

• Team fills open jobs with value adding candidates

• Members can describe what knowledge/talent can be obtained from

other employees or outside sources to enhance their performance

• Each team member knows own strengths and weaknesses and openly

shares that data with others

• Each team member willing to defer/delegate to another more skilled

for the task

• Free flowing supportive and critical feedback

• Team is open to input from the outside

Talent indicators

• The team runs effective meetings

• The team gets the resources it needs

one way or another

• The team comfortably goes outside for

help

• The team accesses technology to

improveeffectiveness

• Members are eager to learn new skills

• Members debrief lessons of experience

from successes

• Members debrief lessons of experience

from stumbling, failures

• Members resist jumping to conclusions

and solutions

Teaming indicators

•Team decisions are timely

• Team decisions are accurate and

of high quality

• Smooth, freely flowing

communications

• Members feel safe to bring up

bad news

• Bad news is dealt with

constructively

• Members will bring conflicts

above board in a problem

solving spirit

• Team works through conflict

resolution constructively

• Team’s strategies, tactics and annual plans are always insightful and

successful

• Team sets tough priorities; constantly focuses on the critical few

• Members identify and track multiple measures of performance

• Members pinch hit for each other; do multiple jobs

• Members volunteer/assign people as task requires even if not typical

• Team always meets its performance goals

Task indicators

As wonderful as all of the five factors and 18 clusters are,

teams cannot be high performing unless two other context conditions are met.

That is, almost no matter how good teams are on the behaviors that happen inside the team, things outside the team can kill their effectiveness.

And the leader has to have followers.

End of Seminar

Note: This recording is for your personal use only and not for further distribution or wider review.

© Pearson College 2013