Successful Teams Make Successful Companies

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Successful Teams Make Successful Companies

• Many of lifes failures are people who did not
  realize how close they were to success when they
  gave up.

--Thomas Edison
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Why Use Teams?
A decision is responsible when the group that
makes it has to answer for it to those who are
directly or indirectly affected by it.
--Charles Frankel

• To foster and develop
• Group skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Synergy
• Increase efficiency

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What Makes Teams Effective?
It is important to distinguish between
efficiencydoing things rightand
effectiveness---doing the right things.
--Peter Drucker

• Clear direction and goals
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Conduct effective meetings
• Problem solving/decision making process
• Conflict resolution

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Team Roles
If you dont know where youre going, a step in
any direction is progress
--Chinese proverb

• Task oriented propagate productivity, task
  oriented behavior
• Process oriented behaviors to keep the group
  working and on track

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Process Roles
The successful leader knows the way, shows the
wayand goes that way
--Anonymous

• Leader/Facilitator
• Gatekeeper
• Task master
• Recorder/Secretary

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Task Roles
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a
single person contemplates it, bearing with them
the image of a cathedral.
--Antoine de Sainte-Exupery

• Initiating
• Information, opinion seeking, giving
• Clarifying and elaborating
• Summarizing
• Consensus testing

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Team Building Exercises
The world is not interested in how many storms
you encountered, but whether you brought in the
ship. --Anonymous

• Icebreakers
• Warm ups
• What are they?
• Yarn Game
• Scavenger hunt
• Why use them?
• How are they used?

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Feedback
One of the best ways to persuade others is to use
your ears---to listen to them.
--Dean Rusk

• What is constructive feedback?
• Feedback skills
• Giving and receiving
• Who should give feedback?
• How often?

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Feedback Criteria
I always tell students that it is what you learn
after you know it all that counts.
--Harry Truman

• Descriptive not evaluative
• Focuses on feelings
• Specific not general
• Directed towards behavior of receiver
• To improve behavior
• Solicited not imposed
• Well-timed
• Clarifies communication

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Empowerment
Managers fear losing control, but employees very
seldom push the button. Knowing that they could
is what counts. It makes them feel respected,
trusted and appreciated. --Frank Navran

• Making a decision as a team
• Freedom to have a plan for progress for the
  organization
• Gives the team authority
• Fosters respect, trust and appreciation

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Team Evaluation
Our objective is to have a good army rather than
a large one. --George Washington

• Peer evaluation
• Tools to use
• Importance of assessment
• Task and process

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Team Assessment
A certain amount of opposition is of great help
to a person. Kites rise against, not with, the
wind. --John Neal

• Task assessment
• What has the team accomplished?
• Process assessment
• How has the team worked together?

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Web Resources

• Personality tests
• Keirsey Temperament Sorter
• The Personality Test
• Team building exercises
• Just For Teams
• Ice Breakers and Warm Ups
• References for faculty
• Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

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References

• Management The Team Building Workbook, George
  Akin, University of Virginia, McGraw-Hill/Irwin,
  2001
• Why Teams Fail 9 Common Mistakes, CareerTrack
  Publications
• No-Nonsense Teamwork Tough Questions Practical
  Answers, Glenn Parker, Human Resource Development
  Press, Amherst, MA, 1995

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Presenter

• Mary Lynn Brannon
• Instructional Design Specialist
• Penn State Worthington Scranton
• Dunmore, PA 18512