PRESENTATION ON TEAM DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTION

By :Nidhi NayakNIKITA JoshiPayal Purohit

Some Definitions ..

Team is a group of individuals with complementary skills who depend upon one another to accomplish a common purpose or set of performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Teamwork is done when the members subordinate their personal prominence for the goodness of the team.

Interdependence refers to the situation where one person’s performance is contingent upon how someone else performs

Team building is an intervention where the members of a work group examine things as their goals,structure,procedures, culture, norms & interpersonal relationships to improve their ability to work together effectively and efficiently.

Distinction between Groups and Teams

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional teams are typically comprised of individuals who have a functional home base (e.g., design, manufacturing, marketing, etc) but who meet regularly to solve ongoing challenges requiring input from a number of functional areas

Cross functional teams may be permanent. But temporary teams can also be created

to solve short-term plans.

Broad Team Building Interventions Interventions focus on:

Formal Groups (Intact work teams)Special Groups (Startup teams, special project teams, cross-functional teams, parallel learning structures etc)

Team-building interventions are typically directed towards four main areas-

1.Diagnosis2.Task accomplishments3.Team relationships4.Team and Organization processes

Formal Group Diagnostic Meeting Purpose: Conduct a general critique of

the performance of the group and to uncover and identify problems so that they may be worked on.

“Where we are going” and “how we are going”

After sharing the data throughout the group, next steps are: discussing the issues, grouping the issues in terms of themes, and getting a preliminary look at the next action steps.

Critique the team performance Identify strengths and problem areas Generating data

The main purpose is to identify problems and not solve problems

Formal Group Diagnostic Meeting

Formal Group Team-Building Meeting Goal: Improving the team’s effectiveness through

better management of task demands, relationship demands and group processes.

Group critiques its performance, analyzes its ways of doing things and develop strategies to improve its operations.

Meeting may be called for a special purpose; or it may primarily be devoted to maintaining and managing the group’s culture and processes.

Initiated by the manager in consultation with the third party.

Length for the meeting: Anywhere from one to three days.

Sessions should be held away from workplace.

Gestalt Approach to Team-building A form of team building that focuses more on

the individual than the group (Stanley.M. Herman)

Based on the premise that persons function as whole, total organisms and each person possesses positive and negative characteristics that must be “owned up to” and permitted expression.

Goals of Gestalt therapy are : awareness, integration, maturation, authenticity, self – regulation and behavior change.

The primary thrust is to make the individual stronger, more authentic, and more in touch with the individual's own feelings.

Techniques and exercises used in Team Building

Role Analysis Technique (RAT) Designed to clarify role expectations and

obligations of team members to improve team effectiveness.

Steps involved in RAT:1.Analysis of the focal role initiated by focal

role individual.2.Examination of focal role incumbent’s

expectation of others.3.Explicating others’ expectations and desired

behaviors of the focal role4.Focal Role person assumes responsibility for

making a written summary of the role as it has been defined ( Role Profile)

Role analysis

RAT(role analysis technique) is designed to clarify role expectations as team norms influence member behavior.

The set of behaviors or attitudes associated with various positions in a team are called roles.

Role expectations are the behaviors expected or prescribed for one member of the team by the other team members

Role conception refers to the focal person’s own ideas about appropriate role behavior.

Role ambiguity refers to the situation where a role incumbent is unaware of or lacks sufficient knowledge about the expectations for the role held by other team members.

Role conflict occurs when there is a discrepancy between role expectations and the role conception.

Steps in RAT :-1)Role analysis:The role incumbent sets forth the role as he or she perceives it, listing perceived duties,behaviours, and responsibilities the role conceptions. The other team members add to or modify this list until everyone is satisfied with the role description.2)The role incumbent’s expectations of others.The role incumbent lists his or her expectation of other group members. this lists describes expectations that affect the incumbent’s roles and impinge upon his or her performance.Again,the whole team adds to or modifies this lists until everyone agrees upon a complete listing.

3) Role expectations by others:The other members list their expectations of the role

incumbent. This list includes what they expect him or her to do as it affects their role performance. The work team modifies this list until everyone agrees.

4)Role profile:Once there is agreement on the role defination,the role incumbent is

responsible for making a written summary called a role profile. He or she distributes a copy of the completed role profile to all the other members.

5 )Repeat process: The team follows the same procedure until

every member has a written role profile.

6) Review:The team periodically reviews role expectations and role

profiles. because these may change over time;the group mission or members may also change.

Techniques and exercises used in Team Building

Role Negotiation Technique (Roger Harrison)

Role negotiation technique intervenes directly in the relationships of power, authority and influence within the group.

Steps involved in this technique-1. Contract setting-Consultant sets the

climate and establishes the ground rules.

2. Issue diagnosis- Individuals think about how their own effectiveness can be improved if others change their work behaviors.

3. Influence trade- Negotiation period in which two individuals discuss the most important behavior changes they want from the other and the changes they are willing to make themselves.

Role negotiation Role negotiation is directed at the work relationship among

team members that involves a series of controlled negotiations between participants.

Steps in a Role Negotiation are : 1)contract setting:

Each member prepares a list for each of the other members with three headings :a) Things to do moreb) Things to do lessc) Things to do the same2)issue diagnosis:Each member writes out a master list combining the listing written about him/her and posts it on the wall. members are asked to clarify any items that need explanation.

3) Role negotiation :After the clarification , Members decide Which items they want most and From into pairs to negotiate , usually with a third party to help in the process

4) Written role negotiation agreement :The outcome of the role negotiation is written

down and spells out the agreements and concessions that each party finds satisfactory.

