To put this into practice we had to know each other better, set up rules, allocate tasks and find an appropriate way to communicate. “Work hard to achieve success and to match the ‘Best in business” is our team’s mission we all identify with.
Trust Building
Our group members by now had quite different working experiences in different sectors. These different cultural backgrounds allowed us to become a fairly distinct team and to represent different point of views and to learn from each other. We needed to build a certain amount of trust among us to create an atmosphere of intellectual approach to whatever problems we were suppose to face in future.
Goal Clarification
Before setting up the Goals and Objective for the team we need to understand the Team and follow a particular working model for better efficiency. We found Management By Objective Model to be best suited for our style of working.
“A systematic and organized approach that allows management to focus on achievable goals and to attain the best possible results from available resources.”
Vadim Kotelnikov (www.1000ventures.com)
Why M.B.O?
Just like mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the composition of our group is absolute diverse. Consequently, the advantage and disadvantage will exist simultaneously. How to get the cohesiveness point in short time will be the crucial challenge for all group members. The task for the group, in short term, is additive nature. Group assignment and presentations are all this kind of temporary pursuit. But in long-term view, it should be disjunctive nature. Improvement of our ability in management skill individually will be more challengeable target. This is determined by the most capable member self. So according to the characteristic of our team, MBO will be the most workable model for our group. There are two reasons for it:
- The MBO style is based on competent group member to work together and its synergy will rely on each group member actively contribution. This is entirely congruent with our group nature.
- Through MBO model, each group member has a chance to practice manager basic functions: planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Daft, op cit) during teamwork. Even we have got a leader by now, the objective-oriented, flexible structure can donate individual advantage in the most extent in the daily working and learning.
The under listed realistic and achievable objectives were set by unanimous decision:
- To obtain good grades.
- To undertake a more research oriented approach to assignments
- Draws on the strength of others
- Establishing a good team sprit
- Learning from each other.
- Contribution to group work
- Developing an innovation approach to work.
- Going beyond the theories.
Commitment
Setting out afore-mentioned objectives are in line with the goal-setting theory by Lockie. According to Lockie and Latham (1990) goal is a future target or an end result that an individual or organisation wishes to achieve. Goal setting works by directing attention and action, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence and encouraging the development of strategies to achieve the goals. These goals are achievable when guided by rules.
The following rules were therefore made:
- Be punctual to all meetings
- Meet deadlines
- Respect each other’s views
- Criticise constructively
- Be honest
- Communicate any relevant information to members in the group.
- Do not prejudge individual or cultures.
- Be cautious in dealing with group members.
- Draw on strengths of others.
Implementation
The Group Leader and the Deputy Group Leader were in charge of the tasks like setting up an agenda for the regular meetings, keeping record of the group attendance, taking minutes, compiling and distributing notes, monitoring and evaluating team performance, problem solving, decision taking, to call up ad-hoc discussions if problems arise in last minute, motivating and encouraging all group members to work together closely, giving praise when it was due.
The responsibilities of the other group members were to respect the rules set up, to share business-related knowledge which might be integrated in our different assignments, to contribute in meetings as well as during the lectures as much as possible and looking for case studies which might be used for further discussions.
High Performance
Success or failure can be used to describe a team after a given task. That does not mean that a successful team may not have some form of limitations after a period under consideration. The success of a team requires the collection effort of each member. Success however can only be pronounced after a critical and objective evaluation. It is therefore expedient that team members are held accountable for their performance in the team.
To have a fair assessment of each member of the group, that is reducing subjectivity, Landy’s (1985) Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) has been used with some of the skill Farr (1991:15) proposed that employers value in their employees. BARS rate people very high, moderate, and low. Elite 5 matched these rating scales against the under-mentioned skills. See Table 1.
Table 1.1 Elite 5 Group Performance Rating Scale
Fig1.2
Renewal
After reviewing the Evaluation Chart, we found out that our performance as a group has really enhanced during this semester. When we looked into it a bit closer we found the following Strengths and Weaknesses of our team.
Strengths:
We were communicating very well now
The Goals accomplishment percentage was about 70%
The tasks were shared equally among all of us
We are now more adaptable than before
Weaknesses:
But we found out that we were lacking in the area of innovative thinking
Responsibilities were at times not shared properly
Outcomes of the group work were sometimes not satisfactory.
We lacked self-confidence on few occasions
These were encouraging signs and had given us the right sort of platform to work upon in the next semester. The important part is that we are aware of our weaknesses and strengths and we are looking forward to take the challenges of the next semester.
What Next?
End of the semester1 was approaching and we were looking ahead for new challenges waiting for us in the manifolds of M.B.A. This was the right time to have a closer insight into our overall performance in the semester and fine tune our further strategies. We came out with few recommendations for our team, which will give our team a sharper edge over others in the next semester.
We need to:
- Enhance our capabilities to be more innovative
- Be more responsible towards our job
- Strengthen our belief in ourselves, to have a more positive approach
- To be more inquisitive towards the theories and try to get more from them
- Make more efforts to involve other groups to share the knowledge platform with us
- Come out with FLYING COLOURS!
“Most potential teams can become real teams, but not without taking risks involving conflicts, trust, interdependence, and hard work”
[Katzenbach J.R and Smith D.K, The Wisdom of Teams]
References:
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Katzenbach J.R and Smith D.K (1999) The Wisdom of Teams, U.K
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Locke and Latham(1984) Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique that works, London, Prentice Hall
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