Improving Team Performance: Skills And Strategies

The Importance of Team Management Skills

Question:

Discuss about the Dynamics of Team Leadership in Global.

The study focuses on the requirement of skills and knowledge to lead teams in the workplace as well as engage with the company’s management. A team refers to the group of individuals with various skills and tasks working together for common goal of the business. Building team as well as proper planning is important in ensuring that team is effective (Belbin 2012). The Mitel Networks is basically a telecommunication organization headquartered in Canada that provides integrated communications solutions for this business. Mitel teamwork is the enterprise web solution, which offers virtual place for their teams for seamlessly collaborating with tools that includes messaging, sharing of file and conferencing. The team of this organization seamlessly incorporates into MiCollab for effortlessly collaborating with the teams of different sizes. Leadership teamwork prevails in this organization, which means that all the leaders from different departments work together for solving the business problem. The purpose of the team is to increase productivity and build stronger relationship with their stakeholders. The team tries to innovate new software to enable their buyers to upgrade their communication situation.

Every firm needs to have team management skills in order to work efficiently and improve the performance of team. The range of skills that the team must acquire for being more productive includes-

• The leaders of different units must have the leadership skills for managing their teams efficiently.
• The project must be effectively planned that includes meeting plans, work statements, resource planning, timelines etc.
• Effective communication between the project managers and their team members also helps in conveying the ideas, target and issues in proper way.
• The project leaders must involve all of their team members in decision making regarding implementation of new ideas in the project
• Motivate their team members by initiating reward system.
• The Tuckman’s stages of team development consists of four stages that includes- Forming, storming, norming and performing (Crawford and Lepine 2013). These stages are necessary for each team to grow, face challenges, finding solutions, tackling difficult problems and delivering appropriate outcome. The above-defined skills facilitating the team in moving through this team development to performing stage has been explained below:

• Forming- This phase occurs when the team meets with each other and starts working. The leadership skill of the managers helps in determining the roles as well as responsibilities of each team member and establishes the team norms (Woehr, Arciniega and Poling 2013)
• Storming- This phase occurs when there is conflict between the members of team regarding their work styles. Proper communication skills as well as leadership skills of manager will help in controlling the conversations among the members.
• Norming- In this phase, the team members tries to resolve their differences and value the opinions of each other. Proper scheduling of project facilitates in making progress in project as all the members begins in working more effectively.
• Performing- The team member performs at high level in this stage. However motivation skills of project managers encourages the team members in producing through effective working practices.
• At present situation, the team leaders face huge challenges in growing the company and expanding their business. The role consultation involves executive coaching aspects for the team leaders by focusing on their requirements (Wheelan 2014). The main objective of Mitel Network is to make effective system of communication. Proper coaching to the leaders will help them in integrating their leadership skills in proper way, which in turn will benefit the organization in improving their overall productivity. It also aids the leaders in refining their business strategy for achieving success in the business.

Consultation requires exchange of ideas as well as views influencing the employees and company’s interest. In our workplace, both the management and the unions place few limits on the range of subjects that is open to consultation. In Defra organization, the consultation policy is guided by informal external stakeholder group and uses digital crowdsourcing for facilitating engagement with their stakeholders. Similarly, DCMS has utilized technology for increasing their engagement with the public. They have launched informal call for ideas on UK digital strategy.

