Characteristics of Successful Business Teams
Characteristics of successful business teams
The modern global environment has become highly competitive in nature due to the advent of free trade and developing a successful business team is essential for gaining competitive advantage in the market. In order to develop a successful business team, certain characteristics have to be developed. The first characteristics of a successful team is effective communication between the team members. In a successful business team, the team members communicate with each other openly by sharing their opinions, ideas and thoughts (Lisak and Erez 2015). Moreover, they take into consideration, the opinion of other members of the team. Communication is essential for keeping a track of the status and progress of tasks or projects on which the team is working on and increases the overall effectiveness of the project. Poor communication between the team members leads to the development of cross wires which results in conflict and in competencies in the project (Levi 2015). The next point is development of goals of the teams based on the results and outcomes. Setting up of clear sets of goals and objectives provides a direction and plan of these objectives with effective contribution from each of the team members. This improves the collective aim of the team and results in better achievement of the objectives and outputs.
The next characteristics is contribution of the team members effectively and effective team members contributes their fair share. They are aware of their roles and responsibilities so they fit in perfectly into the business operations. These team members have high sense of belonging and care about the organization’s success. A team should comprise of diverse team members where every team member will have their unique set of abilities and contribute to the business by providing their specialized knowledge and experiences (Krumm et al. 2016). The variety in cultures, age groups and personalities will bring in creativity within the organization. Good leadership is another important criteria for developing a successful business team and an effective leader binds the team together. The leader sets the pace of the work and offers motivation to all the employees for increasing their productivity (Arasti, Zandi and Bahmani 2014). A successful business team will be well organized and the team member should have able to manage their time effectively to promote smooth running of the business. Business teams have to be also competitive, accountable and responsible towards the work they do which helps the team to progress further. Ajman free zone has to incorporate all these factors in increasing the export and import in Ajman (Afz.gov.ae. 2018).
Effective Communication
A result and outcome of the performance of the team depends on the behavior of the teams. There are diverse roles of the team members such as monitors, evaluators, coordinators, implementations and plants. The plants solve the issues faced by the team in unconventional manner due to their nature of creativity. The evaluators and monitors will analyze the issue to offer different solutions to the problem and address the objective of the study (Mathieu 2015). The coordinators will monitor the overall operation of the business team and the implementers will effectively and efficiently execute the alternate plan. Therefore, it is essential to identify the roles of the team members to effectively match the skills of the employees with the business requirements. This is essential for developing balance between the teams. Cohesiveness is also essential for effective performance of a team and teams can be made more cohesive by recognizing the roles of the individuals. In order to attain cohesiveness among the team members, mutual and collective commitment, coordination and cooperation will result in success of the team. The team have to be familiar with each other’s roles so that they can complement each other (Aga, Noorderhaven and Vallejo 2016). Familiarity among team members also ensures enhancement of team performance as they are able to engage and share information for developing constructive business solutions. Moreover, it is necessary that all the team members have been defined a given team role so that they are able to meet the business objectives and their personal objectives effectively. These factors show the importance of segregating the team roles within the teams for developing effective business environment (Hajro, Gibson and Pudelko 2017).
