Audiences Northern Ireland

Getting good performance from teams

20th September 2006

10.30am: Understanding how teams work

11.45am: Coffee

12 noon: Motivating your team

1.15pm: Lunch

1.45pm: Learning through experience

3.00pm: Tea

3.15pm: Dealing with difficulties

4.30pm: End

Introductions

Your nameYour organisationWhat team(s) you leadWhat team(s) you are part of

Session 1

Understanding how teams work

Management is the efficient, effective and economic use of resources to achieve results with and through the efforts of other people.

Why bother?

Discuss your experiences of being a team member….

• What were the benefits?

• What were the drawbacks?

Typical plus points• Synergy• Better decision making• Faster decision making• Commitment to implementing decisions• Utilising the many skills and abilities of team members• Overcoming weaknesses and building on strengths• Reducing unproductive competition• Sharing knowledge• Fostering communication• Achieving common goals• A learning experience for team members

Typical drawbacks

• Time consuming• Potential for conflict• Group-think (the drive for consensus at any cost, which

suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternative courses of action

• Tendency of individuals in a group to take greater risks than if they were operating on their own (‘risky-shift’)

Stages of team development

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

FORMING

• Icebreaking session• Make sure everyone introduces themselves• Establish a clear direction and goals• Identify the resources available to the team• Build a supportive environment• Clarify individual roles, expectations and objectives• Identify relevant individuals outside the team• Get the team doing things together

Stages of team development

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

STORMING• Redefine the team leader’s role• Clarify the roles, responsibilities and expectations of

individual members• Promote real listening• Establish procedures and team processes• Deal openly with conflict• Agree a problem-solving rationale• Reassure that this stage is ‘normal’• Provide positive feedback• Manage conflict constructively and identify the issues• Stay relaxed and calm• Act as a good role model• Try to move the team from ‘testing and proving’ to a

‘problem-solving mentality’• Delegate and give team members responsibility for their

own actions

Stages of team development

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

NORMING• Discuss team dynamics• Focus on team goals and objectives• Confront issues and resolve them• Reclarify roles and responsibilities• Ask for input rather than telling• Give constructive feedback on team’s progress to date• Arrange training and coach good team working• Demonstrate give and take in their behaviour

Stages of team development

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

PEFORMING• Coach team members• Be even more open• Admit to their own failings• Ask for support• Give support• Seek out feedback• Delegate and give recognition for individual and team

success• Let go• Make team members aware of their progress • Celebrate success

Stages of team development

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

MOURNING• Celebrate success• Have a closing-down party• Recognise and reward great performance• Remember everyone in the team• Arrange a review meeting• Plan for known team changes – see this out and let the whole

team know• Re-evaluate current roles and responsibilities – can people

more around and/or do they want to?• Don’t try to replace old team members with exact replicas –

new members will bring fresh skills to the mix• Consider adopting a ‘buddy’ or mentoring scheme to ease the

new member into place• Remind current members of the phases of team development• Take action to help the team come to terms with change

Consider the characteristics of effective teams

What might you do to accelerate the development of a team?

Session 2

Motivating your Team

Motivation: ‘The force or process which causes individuals to act in a specific way’

Cycle of motivation

Effort

PerformanceRewards

Satisfaction

Needs

Thinking about your own experiences…

Share an occasion where your needs followed this cycle, and one where they did not.

What are the implications for this for us as managers seeking to get good performance?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Self actualisation

Self esteem

social

safety

physiological

How do these needs translate to the

workplace??

?

?

?

?

Linking theories with practice…

Deciding what you are going to…Stop doingStart doingDo more of

Session 3

Learning through Experience

The great egg drop….

Think about the life cycle of your team

Storming

NormingPerforming

Mourning

Forming

Think about what motivated you.

Links with Maslow?

Links with Hertzberg?

Belbin’s team types

Belbin’s 5 principles for managing teams:

1. Members of a team contribute through their professional role and their team role.

2. The team’s effectiveness depends on the extent to which members correctly recognise and adjust themselves to the strengths of others in the team.

3. Each team needs a balance of team roles, determined by the team’s goals.

4. Personal characteristics fit well for some roles and limit ability to succeed in others.

5. Only when a team has a balance of team roles can it reach peak performance.

Session 4

Dealing with difficulties

Scaling the wall of resistance