Top quality teamwork tips

Quoted from

Mastering the Art of Teams and Team-Building: 10 Tips for Top-Quality Teamwork by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.

http://www.quintcareers.com/printable/top_quality_teamwork_tips.html

 

Working in teams is inevitable. For years now, organizational leaders have recognized the added value that comes from having employees work in formal or informal teams, but over the last two decades even greater emphasis has been placed on work teams. Several studies indicate that more than 80 percent of organizations employ multiple types of workplace teams.

Team-building and teamwork skills are essential in the workplace and highly desirable skills to possess when seeking a new job or promotion. Teams working at their potential generate more productivity and better solutions than if all the individual members had worked independently.

How can you be a better team member? How can you get your team to work more effectively as a team? How can you lead your team to success? Here are 10 tips for creating better teams.

1. Foster Open Communications. The best teams are those in which every member shares their thoughts and opinions with the group, and where decision-making is based on dialogue and not dictatorship. But open communication is not just about having an atmosphere in which people can talk freely -- it's also about team members listening to each other and valuing each other's opinions. If your team lacks open communications, bring it up at your next team meeting.

2. Build Trust. Trust is the cornerstone of all effective teams. Without trust, there really is no team, just a collection of individuals working together. Teams need to develop to a point where every member trusts that every other member will do the work required and be an active member of the team. One of the trendy methods of trust-building is having team participate in a ropes-challenge course, where teams work together to solve problems.

3. Set Clear Goals. A team without specific goals will not nearly be as effective as a team with goals. Goals should be specific, including a deadline for completion. But goals should not necessarily always come from the leader of the team; all goals should be discussed by the entire team, especially in situations in which deadlines will be tight.

4. Review Progress. Once goals have been set, the team frequently goes off to complete all the tasks to achieve its goal. This scenario is perfectly fine, except that in too many instances, new information or actions can affect the goal's completion. Thus, teams benefit from conducting regular check-ins with all team members -- perhaps something as often as weekly -- to review progress and iron out any wrinkles or overcome obstacles that have arisen.

5. Encourage Cooperation, not Competition. Despite being placed in teams with co-workers competing with you for your next promotion, you must find a way to collaborate with every member of the team. One of the worst labels in the workplace is that of “not being a team player.” You will be plenty of time to showcase your personal accomplishments, but without your cooperation, your team may not succeed. Collaboration is a must.

6. Focus on Professionalism. The reality of life is that we all have certain types of personalities that clash with our own, but for teams to work, you have to put aside these petty differences and focus on the positive aspects of all team members. Remember that you are not forging lifelong friendships with your team, you simply need to work together to achieve your goals. Downplay people's negative traits and focus on their positives – just as they will yours.

7. Celebrate Differences/Diversity. One of the best trends in society, as well as the workplace, has been a growing diversity of people -- by race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Diversity introduces new ways of thinking and leads to new ideas and better decisions. Rather than feeling uncomfortable that most of the team does not look or act like you, celebrate their individual differences and the value that each brings to the team.

8. Be Enthusiastic. Even if you generally prefer to work by yourself, the reality you are face is that teams in the workplace are here to stay. One way to make the best of the situation is to jump into the team experience with as much enthusiasm as possible. Enthusiasm is contagious, so not only will your enthusiasm help you feel better about being a team member, it will lead other team members to also become more enthusiastic.

9. Share the Work/Do the Work. The best teams are those in which each member plays a vital part in work that results in superior performance; thus it is imperative that each member not only feels he or she plays a vital role, but actually does so. But sharing the work is only part of the equation. The other part is that once the work has been assigned, each team member must be accountable to complete the tasks. Much as been written about the “free-rider” problem within teams, but with individual accountability within the team, people cannot hide from their team responsibilities.

10. Clarify Responsibilities to the Team. Often one of the main causes of team members not completing their work is not because they are “slackers,” but because they simply do not understand their role on the team -- or the importance that their work will lend to the team. The key here is that each team member must totally understand his or her role on the team and responsibility to the team so the team can succeed.

Final Thoughts
Your work life will include individual and team projects and assignments, and as you move up the organization, the importance of working well in teams -- and leading teams to success -- will gain more and more value. If you take these 10 tips to heart, your satisfaction with teamwork and your performance on the team will improve greatly.

TOP TEN TIPS TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

This is from author of Beyond Code, Rajesh Shetty.

