Managers should recognise the strength of teams and teamwork if they want to fully use the energies and skills of their staff.
What kinds of teams are there?
There are several types of team. They include:
- interdisciplinary teams
- quality teams
- task groups
- project teams or work groups.
We’ll look at each of these now.
Interdisciplinary teams
Interdisciplinary teams are made of people from different specialities or functions within an organisation. They meet to look after a common subject, such as health and safety issues or work planning and performance. These teams are often called committeesbecause they continue for long periods.
Quality teams
Quality teams are usually made up of people from the same functional area. These people work together to improve the quality of the product or service they produce.
Task groups
Task groups are like project teams. They exist for a specified period to achieve something. When they have finished their task they disband as a group and the members might join other task groups or go back to concentrate on their own work.
Project teams or work groups
Work groups or teams are based in the workplace itself. Their role is to produce goods or services. Many produce services for internal clients. Examples of work groups in a workplace include librarians, the computer helpdesk or word processing specialists.
Managing a team
Task groups, project teams and work groups are often led by a manager. The manager might need to allocate the work. They also need the cooperation and participation of all team members.
Managers need to be aware of the stages teams or groups go through. These strategies are:
- Forming: people meet and gradually form into a group.
- Storming: the group then assesses the strengths of the people in it. Some become leaders.
- Norming: once the storming is over the group or team starts to work together. Its standards are developed.
- Performing: it is only now that the team can be really productive or perform.
- Adjourning: eventually a team has to disband and its members go on to do something else.
example
You could expect a team at the performing stage to be loyal to each other because they have been through the storming and norming stages. Close-knit and functional teams are productive teams. Managers should welcome this spirit of group loyalty and learn to benefit from it.
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