Building innovative teams with creative people

Dr. K. Kuhathasan - CEO: Cenlead

An innovative team is one whose members:

* Have a common goal that rallies their resources, energy, talents and skills. They believe in what they’re trying to do.

* Set their own objectives, instead of having them dictated by somebody outside the group.

* Agree on quality, quantity cost and time standards. Each member has both oars in the water and is pulling in the same direction.

* Develop guidelines for behaviour and performance that are enforced through peer pressure. Team members keep each other in line.

Today’s technology and work processes have done much to help teams flourish in offices and factories. Business procedures have grown complex and interdependent in the last couple of decades. They’re often too difficult for one person to handle successfully.

Process/ operational inefficiencies. Traditional methods of designing, engineering, and manufacturing superior - quality products haven’t worked very well since the 1970s. Companies that subscribed to the Lone Ranger school of management found that critical departments-and even employees who worked in the same department-were often isolated from one another philosophically if not physically.

Better use of human resources. Management also better appreciates how team work can unify the power of people. Teamwork unleashes a creativity, encourages synergy and satisfies social needs.

Groups can define and solve problems more creatively. Teams are good for morale and motivation, too. People generally don’t like to work in isolation. When teams really click, their members share a contagious feeling of unity, purpose and identity. They enjoy a sense of achievement and personal worth (“I can see that I’m needed and appreciated”).

Teams, also help companies to:

* Encourage and foster participation from everyone. Employees have more opportunities to make meaningful contributions.

* Advance ideas of total quality management and continuous process improvement across all departmental boundaries.

* Respond faster to market conditions, problems, opportunities and customers’ demands and expectations.

* Make more decisions by consensus - which gives them widespread acceptance, support and credibility.

Team leadership

A team needs a leader. A team leader does not tell others “what to do”. Through his or her position in the organization, he helps set the direction for the team. The leader helps the team get the resources and information it needs to perform its tasks.

A team leader is the person responsible for assuring that people should to work together to achieve a goal or objective. A leader does not coerce, but rather facilitates the cooperation necessary for the team to perform well.

The leader is a role model for other members. By the leader’s willingness to cooperate and collaborate with others, he or she sets the tone how others should also cooperate and collaborate. Rather than having power, the team leader works hard at empowering others. The team leader is also the person who helps keep the team focused on its goals.

Cultivate leadership qualities

No matter what your official job description says, team members and higher management will expect-and in some cases demand - that you honour certain expectations and cultivate the qualities of a sound team leader. Some are personal, others are professional, all are key ingredients in your recipe for success. Prepare yourself to:

* Communicate your organization’s goals in terms that your teammates can understand and will support on a personal level. Effective team leaders sell employees on teamwork by showing them “what’s in it for you”.

* Establish your reputation as an evenhanded, people-oriented manager who’s patient, level-headed, and reliable.

* Motivate employees to elevate group goals above personal goals and group rewards above individual rewards.

* Act as a champion of change.

* Be results-oriented, not methods-oriented. Effective team leaders provide general direction. They focus on what the team must do, not how it’ll do it. The how, in fact, is often left up to team members to decide - and rightfully so.

Observe your team closely

You may have identified that a larger part of your job is to be a process monitor and remote control leader. Team leaders are adept at assessing how team-mates relate to and interact with one another. They identify patterns of behaviour that should be encouraged and nurtured.

They also watch out for conduct that should be discouraged or eliminated because it impairs the team’s effectiveness. Successful leaders constantly observe and analyze at least three aspects of their team.

Collective team needs Assess your team’s needs for direction, vision, guidance, authority, reassurance, recognition and resources. Satisfy those needs as thoroughly as possible. You’ll be called upon to build communication bridges, tear down barriers, and facilitate interaction among the members of your team and enhance their relationships with other teams. You’ll also have to lead your teammates to challenge their opinions and their performance when they’re reluctant to do so.

Individual member dynamics. Here you have to dig beneath the surface and look at the forces that influence individual members of your team and make them tick. These include, for example:

* Key personality traits.

* Experience and skills each member contributes to the team and training and development that would improve the value of each as team players.

* Personal prejudges (which may be either positive or negative, depending on the person’s nature)

* Rewards people expect to receive from team membership.

* Needs for status and recognation.

* Degree of commitment to the team’s success.

* Willingness to share their views and speak their minds, especially in the face to criticism and peer pressure.

The group’s dynamics. Here you stepped back and looked at the forest instead of trees. While acknowledging the interplay of individual member dynamics, you also have to assess how teammates relate to the team as a unit. This calls for you to:

* Recognize major opinion leaders on your team.

* Identify subgroups and factions that may favour or oppose the team’s identity, unity, and goals.

* Map channels of communication, patterns of influence and informal alliances that arise among team members.

* Assess the team’s tolerance for minority viewpoints.

* Identify interpersonal conflicts and turf wars among members who may pursue the same responsibilities or takes

* Evaluate the team’s ability to assess its work objectively and act challenging goals.

Some basic Team work skills

Teams are always organized around some process. For example, a team may be responsible for part of a manufacturing process or for the development of new products. To do their work team members need a variety of skills. There are four categories of skills that are common to all teams:

Functional/ Technical Skills. For any team to do its work, its members must have expertise in the skills required to do the work. For example, if a team is constructing a house, it is necessary for the team members to have skills in carpentry, electricity, plumbing and similar areas.

Interpersonal Skills. The ability to get long with people in general and other members of the team in particulars is clearly a vital skill to facilitate team work. Even one member of a team who doesn’t get along well with others can disrupt and distract the energies of a whole team.

Training in team work often includes information and exercises aimed at helping improve their inter-personal skills.

Problem-Solving Skills. Processes never operate without problems and without opportunities to make improvements.

There are several tools and techniques team members can use to better understand processes, identify the causes of problem and make improvements. This is another area in the curriculum of team work training.

Decision-Making Skills. Team members need to attain consensus around a course of action. This means they have to know how to work together to identify options and come to shared agreement on which options make the most sense.

Your functions as a team leader

Task functions involve:

* Achieving the objectives of the work group.

* Defining group tasks.

* Planning the work.

* Allocating resources.

* Organizing duties and responsibilities.

* Controlling quality and checking performance.

* Reviewing progress.

Team functions involve:

* Maintaining morale and building team spirit.

* The cohesiveness of the group as a working unit.

* Setting standards and maintaining discipline.

* Systems of communication within the group.

* Training the group.

* Appointment of sub-leaders.

Individual functions involve:

* Meeting the needs of the individual members of the group.

* Attending to personal problems.

* Giving praise and status.

* Reconciling conflict between group needs and needs of the individual.

* Training the individual.

Effective team leaders

* Are completely relative to the content of the team’s work.

* Know-how things get done and how to get things done in their host environment.

* Are they practical. They make things obvious, not abstract.

* Are result-oriented, tough as needed and focused on key issues.

* Understand the importance of “process” (how well team works together) for team success.

* Keep objectives clear and prioritized.

* Set well defined expectations that encourage team members to “stretch”

*Are time and excellent communicators.

* Are reasoned and deliberate, not rash and emotional.

* Are flexible in their own personal style.

* Acknowledge their own weakness.

* Are comfortable with conflicts and skilled in its resolution.

* Welcome diversity and encourage debate.

* Assure that appropriate information and people are brought into decision-making/ problems-solving processes.

* Are inclined to help.

* Celebrate team successes.

Are ethical