NFIB

The Team Spirit May Be Just What Your Business Needs
03/ 28/ 2002


When your company is suddenly faced with a large project, consider organizing key employees into a team. The team approach can be beneficial for small and mid-size businesses, because it allows a company to focus time and resources in a very targeted way. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses discusses some important aspects of forming and maintaining effective teams.

The first stages of forming a team is vitally important, and many of the decisions are psychological in nature. Clearly, the people working on the team need to feel comfortable working together because they may spend much of each workday thrown into intense business and personal interaction. For this reason, a manager should meet individually with each proposed team member. But the total team "chemistry" should be tested by letting the group get started in its tasks before membership is considered final.

A team should be assigned a specific team leader, either an outside manager who will evaluate progress, or a specified member within the team. If the leader is assigned within the group, seniority can be a factor in selection so that other members of the team do not feel slighted.

Teams are groups of individuals, each with varying degrees of ability, focus, and commitment. Team leaders need to understand each member of the group, and carefully monitor individual progress even as the team as a whole moves forward with the assigned project.

Teams need very specific goals, both short and long term. If a project will take a considerable length of time, interim goals or stages must be determined right from the start. This will help keep the team focussed, and will help each member of the team maintain a proper relationship with other members as the project evolves.

Roles of individual members may need to change as the project moves forward. A good manager explains this to team members at the first meeting. When change is required, management or team leadership should take individual members aside and carefully explain what the new roles will be. But never just change a team member's role without also informing the group. This can lead to misunderstandings and even mistrust.

So that team dynamics maintain the forward momentum of a project, negative behavior that may spring up needs to be dealt with decisively and effectively. If members are in conflict over the team's goals, the team leader and outside management should immediately define or re-define priorities. When personalities of team members are at odds, the individuals should be met with both individually and together so that all grievances can be aired. When differences seem irreconcilable, one or more individuals should be removed from the team before further disruption occurs.

Differences between members may indicate that revisions need to be made in the overall structure or goals of the project. Team leaders and management should always keep this in mind when members disagree strongly about goals and methods of achieving the goals.

Management should always tend to respond positively to suggestions made by the team. The team members, after all, are involved in the project day in and day out -- and they might see creative ways to accomplish goals that were not thought of or that were not available at the start of the project.

At all phases of a project, team members should be encouraged to work and make decisions on their own, but only within the framework of the project's interim and final goals. To keep members on target, there should be frequent meetings between team members, the team leader, and immediate management. How often should these meetings be held? This varies from project to project, but usually meetings should be held at least weekly.

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11.17.99

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