Section: CONTINUING Education
Team leaders carry the ultimate responsibility for the success of their groups. But what if you're a worker bee, not the queen? What is your role as a team player? And how can you ensure that your participation contributes in a positive way to your team's performance?
The team approach to organizing work and people evolved among American businesses in the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to overseas competition during the previous two decades. Faced with the need to reduce costs while improving quality and service, company leaders sought to eliminate layers of management by putting authority for decision-making and problem-solving in the hands of personnel who worked closely with production and customer service. For many companies, the transition to self-directed work teams resulted in cost savings as well as increased productivity, quality and customer satisfaction.
The Saturn Corporation, for example, is one organization that reaped huge benefits from self-directed work teams. The teams worked so well that they created a new division with a new product -- the Saturn automobile -- that has gained wide market acceptance.
On the job, teams manage their own work, assuming responsibilities once fulfilled by supervisory staff. This overhaul of organizational structure holds strong implications for today's work force. Employees who are assigned to teams must serve multiple roles at different times serving as communications specialists, public relations representatives, financial analysts, quality control managers, researchers, trainers, mediators, negotiators, coaches, students, confidants, advisers and counselors.
Your role on any team, committee or work group will vary according to your skills and talents. It also will vary according to your relative position to the other team members, determined by such factors as seniority, experience and authority. But regardless of where you fit in the hierarchy, certain behaviors will enhance your value to the team. Unfortunately, other behaviors can interfere with the team's mission.
Ways to Help the Team
Like most employees you probably accepted your current job with a desire and intention to do a good job. Perhaps you came to your employer armed with job skills learned in school, training centers or previous employment. But if your new company has adopted the team management approach, you'll need additional skills that help you contribute to the team environment.
When you're assigned to a work team, you'll increase your usefulness to your employer by following these guidelines to make the most of your participation.
• Focus on the goal. Ask your team leader to define your group's objectives. Then, make a personal commitment to work toward those goals. That may seem simple advice. But ineffective teams often contain members working on their own agendas, pulling the team in different directions. Be sure you understand and keep in mind the "big picture."
• Work toward consensus. Everyone on the team need not agree on every issue, but the more agreement that exists, the better the team will perform. According to a study that included 159 managers in 14 countries published in Organizational Science, successful teams move in the direction of more consensus. Consensus means that most of the team members accept the group decision, regardless of their individual opinions general agreement, in a sense, rather than 100 percent uniformity.
"In the beginning, members of top management teams should realize that agreements and disagreements among members concerning the market environment are simultaneously possible, allowing the same reality to be perceived by team members in different but complementary ways," says Martin J. Kilduff, professor of management in the Pennsylvania State University' Smeal College of Business Administration and one of the authors of the study. The study entitled "Top Management -- Team Diversity and Firm Performance: Examining the Role of Cognition" also was authored by Reinhard Angelmar, professor of marketing at the European Institute of Business Administration, and Ajay Mehra, assistant professor of management at the University of Cincinnati.
"High-performing teams tend to start out with tolerance for divergent views concerning what actions might be possible," Kilduff says. "Low-performing teams tend to have much less tolerance for creative interpretations."
• Speak up. If you always agree with the leader and always go along with the crowd, what are you contributing to team decisions? Your responsibilities as a team member include participating to the best of your ability -- contributing your thoughts, ideas and creativity. Hanging back when important issues are discussed lessens your effectiveness and value to the team.
In a study conducted by Bruce Barry and Greg L. Stewart, "Composition, process, and performance in self-managed groups: The role of personality," reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers found that extroverts were thought to have a greater effect on results in small group settings than introverts. So, if your team is involved in a brainstorming session, abandon the "business as usual" mentality and add your creative thoughts. When you're asked for feedback from your team leader or other team members, be honest in your evaluation and use specific examples to illustrate your opinions. Be aware, however, that not all of your ideas will gain widespread acceptance. And some of what you say may cause conflict among team members.
• Use conflict constructively. Although you want to help your team move toward consensus, that doesn't mean you should avoid conflict at all costs. Conflict is one way that new ideas emerge. It also creates an atmosphere where rules, procedures and processes are challenged and may be improved. Your role as a team player sometimes may involve disagreements with others. Just be sure that when you disagree, you are keeping the team goals in mind and offering alternative solutions to problems the group faces. And remember, you can remain polite even when you voice disagreements with others. You can well serve your team if you act as a mediator, acknowledging important points others make and showing how the points you make conform or differ from them.
• Respect age diversity. The Pennsylvania State University/University of Cincinnati/European Institute of Business Administration Team Diversity study found surprising results in the area of team composition. "People often assume that bringing together individuals diverse in ethnicity, age and job specialization will help assure diverse thinking, which in turn will contribute to increased team performance," Kilduff says. "But our data revealed that the only background diversity variable to affect firm performance was age. Paradoxically, the greater the age diversity among team members, the better the team performed. Surprisingly, we found that more diverse teams did not demonstrate diverse thinking except in a group with age diversity."
