Learn how to forge a group of people to act as a single unit to achieve your organizations goals. Show
In sports, some teams win simply because they have the best players. However, other teams with equally good players regularly finish far from the top, and some teams with only average players nonetheless become champions. Part of the secret is teamwork: no matter how good the individual players are, if they don't operate as a unit, they won't win as many games. What's true in sports can be true in community work as well. Successful community leaders often have good teams behind them. In many situations, teams can accomplish what individuals can't. Working on a successful team is an important learning experience for future leaders. It demonstrates that not everything can be done by one person, and shows them what it takes to create a team. A leader who's been part of a good team will be able to build good teams because she knows what they look and feel like. One of the most important tasks of leadership, in fact, is being able to put together a good team and to support its members in doing their best. This section will provide a guide for assembling and building teams that can help your organization or initiative be effective What are teams and team building?What is a team?The answer to this question isn't as obvious as it might seem. Everyone knows what a team is: a group of people working together toward a common goal, right? Well, yes and no. A team is a group with a common goal, but lots of groups have a common goal. And a team works together, but lots of groups work together. The members of the United States Congress work together toward a common goal (making the laws that are best for the country), but each member has her own private interests and beliefs -- her own agenda. The Congress is no more a team than is a soccer "team" of six-year-olds, each of whom plays as if he's the only person on the field. A team is a group of people with a commitment to one another, to the team, to a high level of achievement, to a common goal, and to a common vision. They understand that team success depends on the work of every member. A good team functions as a single organism. Not only do members work together toward a common goal, but they complement and support one another so that their work seems effortless. Compare that soccer team of six-year-olds and their individual agendas with the Brazilian national team in its heyday. Everyone seemed to know not only what all his teammates were doing, but what they were going to do. Passes always hit their mark, as if there were some sort of mysterious force among team members that directed their kicks. Obviously, their "magic" was the result of endless practice, but it was also the result of a shared passion for accomplishment and a shared vision of just that effortless, automatic play that made all other teams look clumsy. So a team has a shared interest in accomplishment and a shared vision, both of which are different from a shared goal. The need for accomplishment provides a driving force. The vision provides not only a goal, but directions and a compass for reaching it. It keeps everyone moving in the same direction, at the same speed, working together to create as little friction and as efficient a journey as possible. One of the ways that teams reduce friction is through their members' commitment to working as a team. They're willing to give up most of their need for individual recognition for success in reaching the goal. It's the accomplishments of the team as a whole that become important, and members of good teams hold themselves and one another accountable. When it's working well, a team is more like a single individual doing a lot of things at once than it is a conglomeration of single individuals, each doing their own thing. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts: the team can accomplish more as a team than all its individual members could achieve if each were working alone. What is team building?So how do you create that kind of team, a group of individuals that functions as a single unit, even if each has a different task? There are really two ways to look at team building. The first is putting together a team from scratch for a specific purpose. That purpose may be for the short term (e.g., running a fundraising campaign with a limited scope ) or much more momentous and lengthy (starting and staffing a long-term initiative meant to change the community permanently). Members of teams need three kinds of skills: technical or functional (i.e., the expertise in the field that they and the team are working in); problem-solving; and interpersonal. The ideal would be to find individuals who embody all these skills, but the reality is you'll probably have to choose some people specifically for each of these strengths. All are obviously important. Effectively accomplishing the tasks of the team requires technical and functional skills; approaching those tasks in a reasonable way calls for a high level of problem-solving skills; and keeping the work of the team from being derailed by internal conflict, jealousy, or other similar issues demands a great deal of sensitivity and interpersonal skill. In addition to looking for skills, you have to find the right people for the right jobs on the team, and assemble a group that fits together well. Judging how people will fit in with one another is a matter, to some extent, of following hunches, listening to what your instincts tell you about personalities and the ways people present themselves, the kinds of words they use, their body language, etc. These are often as important as their backgrounds and training for determining whether they would be good additions to a particular team.
In some ways, assembling a team from scratch is easier than the second type of team building, which requires turning that group you've just hired or an already-existing group into a real team that works well together. In the case of an already-existing group, you have few choices about who's going to be a member. There may be long-standing antagonism or conflict between some of the people involved, or some may be difficult personalities to deal with. If people weren't chosen to fit together in the first place, they may or may not fit together well now. Building a team in this second sense takes strong leadership and a vision that the team can buy into. In addition to trying to help team members learn to work together as a unit, you have to find ways to build commitment to the idea of a team and to the team itself, as well as to meeting the challenge the team has been given. Sometimes, an existing group is already a team, or almost a team. They may already share a vision, and have some idea about how to realize it. If that's not true, however, it can take a lot of time and effort to make it true, and you have to be willing to be patient. What are the advantages and disadvantages of teams?Putting together a team of skilled people may be the best choice for accomplishing a particular task . . . or it may not. Like most other ways of addressing tasks, teams have advantages and disadvantages. Some of their strong points include:
That's a pretty impressive array of strengths, but there are weaknesses as well.