Techniques and exercises used in Team Building

Responsibility Charting (Beckhard & Harris)is a technique for improving team functioning

Responsibility Charting helps to clarify who is responsible for what on various decisions and actions.

“Who is to do what, with what kind of involvement by others?”

The process assigns a behavior to each of the actors opposite each of the issues.

Four classes of behavior- Responsibility to initiate action Approval required, or the right to veto Support of resources Inform

Techniques and exercises used in Team Building

Ronald Lippitt Visioning is a term used for an

intervention in which group members in one or more organizational groups develop and/or describes their vision of what they want the organization to be like in the future.

The time frame may be anywhere from six months to five years in the future.

Various forms of visioning, or the use of mental imagery or the development of cognitive maps, are extensively used in strategic planning and in future search conferences.

Techniques and exercises used in Team Building

Force- Field Analysis (Kurt Lewin, 1947) Involves the following steps-

Decide upon a problematic situation you are interested in improving.

Carefully and completely describe the desired condition.

Identify the forces and factors operating in the current force field (Pushing towards desired condition and pushing away from desired condition)

Examine the forces Execute strategies for moving the equilibrium

from the current condition to the desired condition (By adding more driving forces, removing restraining forces or both)

Implement action plans that should cause the desired condition to be realized.

Describe what actions must be taken to stabilize the equilibrium at the desired condition and implement those actions.

Outdoor experimental laboratory training

Training employees is a fundamental element of a corporations success. A company succeeds only as well as the people running it can perform.

This training process can cover many skills and go into many areas of expertise. One key element that has only recently come into action is an outdoor- basedexperiential training program.

Commonly called "ropes courses," wilderness courses or adventure learning programs have been in use in the USA since the early 1980's, and by organizations in the UK since the early 1970's.

OELT is the idea to take a group of people who normally work with one another and put there in an outdoor setting where they participate in experimental learning exercises.

All the labs, despite the settings or the nature of the exercise, have participates involved in activities that require teamwork and allow opportunities to work on leadership and team development.

After an exercise, and normally in the evening ,the team spends time with a practitioner discussing the exercise what they have learned.

Outdoor programs have been most beneficial when used to promote effective work teams and used to enhance leadership and management skills in the participants.

The Outdoor Lab Process Some organization that makes extensive use of labs, such as

federal express, operate them through OD or Human resource development division.

Many participants in outdoor labs says that success is directly proportional to the amount of pre-planning and follow-up.

Whether the company itself or an outside provider offers the lab, a preliminary assement of a team and individual needs should be made before the lab occurs.

The OD practitioner select a series of outdoor lab experiences that fit the desired goal and physical abilities of the team.

The other company which is specialized in this type of training , a training program is arranged, and some providers send their trainers to a company ahead of time to research the needs of the team.

After the exercises the trainers ask the team to reflect on the process, possible feedback is encouraged.

They discuss all the point. what behavioral were helpful and

dysfunctional how they operate as a team What it was like to take a risk and succeed

or fail Who acted as a leadership role? And, how this observation might applied to

the next exercise.

At the last , the participants summarize what they have learned and how it applies to their work.

Cautions When Using Outdoor labs The legal aspects says that the employer is liable for the health and safety of its employees.

Safety should be a major concern, and the safety records of the provider and or the trainers should be investigated beforehand.

Participants should feel free to decline to participant in specific exercises. Trainner should have much the same training, skill, and experiences as an OD practitioner, and

should be selected with the similar care. The main point is the lab should not become to serious.

The participants should have fun and do not need to be constantly drawing parallels between the lab and the worksites.

Results Of Outdoor labs:- Outdoor labs have become very popular as a team

development and leadership training technique.Ex:- Domino’s Pizza, General Motors, IBM.

they are using outdoor labs and hundreds of smaller profits and non- profit organizations have sent employees to labs.

one study found that the labs produced significant improvement, lasting longer than 15 months, in the general functioning of work teams.

There was however no significant change in individual behavior.

The study also said that the labs were more beneficial to intact work teams than to impromptu team whose members did not normally work with one another.

Conditions for Constructive Interventions:

Participants, particularly the formal leader, need to be informed of the nature of the intervention and largely “buy in” to the process beforehand.

The team needs some training in effective group skills.

Team members need some coaching and practice in giving constructive feedbacks, in dealing with a range of feelings including defensive ones and in processing conflicts.

The facilitator needs counseling and listening skills of high order.

The formal leader needs some coaching to assure no punitive or retaliatory behavior will be a consequence of the exercise.

Cohesiveness & groupthink

Group = Teamcohesiveness = refers to the unity that the members of group have for one another.

Irving Janis said that “group thinking is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in cohesive in group, when the members striving for unanimity overrides their motivation to alternative course of action”

8 characteristics of group think by Irving Janis : Illusion of invulnerability

Rationalization Illusion of morality Shared stereotypes Direct pressure Illusion of unanimity Mind guards Self-censorship

Team development process

Team development is an educational process of continually reviewing & evaluating team function in order to establish effective ways of operating.

Objectives :1)task or work agenda group2)process by which members work on the task

It recognizes two different activities:1)family group diagnostic meetings2)family group team building meetings

Steps :1)initiating the team development meeting2)setting objectives3)collecting data4)planning the meeting5)conducting the meeting6)evaluating the team development process

Team development includes outdoor experiential trainingrole negotiationrole analysis technique