Team Performance Plan
Objective: What needs to be achieved, to what standard and within what timeframe?
Actions What are the major steps that need to be taken to achieve your team objective? (max of four steps)	Timeline What are the end dates for each separate action?	Responsibilities What roles will team members need to take  in order for the objective to be achieved? Who will be responsible for which actions or key steps?	Resources What materials equipment, systems, processes and / or funds will be required?	Review dates What are the major review dates where progress can be checked by the team? What are the major milestone dates that will require progress checks, review or signoff?
Setting goals- The company should use SMART in setting their goals	The goals of the project should be set in the beginning. The end date is 15th January	the team members must understand the goal and  set their target accordingly	The goals must be set according to  the total fund for the project.	The  progress must be checked at 17th January
Developing a specific team plan and roles of each member	The time frame for implementing this action is 18th January to 15th February	Each member should work collaborately.	Project leader through computerized technology should develop the plan.	The review dates will be 31st January
Explaining the responsibility of each team member by ensuring that their role are suitable with respect to skills	The  time frame for this taking this action is 20th February to 28th February	The team members should properly communicate with the leader if they face any difficulty.	Before giving the responsibility to each member, their skills must be checked through different test.	The review dates for this action will be 25th February
Monitoring the work for achieving success in project	The work should be monitored after two weeks of project initiation (1st April, 2017)	Each member should be focused in work and deliver their best	Software systems will help the manager in monitoring the project.	The review dates in this case will be  15th April.
Indicators or measures of success:	Foundational trust	Shared commitment	Collective accountability	Results tilting
Potential barriers:  Workplace environment, team member ego, poor communication
Dependencies: The dependencies problems are peer- to peer collaboration among members, backlog of product feature etc.

Team Member	Determined Outcomes	Agreed responsibilities	Standard to be achieved	How the task will be measured
1 Harry	Launching the product though innovative advertising program by October 25	consult with the team lead before implementing the idea	Meeting the requirements of target customers	Increase in ale of the product by December 30
2 Peter	Inventing new product in the market by January 31st	Personal ideas to be consulted with other team members and manager	Understanding the preferences and needs of customers	Attraction of new customers and improving the brand value by July 25th
3Harrison	Opening of new branch in the international market	Working unitedly with other members	Competitors and target audience to be analysed before opening the branch in that location	Completion of project within scheduled time

1. a) Coaching aids in supporting their employees in pursuing innovative ideas as well as alternative solutions with higher resilience (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014). It also helps the team members in developing their communication skills and creates clarity in the business goals. In addition, the team members benefits from coaching as it stabilizes work-life balance. This in turn improves the job performance of each team member.
2. b) Mentoring programs offers an effective way in growing the career path of the employees. This in turn reduces the turnover cost and keeps the staff in striving for the best. This program grooms the employees in playing vital roles in company’s succession plan (Katzenbach and Smith 2015) The recommendations for improving the mentoring program are given below:

• Clarify as well as specify the target to individual team member
• Building flexibility in the mentoring program
• Developing orientation program

The mentoring programs are effective to the each organization. This effectiveness includes-

• Workers productivity- workers participating in this program have effectual mechanism in reinventing solutions for common problems , which in turn increases productivity.
• Quality of work- this program helps in improving the internal process of organizations and hence improves quality of work.

• Suggestion schemes- This strategy encourages the members in coming up with unique suggestion or ideas and this adds value to company’s functions.
• Job enrichment- Expansion of job content as well as giving rewards to job profile is one of the best strategy in keeping members involved in decision making.
• Collective bargaining- this strategy indicates the team participation through collective agreements by following specific rules.

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that team work is effective for every business as it aids in achieving success. The team leaders pays vital role in creating efficient team work. Implementation of proper strategy as well as new technology will improve the team performance and attain business goal.

References

Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team roles at work. Routledge.

Crawford, E.R. and Lepine, J.A., 2013. A configural theory of team processes: Accounting for the structure of taskwork and teamwork. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), pp.32-48.

Daspit, J., Justice Tillman, C., Boyd, N.G. and Mckee, V., 2013. Cross-functional team effectiveness: An examination of internal team environment, shared leadership, and cohesion influences. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 19(1/2), pp.34-56.

Deneckere, S., Euwema, M., Van Herck, P., Lodewijckx, C., Panella, M., Sermeus, W. and Vanhaecht, K., 2012. Care pathways lead to better teamwork: Results of a systematic review. Social science 

Hoch, J.E. and Kozlowski, S.W., 2014. Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3), p.390.

Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.

Thamhain, H.J., 2013. Changing dynamics of team leadership in global project environments. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 3(2), p.146.

West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research

Wheelan, S.A., 2014. Creating effective teams: A guide for members and leaders. Sage Publications.

Woehr, D.J., Arciniega, L.M. and Poling, T.L., 2013. Exploring the effects of value diversity on team effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 28(1), pp.107-121.