As per the theory mentioned by Belbin’s Team roles model, team roles have been divided into three groups. These groups are people oriented, action oriented and thought oriented. The interpersonal strengths and weaknesses of team members needs to be considered while assigning specific roles to each member (Eubanks et al. 2016). The first role is the shapers, they bring the dynamic element into the team and responsible for stimulating the other team members. However, these people are argumentative and question the action of each member which may result in conflict. The next role is implementors and they execute the plans developed by the team and transform the thoughts and ideas into reality. These kinds of people are well organized, efficient and systematic but are not flexible and resist change. The last role in action orientation is complete finisher that monitor the project to check if all the requirements have been met or not and whether are any errors or not. However, these people have the tendency to worry all the time and difficult to convince them. This shows as per the action of the team members; these roles are crucial as they play an important role in making the team successful (Meslec and Cur?eu 2015). As per the people orientation, coordinators, team workers and resource investigators are the three roles of the team members. The coordinators are the people that play the role of the leader and offer guidance to the team. These people are calm and manage things effectively. However, these people may tend to be manipulative and give away too much of their own responsibilities to others. The team workers provide support and facilitate in smooth operation of the team. These people are perceptive, diplomatic and flexible which helps in team cohesion. They are however, indecisive and uncommitted positions in making decisions (Mathieu et al. 2015). The next role is the resource investigator that brings in innovation and helps the team acquire all the resources they need by communicating with the external stakeholders. These people are definitely a key face in fulfilling the team goal. However, these people tend to lose their enthusiasm easily and are quite optimistic. In respect to thought orientation, it has already been discussed above. This shows that every individual has their strengths and weaknesses so team members having different strong suites complement each other in attaining their goals.
Goal Development
There are different types of team models for developing an effective business team. These human resource theories address each of the aspect of effective team building which is essential for successful business team development. Bruce Tuckman’s Model of Team Stages has been applied in different organizations for building teams that effectively contribute to the organization (Stout and Blair 2017). This theory divided the stages of development into four stages which enhances the overall performance of the teams. Belbin’s Theory of team roles has divided the roles of the employees as per their capabilities where each of the team members fit into their specified role. Isabel Briggs-Myers and her MBTI theory are used for measuring the perception of human beings about the world (Dutton and Ragins 2017). This test is effective for team building as team member can understand each other in a better way by evaluating the perspective of the other team members. John Adair’s Leadership theory is another theory for effective leadership and leadership is one of the key components of team building where leader acts as a motivator and guides the team in fulfilling the given objective.
Carl Jung’s Color theory is another method of identifying the behavior of a human being. This will help in understanding the reason the people behave in a certain way which is an essential component for effective team building as the team members will be able to identify each other’s point of view (Sacco 2016). Strength Theory is another theory that where continuous improvement of team work has been focused on and this facilitates in developing strong team (Shen et al. 2015). Team Analysis Theory is another means of analyzing the current team performance and identifying the lag in the team work and building. This will help in sustaining and enhancing the future performance of the team.
Stages of team development
Bruce Tuckman’s Model of Team Stages is generally used to develop an effective team. The development of any team goes through five stages while developing the team (Betts and Healy 2015). These stages are adjourning, performing, norming, storming and forming. The initial stage of team development is forming where the overall team is formed and everyone is introduced to each other. In this stage, skills of the members, their interests, backgrounds, timeline, project goals, individual roles and ground roles are discussed (Betts and Healy 2015). This stage helps in familiarizing the teams, their responsibilities and roles which enables them to understand their role in developing a successful business team. The next stage is storming where the team experiences extreme pressure for completing the task and they are frustrated by each other habits. In this phase, the team identifies and realizes each other’s flaws and liabilities and the teams have to adopt to these habits of their team members for developing an efficient team (Woodcock 2017).
Team Member Contributions
The next stage is the norming where after working for sometime, the people are to identify and appreciate each other’s strengths and weaknesses. In this stage, the team starts to work cohesively where every team member contributes effectively to meet team objectives and goals. This stage is the starting of an effective team development process where the team members starts to cooperate with each other (Largent 2016). The next stage of the team development process is the performing stage, the team members become adapted to each other’s ways of working and expertise which is due to the familiarity, motivation and confidence of the team. This is also because of the fact that everyone is on of the same page where they are driven to meet the specified goal of the project. The last stage is the adjourning stage where the team is disbanded and different teams are based on the needs of the business and arrival of new projects.