• Do your share -- and then some. Letting others do most of the work is easy -- especially when you have other nonteam assignments to complete. Successful team players realize that their roles on the team are as important as other duties they've been assigned. Team leaders know who is doing the grunt work and are likely to report this information, either formally or informally, to company officials.
• Carve out your own niche. Make your role on the team unique, so no one else can do the job exactly the way you do. Your strengths may compensate for someone else's weaknesses (and vice versa). Be sure your own job skills are up to date and up to the task at hand. Always look for ways to improve yourself in your work role. If necessary, seek additional training in your area of expertise or look for opportunities for cross-training so you can assume duties outside your usual realm of responsibility. The team may need your new expertise to perform effectively. Cross-training also helps you see issues from someone else's perspective. Keep in mind that your most important individual goal should be to help the team achieve its goals. Your contributions to the team help shape your work identity and make your role meaningful.
• Cooperate. Successful teammates see each other as friends, not foes. So encourage mutual respect. When necessary, play a support role, encouraging teammates and, if necessary, helping them fulfill their responsibilities. Your assistance may well contribute to the success of the team, as well as to the success of the team members you help. And ultimately, you'll enhance your own role on the team by helping others perform to their potential. In addition, avoid unhealthy alliances or special friendships within the group that could serve to undermine the team's purpose.
Good communication should not be limited to team meetings themselves. If your office is removed from other members, use memos, voice mail and e-mail to stay in touch with your teammates and bounce ideas off one another. However, avoid the temptation to entertain or spread rumors among team members. Be sure you are communicating accurate information. You can also facilitate communication if you sometimes serve as an interpreter of others' thoughts and ideas, especially if you understand a meaning different from the group's perception. Phrases like, "I think what Georgia is trying to say..." can help avoid misunderstandings that can lead to unnecessary conflict.
• Evaluate ideas. When you belong to a work team, part of your role is to act as a judge, weighing a variety of ideas against each other. When you perform this role, be sure to act also as a fact finder, analyst, quality expert and auditor. While two ideas put forward may seem equal on their faces, they may pose quite different problems or opportunities if adopted by the team. Use your critical thinking skills to assess your own and others' ideas or proposals.
• Exhibit team spirit. A positive attitude and genuine appreciation for other team members will make your work together more productive and more enjoyable. Compliment teammates for their contributions to successes, and avoid blaming individuals for setbacks.
Behaviors to Avoid
Even team members with the best intentions can, at times, fall into patterns of behavior that detract from the team's mission. So here are some behaviors to avoid when you're working in a group environment:
• Talking too much. No one team member should monopolize team meetings or actions. Avoid the temptation to comment on every subject just to hear your own voice. One strategy is to make a note of a point you'd like to make and wait to see if one of your teammates brings it up first. Then, when you do speak, you'll know you're making a contribution that no one else has thought of.
• Beating a dead horse. Staying on a topic too long is counterproductive. If you notice that the conversation is repeating itself, suggest to the team leader that the group move on to the next item on the agenda. Again, avoid repeating points others have already made.
• Being unclear. If a topic is important enough to discuss, it's important to discuss openly. Avoid couching criticism, for example, in euphemistic phrases. Being vague is not only a poor communication strategy, likely to cause confusion at best, it's also a waste of everyone's time. Instead offer specific and constructive suggestions.
• Changing the subject. While the team leader likely will steer the agenda of a group meeting, you can help keep the team on track by sticking to the topic at hand, rather than changing the subject before the group is ready to move on. So stay on point until an item is completed. If you're afraid you'll forget something important, write yourself a reminder note and bring up the new idea at a more appropriate time.
• Making criticism personal. Even your best friend can come up with a rotten idea. And the person you least like can have a good one. If you disagree with something, be sure to explain your objection in terms of the thought, not the person who presented it.
• Taking criticism personally. Keep in mind that not all your ideas are golden. But if someone seems not to like something you've contributed to the group, avoid feeling personal rejection. The item being criticized is likely just one of many ideas you may have. Accept the criticism and work to come up with something new.
• Dragging out action points. Teams are established to get things done, not just discuss them. Encourage the group to make decisions and take action as necessary. Delays can limit later options and may add expense to a project. Be sure nothing you do hampers the forward motion of the team.
What is Synergy?
If you follow these guidelines, you'll contribute to your team's synergy, the effect that can be explained as the "the whole being greater than the sum of the parts." Often, effective teams find that they work better together than they could have as individuals. For example, a team may have a bigger impact on increased profits or customer satisfaction than can a single team member working alone. That's why the concept of teamwork enjoys such popularity it today's workplace.
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By Mary-Lane Kamberg