Sample on Developing Successful Business Management Teams

Question: Analyse the value of using theoretical models when building successful business teams? Answer: Introduction Various organizations have focused on developing organizational teams for ensuring successful achievement of the SMART goals and objectives. This paper has significantly focused on analyzing the important characteristics of a successful business team. The importance of team role has been discussed in this paper. Moreover, different team development phases are identified. It is essential to motivate the team members in order to ensure success of the team. Open communication and conflict resolution process have significant implication for the team. Additionally, this paper has also emphasized on discussing different techniques for monitoring the performance of an organization. Development of Model for Building Successful Business Team Presently, various organizations focus on development of successful business team for meeting its objectives. In order to establish successful teams, it is very important to understand the dynamics of team and essential features of effective team. Characteristics of Successful Business Teams Clear team Objectives: The purpose of a team must be clearly communicated to its members. The team leader will be responsible for setting goals and objectives by discussing with all the team members. Once the vision of the team is clear to the members, they will be focused in the pursuit of the team objective in order to ensure organizational success. Commitment of Team Members: The team members must be committed to the core values and unified goals. It significantly influences the performance of team as it help in making the team members self conscious about their activities. Commitment of the team members ensures the achievement of the organizational goals. Open Communication and Collaborative Environment: Open communication is crucial for the success of the team. In a team, all effort of all the members gets counted and sharing of ideas and knowledge are very important for enhancing the effectiveness of team. Often a task is fragmented into several parts and different team members are engaged in performing those jobs according to their expertise. Integration of job requires effective communication and cooperation of the team members to enhance overall performance of the team (Dyer, Dyer and Dyer, 2013). Consensus Decision Making: Mutual respect among the team members is very important and they must give importance to perspective and ideas of others for optimizing the performance of team. While decisions are taken regarding team activities, strategies or other team related things, all the team members must be encouraged and decision will be made after reaching consensus. Thus, all the members will feel valued and get motivated (De Jong and Elfring, 2010). Effective Leadership: The team leader is responsible for guiding the team towards the right direction and the leader must adopt effective approach to manage the team members. Another important task of the team leader is to motivate its team members (Lee et al., 2010). Effective Conflict Resolving Mechanism: As people from various background and different expertise work together in a team, conflict is considered to be natural part of team process. It is very important to identify the conflict at initial stage and then can apply an effective conflict resolving mechanism so that it does not affect the team performance. Importance of Team Roles in Successful Business Teams A business team is consisted of people with different expertise and they play distinct role within a team. According Belbin, team roles can be described as a tendency to communicate, contribute as well as behave with others in a specific manner. Identification of the team roles significantly contribute in identification of the strength for capitalizing it and the weakness for improving it. Basically, there are three major types of roles: action oriented, people oriented and thought oriented. (Belbins Team Roles) In case of Vigor Skin Care, a team was developed with three people and significantly contributed in the growth of the company. The CEO, Peter Markles had identified the need of developing a team in order to rejuvenate the organization. Peter plays an action oriented role for putting the idea in action (implementer) and he had also challenged the team for enhancing its performance (shaper). Another team member was Sandy Fryda and she was the marketing director of the company. She has developed several marketing strategies that significantly helped in the growth of the organization. Sandy has played though oriented roles and acted as a plant by presenting new ideas and approaches. Third member was Josh Bartola and he was engaged in new product development. He was a specialized and his specialized skills were deployed for accelerating the rejuvenation of the organization (Farmer, Yellowley and Smith, 2012). Value of Using Theoretical Models The concepts learnt from the theoretical models must be applied while developing business teams. Theoretical model has identified different leaders: task oriented and people oriented or may be combination of these two. Production and people are the two major aspects of concern for the leaders. According to the Blake and Moutons Leadership grid, status quo style is the balanced approach for leadership and the leader is concerned about both production and people. In real life situation the leader must consider these aspects and identify his major concern for developing strategies. This theory can be applied in real life while developing business teams. In order to ensure the success of business teams, Belbins team roles can be applied. Thus, the management will be able to capitalize the distinct role and performance of each team member. Theoretical models significantly help in formation of business tem through specific stages. Therefore, the group cohesion and communication among the t eam members help in achieving the goals and objectives of team. Providing Support for Team Development Stages of Team Development Team development is consisted of different stages and successful business teams need to undergo the four stages. Tuckmans team formation theory can be applied for developing a business team. Each step of the team development is discussed in this section. Forming: Forming is the first step where the team members get assembled and focus on recognizing the purpose and setting goals. The team members start interacting and gets involved in planning. In this stage the members decide what needs to be done. Storming: Storming is the second phase where the team members start to discuss the task and share ideas. The relationship among the team members may get changed during this phase. Norming: In the norming stage, the team achieves stability. In this stage the team members are ready to takeover responsibilities and focus on avoiding conflict. Performing: The last stage is performing where the team starts performing well. The plans are implemented in this phase in order to achieve the desired result. According to Leigh and Maynards, there are six stages of team development which is consisted of starting, sorting, stabilizing, striving, succeeding and stopping. In case of Vigor Skin Care, Peter developed the team with Sandy and Josh. Peter spent significant time to develop bonding with the team members and they started sharing ideas for rejuvenating the company. Therefore, the team developed effective strategies which boosted growth in the organization and those strategies worked well. Motivating Team Members or Achieving Objectives Motivating the team members is crucial for ensuring success of the team. Motivation provides the energy as well as desire for working towards the specific goals. Motivation helps in enhancing the productivity