Motivating the employees of the organization is one of the essential factors developing a successful team member and fulfilling the objectives of the business. The compensation package is one of the biggest motivational factors for the team members and it is essential to develop salary structure that is equivalent to the industry standards. The next factors providing the team members with effective work environment which will be able to positively stimulate the employees. The organization will also have to provide the team members with opportunities of self-development (Maruping et al. 2015). This will consist of providing the team members with training and development facilities which will enable them to develop new skills. These also facilitates in keeping their skill levels up to date and in alignment with the industry trends. The next factor is promoting collaboration between the team members where the team members have to be encouraged to provide their valuable inputs and contribute to the development of effective solution. The leaders should also advocate democratic style of leadership by not punishing the team for their failures as failure is part of any project and the leader should focus on identifying the issues and rectifying it based so that further errors can be avoided (Pearsall and Venkataramani 2015). The leader will have to encourage the team members to try again to complete the next goal by learning from the present mistakes. The next step is setting up of clear goals and communicating it effectively to the team members. The team members should be aware of the company goals and the role they have to play in order to make the team’s performance more effective and efficient.
Leadership
The development of an effective team dependents on the communication system among them. It is essential to develop an effective open communication system where the team members will be freely giving their opinions on the conflict. The open-door policy is one such method of maintaining the level of transparency between the team members where discussion takes place in presence of the team members (Boies, Fiset and Gill 2015). This helps in developing clarity and trust among the team members. The next tool is the encouraging two-way communication where the team leaders have to communicate with the team members effectively to identify the issues faced by them and provided them valuable feedbacks to improve their level of performance. Therefore, in order to develop two-way communication, the team leader will have to develop high team spirit and morale so that a clarity can be kept between the team members (Aga, Noorderhaven and Vallejo 2016). The use of appropriate form and modes of communication is also essential for making it effective. This will consist of developing effective communication plan where the schedule of the meeting should be mentioned and effectively developed as per the work load so that every valuable information is provided to all the team members.
As stated Rebocho et al. (2017), conflict is a discord between team members when one of the members are not in agreement with the actions of the other team member. As per the Belbin’s Team roles model, it has been seen that every team member has diverse strengths and weaknesses. These weaknesses in the team members results in conflict. Conflict is pretty much evident in every team and it is essential to resolve conflicts so that it does not hamper the productivity of the team and the team members. However, conflict is essential for progress of the team and sometimes conflict can be constructive for team development and every team goes through conflicts that improves their team dynamics. The first step of the process is acknowledging the conflict between the team members. This is essential as conflict parties tend to avoid acceptance of the conflict (Folger, Poole and Stutman 2017). This means that the source of conflict needs to be identified at the initial phase. Therefore, the overall conflict has to be discussed among the team to reach and effective conclusion. This has to be done to go beyond the incident to reach the source that lead to the conflict, which means that it is essential to identify the reason of stress between the team members. The next step is discussing the impact the conflict on the team and the way it is affecting the performance and dynamics of the team. This results in the understanding between the team members about the implications of the actions. This enables them to realize and obtain solutions for mitigating the issue. The next step is development of a cooperative process where both parties have to compromise to reach a final conclusion. In order to do so, the conflict parties have to be made to communicate with other. The analysis of the situation has to be made by taking accounts of both the parties and develop solutions that will facilitate in reaching agreement. However, it is not possible to resolve conflicts at all times and therefore, managing conflicts is essential in this scenario. Therefore, in certain the instead of resolving the conflict emphasis has to be given on positioning the team in such a way that conflict between two parties does not hamper the dynamics and productivity of the whole team (Moore 2014).