When should you build teams?Social psychologists have looked at the differences between the ways people perform when there are others around and when there aren't. From these observations have come some general guidelines for when a team is likely to be more effective than an individual. Some of the most important are:
Not all of these conditions need to be obtained for a team to be a good choice, but some should. The more of them that are present, the more likely that a team will be successful. By the same token, the negatives of these guidelines (e.g, people in general don't have the skills to handle the task) indicate that a team is not likely to be an effective way to deal with the task at hand. In addition to those negatives, teams are unlikely to be necessary or successful when one expert member alone is capable of handling the task, and/or when there is an immediate deadline. Given those guidelines, a team can be used in almost any situation that requires the work of several people. There are, however, some particular times when teams might work especially well.
What makes a good team?Every good team is not the same, but really good ones often have a number of similar characteristics. In their book, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman looked at six famous groups, including the Manhattan Project team, to understand the factors that foster creative collaboration. Here are their 15 "Take Home Lessons" (pp. 196-218) about "Great Groups" (thanks to Steve Fawcett). A "Great Group" is Bennis and Biederman's version of Katzenbach and Smith 's "high-performance team":
How do you build a team?Building a good team involves a great deal more than simply choosing members. That's only the first step, and you may not even have the chance to do that if you're working with an already-existing group. Developing and communicating a vision, planning the team's mission to match the vision, working out how people will function together, and then fine-tuning it over time are only some of the other elements of team building. The following are guidelines, and are not meant to be a step-by-step guide to team building. Some elements of the process may get worked out over time in the course of the team's activities. Others may reach critical points and be dealt with then. Each team is unique, and there is no single formula for success or excellence. Choosing team members
Whether you're hiring new staff people especially for a team, or choosing from among the existing staff members of an organization, there are a number of factors to consider.
Building the teamOnce a group of team members is assembled (whether by hiring, by choosing from among the staff of an existing organization, or by taking an existing group) has to be turned into an actual team. The less care taken in assembling the group, the more difficult this task will be. All of what follows applies both to teams chosen carefully for specific purposes and to preexisting groups that must become teams. Some of the points, however, (working out personal issues, or making the team concept clear) are particularly relevant for those groups not as carefully selected.
Regardless of how the vision is arrived at, the team needs to buy into it if it is going to be successful. That means either the vision has to be consistent with what team members are already committed to, or that they have to be part of its development.
Problems arising from these kinds of issues can be the hardest to solve, but if they're left to fester, they can destroy a team.
One possible way to approach some of these issues is to confer with other successful teams, either within or outside of your organization. They may be able to help you avoid some of the mistakes that they made, and to guide you to some questions you may not have thought of asking.
In SummaryA team is more than just a group of people working together toward a common goal. It's a group that functions as a single unit, working toward a powerful shared vision of accomplishment. In situations where teams are called for, a team that works well can accomplish more than all of its individual members working alone, because each member's work supports and complements the others'. Building a team involves both choosing the members (if you have that option), and forging those individuals into a working unit. That involves thinking about how people fit together, and helping them to establish group and individual bonds. Team building also requires looking at the characteristics of good teams. It means providing or generating with the team at the outset a vision that everyone can be passionate about. The next step is clearly defining the concept of a team, and making sure everyone knows how he fits into that concept. Once that's in place, the team needs to plan jointly how it will function (who will do what, how everyone will communicate effectively, what the team's norms will be). Any personal issues need to be addressed at the beginning and resolved as quickly as possible. Teams need to examine their work and understand the reasons for successes and failures, so they can continue to improve and develop. Teams need recognition for their accomplishments, so they'll know their work is appreciated. If you can build a team of good people using these guidelines, the achievement of your goals is practically in the bag. What is patient centered care in nursing?The Institute of Medicine describes patient-centered care as including qualities of compassion, empathy, respect and responsiveness to the needs, values, and expressed desires of each individual patient. It is inclusive of care that ensures that patient values guide clinical decisions (IOM, 2001, pp. 48-50).
What is patient centered care quizlet?Patient centered care definition. providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
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