of the team members. Motivation influences a person for leading towards the activities in the desired behavior. Maslow had proposed the hierarchy of needs and fulfillment of the lower level needs trigger the individual to recognize the higher level needs. Basic needs are referred to the physiological need. Thereafter, the two important psychological needs are safety needs and social needs. Upon successful achievement of these three needs, an individual recognizes the self fulfillment needs: self esteem and self actualization (Arvinen-Muondo and Perkins, 2013). The two factor model of Herzberg has classified two distinct factors that are involved in motivation. Hygiene factors include good working environment, salary, fringe benefits, security etc and absence of these factor create dissatisfaction among the employees. Hence, it is very important to ensure that these factors are fulfilled. The motivational factors such as recognition, challenging job, responsibility etc has helped in enhancing job satisfaction and personal growth. Hence, these intrinsic motivational factors must be present for developing a successful team (Javadi et al., 2012). In case of Vigor Skin Care one team members is found to be engaged with activities of other department and another team member is found to be stressed and exhausted. While developing a team, Peter must share the organizational vision with the teammates so that they work together for achieving the glory of reaching the vision. Effective communications with the team members make them feel valued which is essential for obtaining commitment. The activities of individual must be appreciated and creativity needs to be encouraged through giving an opportunity for growth. Mutual support as well as trust is the most important factors in a team (Baek and Jung, 2014). The team members are getting frustrated and unhappy. In this situation, team spirit must be created and maintained at the workplace. Re-motivating the team members through enhanced communication and explaining their role along with contribution in the organization will be effective. Open Communication among Team Members Open communication is an essential aspect of the successful business team. In a team, the members work together for achieving mutual goals (Sarker et al., 2011). The activities of an individual within a team are dependent on others. Hence, effective communication is considered to be indispensable factor for ensuring team success. In case of Vigor Skin Care, the team had lost its spirit and the team performance started declining when the communication was disrupted. It was found that one of the members avoided the meetings and he was found to be busy with the activities of other departments. It has been found that Sandy was stressed and frustrated. She did not respond to the phone calls and e-mails. Lack of enthusiasm and communication created problem for the team as well as the organization. In order to encourage open communication in Vigor Skin Care, frequent team meetings must be scheduled so that the teammates can be encouraged to participate in the organizational activities. Informal communication can be encouraged through asking personal well being. Thus the stress and frustration can be resolved and team members will be encouraged to take part in the communication. Moreover, each member must share his own idea and ask for recommendations and feedback instead of imposing his personal decision. This gesture will make others feel valued and they will take part in open communication. Regular updates regarding important issues must be shared with the team members which will encourage them get engaged into the organizational procedures. In this manner, open communication can be encouraged in Vigor Skin Care. Conflict Resolution among Team Members Conflict is a common phenomenon of business teams and it creates a negative as well as positive impact on the performance of the team on the basis of its nature and severity. Conflict arises when an individual shares different point of view within a team. Business teams must focus on resolving the conflict at the initial stage. First of all, the conflict must be acknowledged instead of ignoring it. A healthy discussion can be initiated to encourage all the team members to reflect upon the issue. Therefore, the major impacts of the conflict must be discussed. After that, effective communication is required to search for the alternatives. Brainstorming sessions will be conducted for identification of the strength as well as weaknesses of each proposed. In the conflict resolution mechanism all the concerned parties must be engaged during the procedure. Each movement must be transparent so that everybody can express their personal view. At the end, consensus must be achieved for resolving the issue. Negotiation strategies are very effective in order to resolve the conflict at workplace. The team members can negotiate on a particular issue in a systematic manner. Win-win negotiation is considered to be an effective strategy for resolving the conflict (Tung and Chang, 2011). In case of Win-Win negotiation, both t he parties get satisfied as some of their demands are fulfilled. Thus, everybody feels valued and encouraged to play their role in the team and organization. If the team members are not satisfied with the solution, it will have a negative impact on the productivity and performance. Generally, conflict resolution is found to be a lengthy process and when the conflict is resolved it must be acknowledged and celebrated for developing team cohesion. Thus, the team members will be motivated to perform better. Monitoring Team Performance Monitoring team performance is considered to be an important aspect for ensuring success of the business teams. Generally, the performance of a team is evaluated on the basis of the goals and objectives of the teams. Methods for Monitoring Team Performance Performance of a team is measured on the basis of corporate goals and SMART objectives set for the team. Automated Recoding of Workflow: It will help in recoding the level of output of a particular team and the team leader can easily monitor the performance of the team in terms of productivity. This technique is found to be appropriate in case of manufacturing industries. Manual Recoding of Workflow: The team members can keep a track of their own activities so that the team leader for analyzing the productivity. Sampling of Output: The quality of the product needs to be analyzed along with the production by the team leader. Key Performance Indicators: Key performance indicators must be developed for analyzing the performance of the team. Recommendations for Improving Performance against Given Objectives Performance of the team members can be improved against the given objectives with the aid of the following strategies and initiatives. It can be recommended that Peter must take the following initiatives: First of all, it is important to explain the goal and objectives along with the specific role of each team members. It will significantly help in performing the tasks efficiently. Conducting meetings after regular intervals will be helpful in discussing the issues as well as revised strategies and plans with the concerned people. Additionally, it will enhance the level of communication which crucial for the success of team. Open communication must be encouraged within the team so that the benefits of teamwork can be capitalized. Regular monitoring of the individual activities will help in tracking the progress of the activities. Deviation from the desired level of activities will be assessed and necessary steps must be taken in order to improve the performance to the desired level. Conflicts within the team must not be ignored and the team leaders must take proactive initiatives in order to resolve the issue. Thus the overall performance can be impro