I attended his session sometime back. Here is the link for these points.

1. //Focus on ROII.(Return on Investment for an Interaction)
Time is precious for everyone. Ensure that you provide the highest value for anyone investing time in an interaction with you.

2. //Keep the promises you make to yourself.
Making promises to yourself is easy. Keeping them is very hard!

3. //Set right expectations
The first step in trying to exceed the expectations is to set them right in the first place.

4. //Set higher standards
Raise your standards higher than the general norm and watch miracles unfold!

5. //Avoid complacency at all costs!
There is nothing like maintaining the status quo. You are either falling or rising.

6. //Commodotize your work at regular intervals
You don't have to wait for someone else to commodotize your work.

7. //balance home runs with small wins
Home runs are great. But small wins are important too!

8. //Think!
Set aside time to "Think." Most often thinking is done in parallel to other activities.

9. //Never take people for granted
Would it be any fun if someone took you for granted?

10. //Ask the right questions
Answers help. But, it's not always the answers that matter.

Over Pay - Reverse Offshoring

Basic rule of the game is to encourage key performers to deliver more. But what to do when they reach their saturation point? If it is the case of a ship or an aircraft they will be decommissioned and probably sent to a museum. But what could happen to a human resource in a high profile job. They need to treated with dignity but at the same time
they need to be informed to clear the slot. Easiest way to do that is to over pay him. Then make him realise that he is no more economically feasible. Another one is post him to some least preferred authority line.

As we started reading about reverse offshoring, it makes an interesting point to observe the career graph of this kind of people who were key performers but reached their saturation. Hope I get to read some articles about this subject in the near future!

Influencing Satisfaction - Control to care not to question the dare

Here I want to write about influencing satisfaction on salary hike.
To some extent I want to criticise too, thus some parts of this writing may infer conniption. So please read those parts with a pinch of salt.

I would like to start by citing a known case then the intended case.
Listed companies distribute lot of printed material along with dividend. Companies draft such material with an intention to influence the share holders to deal with prevailing business situation. Here the key is to bring the shareholders under their influence.

Here is the intended case. Employee’s performance is measured as confidential subject. Same goes with Team’s performance, Group’s performance and Business Unit’s performance. But organization’s performance is declared and published. How can an employee relate to million dollar balance sheet? Agreed it gives some fun in discussing about it at coffee table, but seldom influences an individual.

When an employee feels dissatisfied about increment, management convinces by saying that everyone was treated fairly so there is nothing they can do about it. But basis for that fairness will remain a mystery for that employee. And those who express negative feelings are marked as inconsiderate and immature to account for the situation. I know it goes on case to case basis but just hold it for the sake of criticism.

Here is the point of discussion. In first place, why leave the scope to feel dissatisfied and later expect them not to react about it. I guess it’s because of the fact that they were not prepared to deal with the situation. Are there any measures taken to influence the satisfaction level on salary hike. If no, why not. If yes, did they yield benefits so as to influence the majority. And what about improvements.

In traditional businesses performance is quite apparent. But that is not the case in coding workshops (software organizations). Employees seldom get to know about billing, capital expenditure, assets, salary budget etc... Many such details are masked from them. Here the key is to give them a feeling that they are not ‘completely’ masked. It is not too difficult to do this with a presentation. Content may not be descriptive but just need to make some sense.

To conclude following few points can be looked on in this regard.

1) “Prepare/Influence” an employee at every level - as an individual, as part of team, as part of group and as part of business unit to deal with the situation.
2) Discuss about salary budget on “qualitative” figures. Analyze it by performance of groups and teams. Present figures from previous years.
If management got content employees got caliber, they are not dumb they can understand basics of economics.
3) Prepare printed material to publish results at each level. Also handover that material along with hike letter.
4) Help those employees who express difficulty in understanding the content, if needed provide them with further reading material
5) Allow employees to express their dissatisfaction. Privacy is desired about salary but not about satisfaction. Conduct YES/NO kind of satisfaction survey. Publish the result of survey and guide employees to go with majority. If dissatisfaction leads, act on it and substantiate with “Industry Survey”.

Further we get to see mails stating “such acts are not acceptable and disciplinary action can be taken”. I guess every now and then one need not explicitly announce that they are capable of taking disciplinary actions. Just mention that relevant document (like Employee Hand Book) is modified and employees are expected to go through those sections.

Control to care not to question the dare...