Stages of Team Building - Essay Example

Team building is an aggregate term for different sorts of exercises used to improve social relations and characterize roles within several groups, regularly including collaborative tasks. An effective team building in the work environment aims at making a successful team. Team building is a standout amongst the most generally utilized group development exercises in associations. Research shows that group-development have the most grounded impact for enhancing organizational performance. Creating an effective team takes several stages as the members take time to know each other and become one united team with common objectives (Tuckman, 1965). The team building stages are forming, storming, norming and performing.

Forming

In this stage, individual relations are portrayed by dependence. Team members depend on the designed conduct and seek guidance from the group leader. Individuals need to be acknowledged by the group and also have the assurance that the team is safe. Members try to become adapted to one another and the tasks ahead.

Storming

Storming is characterized by conflict and rivalry in the individual relations as individuals endeavor to prepare for tasks. In this stage, team members need to mold their beliefs, ideas and their attitudes to suit the team. The team members as well clarify their objectives and the significant ways to accomplish them.

Norming

This is the third stage of team building where interpersonal relations are portrayed by a union. The team members are occupied with a dynamic affirmation of every one of individuals' commitments, team building and upkeep, and understanding of the team issues.

Performing

Performing is the fourth stage of team building. In this stage, team members cooperate effortlessly on associated tasks and coordinate successfully. Thus, inspiration is generally high and colleagues believe in their capacity to accomplish their objectives.

Associations cannot prevail without their workforce skills and commitment. When I was working in the Jayde Textiles, our team had clear objectives during the four stages. Adjusting to every person, advancing tolerance and valuable exchange of ideas allowed the manager to move our group from the forming, storming stage to the norming stage. We had all colleagues working lined up with our organization mission thus preventing the director from setting higher prospects and recognize areas of change which helped us to get to the performing stage. Nonetheless, we experienced several problems in our team like poor communication. Several members had consistent silence during the team meetings and later acknowledge objectives that they are not sure with. To succumb this problem, our team leader held a sporting event where all members participated against one another and by this, we created a competitive spirit among ourselves.

A Cross-functional and A Cross-departmental Team

A cross-functional team is a team with diverse functional expertise but working to accomplish the same goal. This team consists people of the same organizational level. The cross-functional team has some advantages and disadvantages to an organization.

Advantages

Cross-functional and a cross-departmental team help in problem-solving and promoting creativity. Individuals from cross-useful groups accompany an assorted variety of experience, knowledge, and expertise. This team helps expand points of view and make cooperative energy than individuals working alone.

Disadvantages

A cross-functional and cross-department group can take essentially longer to create solidity since individuals originate from different foundations. In addition, a group manager must be careful when managing the teams since there might arise conflicts among team members in the organization.

How to Address Conflict

Before planning the final schedule in your team, you need to have resources needed by each group. However, whenever resources are scarce among several groups, a conflict might arise. As a group manager, one helps the team members to recognize the presence of the conflict. Perceiving the contention permits colleagues to fabricate shared belief by putting the contention inside the setting of the bigger objective of the group and the association.

It is the team manager's responsibility to set goals for the team members. The goals set should go in hand with the organization's objectives. However, you must ensure that the team understands these goals. Nonetheless, the goals must be recognized and accepted by everyone, supported, be challenging and also achievable. The team members should as well be involved in setting the target goals for your different groups because the more involved they are the more committed they will be to your mission (Williams, 2002).

Cross-functional teams experience problems even before they get to the performance stage. Conflicts can arise between team members. To succumb this problem, the team manager should use the collaborating technique. Collaboration integrates concepts introduced by different members. This technique assists in finding the best solution acceptable by all team members. Collaboration can help create a virtual team. This can be achieved by regularly engaging your team members in regular meetings and even creating a working environment without blames. With this, you will improve trust and collaboration.

How you relate to people in your team helps you understand their style as well as your way of dealing with conflict (Wolfe, 1996). At the point when two individuals of various styles live or cooperate, either one or both of you have to adjust. In the event that neither adjusts to the next, correspondence will fall apart, the collaboration will decline, the connection will be strained, and also in work circumstances efficiency will definitely drop.

Conflict management aims at limiting and reducing the negative impacts of a conflict. Managing conflict facilitates the group outcomes and effectiveness. There are five stages of conflict management; competing, collaborating, accommodating, avoiding and compromising. According to (Dubrin 2001), conflict resolutions tend to rely on each other more than others. For instance, collaborating is the most used to settle interpersonal conflicts than the other four strategies. Collaboration helps in promoting creative conflict solving techniques in an organization. Several advantages are attained by the team if these strategies are correctly utilized. They allow the team to satisfy the other parties, solve conflicts using solutions that satisfy all team members, and collaborate with other groups by understanding their concerns and also not giving much attention to the conflict.

Conflicts that needs management is neither bad nor good. In every resolution, there can be negative and positive impacts. It can be damaging yet can likewise assume a profitable part for your connections in both professional and personal. The vital point is to deal with the contention, not to overpower conflict and not to give struggle a chance to go out of control (Sawczuk, 1996).

The Role of Team Building to an Organization

Team building in an organization helps create job opportunities in different units for new employees. It will likewise be an open door to exchange idea, and also give members a better feeling of pride in the interior operations of the organization (Pokras, 1995). Strong groups are the establishment of an elite association and building up those groups is an exertion that requires one to be reliable. To construct a high performing group you should have a clear vision of what you need to achieve (Cook, 2009). Nonetheless, a high performing team can be obstructed by an organization behavior regardless of how powerful they are. The association neglecting to expel their hierarchical framework can block a team's performance. However, management should agree on all ideas regarding product development with the team members.

Reference

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Tanner, K. (2008). The entrepreneur's guide to hiring and building the team. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological bulletin, 63(6), 384.

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Wolfe, R. L. (1996). Systematic succession planning: Building leadership from within. Menlo Park, Calif: Crisp Publications.

Williams, J. (2002). Team development for high-tech project managers. Boston: Artech House.