The University Of Lahore

Islamabad Campus

Aurangzeb Shaukat Kiani

BBA – VI

Topic: Creating Effective Teams

Dated: 05-06-09

Roll #: BAU-XS07-006

Assignment #: 3
Creating effective teams:
People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and
my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to
develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of
feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding
of the mission or objectives of your organization.

In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the

organization, which means that you may belong to some other department of the
organization but still your work is needed to perform the task and to contribute into the
overall efforts of the other departments so that the organizational goals are achieved. You
work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you
have a specific job function and you are unified with other organization members to
accomplish the overall objectives. Individually, your effort is not enough to complete the
goals but collectively but combining all the processes and efforts taken by all the people
and all the tasks completed combine and as a whole are said to be the goal attainment.

Team building refers to a wide range of activities, usually in a business context,

for improving team performance. Team building is pursued via a variety of practices, and
can range from simple bonding activities to activities designed to develop a team, usually
falling somewhere in-between. It generally sits within the theory and practice of
organizational development, but can also be applied to sports teams, school groups etc.

Work environments tend to focus on individuals and personal goals, with reward
& recognition singling out the achievements of individual employees. "How to create
effective teams is a challenge in every organization" Team building can also refer to the
process of selecting or creating a team from scratch.

Factors that play a vital role in creating effective teams:

Work design:

In work design, the application of Socio-Technical Systems principles and

techniques to the humanization of work. The aims of work design are to improved job
satisfaction so that the employees feel good at their work places and work with honesty
and loyally in favor of the organization and to improve quality and to reduce employee
problems and their conflicts so that a healthy and friendly work environment is
maintained and everyone is comfortable in their departments.

Composition:
This part in creating effective teams is very important and determines whether an
employee can work in a specific department or not or need to be rotated etc.For example;
Harley-Davidson gave the option to their employees to write their own job descriptions,
people might think this is a very inappropriate thing to do but this process was very
beneficial for them because the employees knew what their abilities, tendencies and
capabilities were so they made it according to their skills that they could perform very
efficiently and effectively.
In composition there are several matters that are to be taken care of, those factors
are:

 Abilities of members:
There are two major kinds of skills; 1) Conceptual skills,(2) Technical
skills. In creating an effective team the abilities and skills of its members are noticed
so that they can be perfectly plotted into their fields of specialization and can be
assigned the tasks that they have excellence in.

 Personality:
Personality has a significant influence on individual’s behavior as well
as on the team’s behavior. According to the Big Five model of personality there are
many dimensions that have been shown to be relevant to team effectiveness.
Specifically the teams that are rated more highly in mean levels of extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability tend to receive higher
managerial ratings for team performance.

 Allocating roles and diversity:

A team has different kinds of needs that need to be fulfilled for the
completion of their goal. to fulfill these needs, efficient and specialized members are
needed for the vacant fields. There are nine kinds of potential roles:

 Creator
 Promoter
 Assessor
 Organizer
 Producer
 Controller
 Maintainer
 Adviser
 Linker

These are nine potential roles that are a must for an effective team to
achieve their goal efficiently.

 Size of the team:

This is a very important point that should be considered while creating
a team that the number of members should neither be very low (3-5 members) nor be
very high (over a dozen) because if the team is very precise then than team will lack
the diversity of ideas as on the other hand if team has a large number of members, the
diversity of ideas would be very rich, but having a large team can also create many
 difficulties for the team such as conflicts between members and group system will
take place which is not favorable regarding the completion of the goals.
 Member flexibility:
In this factor we talk about the experienced members who have
completed their assigned task can go and help the weak members or the members
with some difficulties so that all the work is done in time and others can learn many
different things from these tasks.

 Member preferences:
What ever the number of members you have in the team or whatever their
perception towards the work is, the truth is that not all the team members are players.
Many people think themselves out of the team and they think that the other person will
complete it. Some prefer working alone which is a direct threat to the team’s morale. Due
to this fact, the personality attributes of an employee should be examined so that there is
no problem in the future.

Context:
There are three most significantly related team performance factors which are as
follows:

 Adequate resources:
This factors talks about the adequate resources because a team or a
work place is a work unit inside the organization and they need to be fed with the
required amount the resources so that they can perform their tasks in a best possible
manner.

 Leadership & structure:

Team members should agree with who is to do what, and should make
all the other members to contribute, so that the burden and the workload is minimized
per person. Agreeing upon the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate
individual skills requires team leadership and structure. It is not necessary to choose a
leader, but everyone has to do their potential roles as told before so they get their own
rankings inside the team.

 Performance evaluation & reward system:

Performance evaluation is the factor that scares all the employees from
the beginning so that they try not to make mistakes by performing effectively. And on
the other side we have reward system, It is a term closely related to the performance
evaluation. Reward system is the process of rewarding and encouraging the
employees who have done their job in a best manner and comes out to be a source of
motivation for the other employees.
Process:
This is the final stage in creating an effective team. In this function, there are
certain variables that need to be discussed. Those elements are:

Common Purpose:
Common purpose, regarding a team is that the direction of the team should be in
the right side so that the goals are achieved. A common purpose is set in the beginning
while planning, Organizing, Leading and controlling. A common purpose is a parameter
that provides direction in any condition.

Specific goals:
Successful and effective teams distribute their individual goals as smart goals ;

o Specific
o Measurable
o Attainable
o Realistic
o Tangible

These are the processes how they operate and measure their workload and
distribute their assignments.

Team efficacy:
The effective and confident teams perceive themselves as confident and
successful, this sense and feeling is known as team efficacy. In team efficacy the team
members have confidence over the other members and have built trust on each other so
that their tasks can be performed very easily and the employees feel comfortable while
working in their stations.

Conflict levels:
There are three types of conflicts, those types are:

 Relationship conflicts (Interpersonal misunderstandings)

 Tension towards others (disliking someone or being jealous)
 Called task conflicts (helps in making better decision)

Team conflicts are judged as bad but not always because in different
organizational matters, conflicts can be proven to be helping in the goal attainment of the
organization.
Social Loafing:
Social loafing has been existing in all the societies from the beginning of the story
and will remain because of the different perception and ideas of the people. In social
loafing, some of the group members can not be identified collectively and get themselves
out of the workload they have to bear, this is known as social loafin

References:

 http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team.htm

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_building