Organization
Monitor the performance of a team
The monitoring of performances is essential for ensuring that the employees of the organization named Ajman Free Zone, UAE can achieve the goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness. It is always necessary to keep the performances of the employees monitored so that they do not neglect their job roles and responsibilities and can focus on the shared vision and mission of the organization. The goals and objectives should be integrated with the tasks assigned to the employees for ensuring that they work accordingly to meet the business goals and objectives (Elnaga and Imran 2013). But for that, consistent monitoring of their performances at various stages is essential along with keeping a close eye on the way they are working for managing a strong workforce and ensure maintenance of production of 2high-quality products and services effectively. For a reputed and established organization like Ajman Free Zone in UAE, it is crucial for continually monitoring the targets to be achieved (Bhave 2014). The mind map is an effective tool used to get the feedbacks and responses based on the performances and this will assist in leading the team properly and combine the various elements of the topic such as informal feedbacks, formal feedbacks, etc. The purpose of the monitoring of employee performance is to check what is happening, rather what the employees are doing and how the tasks are managed by them to improve the business performance along with its employees too (Mone and London 2018). The monitoring of team performance is done with the help of meetings, reports, action planning, product information, questionnaires distributed to the employees along with making observations, conducting interviews and even obtaining the feedbacks and complaints of the customers, based on which, necessary changes and improvements could be done (Bradler et al. 2016).
Figure: Monitoring the performance of team (Bradler et al. 2016)
A team comprises of multiple individuals and thus the views and opinions of theirs also differ, due to which, it is necessary for them to work in coordination and as an unit to bring out the best of their performance and strengthen the workforce effectiveness too at Ajman Free Zone in United Arab Emirates. One of the most effective ways of monitoring the performances of the employees is by making observations (Afz.gov.ae 2018). The team leader should handle the responsibility of observing the team members closely and check their contribution made to manage the project while at the same time, utilize their individual skills and knowledge while working on the project properly. The observations made could also assist in making sure that the targets are achieved and it could be done either formally or informally (Devonish 2013). The aim and objectives of the business organization are to improve the performance of employees and manage proper coordination at work, furthermore ensure meeting the targets within time. The formal observations are made by conducting review meetings with constant update of the project progress at regular intervals and highlighting the issues regarding the performances of employees while the informal observations are made by allowing the team leader to grab the opportunities of giving support to the employees and guide them in the right direction (Samnani and Singh 2014).
Accountability
The questionnaires are distributed consisting of some questions that are used to gather statistical data and information regarding the employees’ needs and preferences along with their satisfaction level. The questions are kept short and not confusing or complex, which are provided with options like agree, disagree, neutral, etc. for making sure that the answers are provided correctly and they can understand those with convenience. The action planning is another effective performance monitoring technique that could allow the team to remain focused on the goals and objectives where the actions are based on SMART objectives, i.e., Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound (Chang, Liu and Lin 2015).
Figure: Monitoring the performance of team (Bradler et al. 2016)
Feedbacks are important components that are assessed by the team or project leader to reflect on the performances of workers and even provide them with feedbacks so that they can change their working style whenever necessary to bring out potential outcomes that can benefit the organization as well as benefit them by allowing them progress and advance in their professional career in the future too. These are the ways by which the monitoring of employee performance has been done at Ajman Free Zone in United Arab Emirates (Decramer, Smolders and Vanderstraeten 2013).
There are few recommendations provided for improving the performance of employees and ensure meeting the objectives of better workforce performance and collaborative working among the employees of the organization. The recommendations are as follows:
- Monitoring the targets is recommended by closely identifying the major problems and issues associated with the complaints made by the employees due to lack of satisfaction with the kids of services delivered by the organization
- As the company is a free trade zone, it is also recommended to reduce the numbers of complaints made by customers through identification of efforts put forward by the employees and take immediate actions to resolve those and ensure higher level of customer satisfaction too.
- The reduced numbers of complaints should be achieved by keeping focus on the ways of motivating and encouraging the staffs towards successful accomplishment of business goals.
- Both monetary and non-monetary rewards and benefits is recommended to be provided for creating a sense of interest among the employees and make them perform to their potential to achieve the desired business objectives.
- Communicating clear goals and expectations to the employees of Ajman Free Zone, UAE is also recommended to engage the employees altogether and foster communication and collaborative working all throughout.
- The arrangement of training and developmental sessions is essential for strengthening the workforce efficiency through higher level of employee engagement along with strengthen their skills, knowledge and expertise too at Ajman Free Zone, United Arab Emirates.
References
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Roles of Team Members
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