Characteristics of an Effective Team

Teamwork cannot be demanded. Everyone involved must discuss and understand what the goal is and what is required of them. Teams should have traits such as goals and objectives, empowerment, trust, authentic participation, innovation, creativity, risk taking and leadership. (Temme and Katzel, 1995)

Those who do not have a sense of interdependence may attempt to solve the problem alone or be forced to hassle the PM with every problem outside their field of expertise. Being results oriented requires rallying all members around the same project goals and motivating them towards completion of those goals. This goes hand-in-hand with enthusiasm, which simply means getting people excited about the project and raising the energy level around project activities. Teams that possess these two attributes are more driven toward project goals and may work at a faster or more intense pace. Cohesiveness is the desire and attraction that team members have for working with one another. Sometimes rewards are used to develop cohesiveness and to generate the desire for members to devote time to the project. Cohesiveness helps create harmony among team members and develop smoother working conditions than teams that do not demonstrate a cohesive front. Finally, trust is evident when team members feel comfortable working together. They have confidence in one another’s abilities. When trust is developed, members are willing to express differences and handle disagreements upfront.

The features of effective team performance is set up through positive leadership, this is something which is developed and nurtured. An effective team will work together, be focused and all the time supporting each other along the way to achieve and reach goals. For a team to be effective, each team member needs to be clear on their roles and responsibilities relating to their job. Team performance will be more effective if there is respect for the leader/manager and an understanding towards their job role and responsibility. The leader/manager should also be aware of the skills or weakness within the team and be able to provide support were necessary and also utilise their strengths. Training and support will enable staff to improve

I find that the challenges of working together in an established team can be that everyone can become quite self absorbed in their own workload and this can result in conflict when the team sent work together as a whole or lose sight of their shared objectives and goals. It can be difficult to maintain motivation and enthusiasm and not everyone may be on the same page at the same time. I genuinely believe that I am lucky as I work in a team where we are open and honest enough to thrash out any issues quickly and as they arise. We also recognise each other’s own skills and abilities and use each other’s strengths to ensure that our team performs to a high standard.

The features of effective team performance is set up through positive leadership, this is something which is developed and nurtured. An effective team will work together, be focused and all the time supporting each other along the way to achieve and reach goals. For a team to be effective, each team member needs to be clear on their roles and responsibilities relating to their job. Team performance will be more effective if there is respect for the leader/manager and an understanding towards their job role and responsibility. The leader/manager should also be aware of the skills or weakness within the team and be able to provide support were necessary and also utilise their

| Teamwork is often associated with empowerment, ownership and added responsibility. We assume that individuals would prefer to be involved in decision making, rather than simply being told what to do. While this may be true in most cases, it is not true in all cases. This may

The potential for conflicts would consist of pointing fingers and judging without investigating. A person might already know who the employee is that started the problem and approach the person, unprofessionally. The process needs to be redefined and no one should be singled out as the culprit. Furthermore, a conflict may ignite if communication is not open. Hence, one person might feel an idea or strategy is not helpful to reach the goal. Although, good teamwork creates a positive environment. If there is a heated disagreement, it can lower the mood, and demotivate the rest of the team. However, according to Cheesebro, (2010) Conflict is healthy in certain situations, because it will bring a team together. Research has shown, employees who feel part of a strong team are happier and more productive. An acronym for team

When teams are performing at their best, you are likely to find that each team member has cleared responsibility. You’ll also see that every team member needed to achieve their own personal goals in order for the team’s goal to be fully met to an adequate level. Dr Mereditch Belbin studied team work for many years and he mainly observed that people in teams tend to assume different roles within the team. He defined a team role as a “tendency to behave,

The features of effective team performance are set out in Brian Tuckman’s phases of team development theory, ‘Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.’ This outlines the phases that a team will go through in order to become effective and reach maturity. At the ‘Forming’ stage of team development individual roles and responsibilities are unclear and each member of the team is concerned to avoid conflict with each other. From this point the team will go through the ‘Storming’ phase which is when they start to conflict as individuals put forward ideas which will be challenged by others in a bid to gain power and position over others. After this the ‘Norming’ phase follows and it is at this point that individual roles are defined and accepted

Jane needs to emphasize the advantages of teamwork in the workplace. Advantages such as increasing the likelihood of success, each team member brings there strengths to the table, increasing the success of the project, it will provide motivation and sense of security, as allowing each person a hand in the cookie jar, avoiding personal responsibility for a mistake. Teams motivate each other to work together in achieving their common goal, success. Another advantage is it helps divide the work that needs to be done, not one person can or should do all the work for the project, and it should be broken down into sub-tasks to the most qualified person. Working as a team also allows each member to learn from one another, we can never learn enough, and networking is the best way to further your knowledge and experience in any area (“Advantages of Fostering Teamwork in the Workplace”).

Teams are more than just groups of people assembled in the same area, they are a collection of individuals dedicated to a common purpose and with a series of detailed performance targets, working together with complementary skills. Teams of people are encountered in various scenarios, not just in the workplace, but also throughout life, such as sports, associations, charities and voluntary services.

Conflict is pretty much inevitable when you work with others. Everyone have different viewpoints and under the right set of circumstances, those differences could pile up and escalate to conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether it works to the team's advantage, or contributes to its disadvantage. Conflict isn't necessarily a terrible thing. Healthy and constructive conflict is a factor of high-functioning teams. Conflict arises because of the differences between people, the same differences that often make diverse teams more effective than those made up of people with similar experience. When people with varying viewpoints, experiences, skills, and opinions are tasked with a project or challenge, the combined effort can far surpass what any group of similar

In many aspects of our life, it is pervasive to work in a team. No matter in company, school, or another type of team it is necessary to be a part of a team and to achieve a team goal by corporations. People join a team with different personalities, goals, values, beliefs and needs. On the one hand, these differences can be a valuable quality of teams. On the other hand, these same differences inevitably lead to different levels of conflicts as well.

The following are eight characteristics of effective teams the were identified by Larson and LaFasto in their book titled Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong (Sage Publications 1989).

A further disadvantage of teamwork may be that the team has existed too long and inspiration of new ideas has expired. This idea is discussed in Fincham and Rhodes (2005). There is a risk of team members becoming too friendly with each other and that friendships and professional relationships may be difficult to distinguish. If this occurs, team work is affected as it may be easy for team members to become distracted by personal issues rather than focussing on the task set. In this way team work may become less effective. It is important that team members remain professional when working in