Managing Teams
October 2017
Clare Wood
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Introductions
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My team
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What and why of teams
What?
“A team is two or more people working together to achieve a common goal”
Why?
• Flexible
• Innovative
• Adaptable
“As individual skills are integrated into a group, the collective capacity to innovate becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”
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Managing teams – the theory
•Stages of team development
•Behavioural styles
•Learning styles
•Team roles (9 in total)
• Plants
• Resource Investigators
• Monitor Evaluators
• Co-ordinators
• Shapers
• Team Workers
• Implementers
• Completer-Finishers
• Specialists
Harvard Business Review is a good source of information www.hbr.org
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How do you see people?
An obstacle?
A person?
An object?
A vehicle?
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Behaviours
What drives behaviours?
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Exercise 1
Get into groups of 3 people that don’t already know each other
One person is the team leader
The team leader is to spend 10 minutes communicating a new work project to the team
The team leader has complete flexibility in how they approach this but the goal is to get the maximum understanding and buy-in of the work project from the team
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The check-in
Why:
• Check-ins drive collaboration within a team
• They provide information about each team member’s mindset
• They promote trust and communication
What:
• The team leader introduces one question or topic
• Each person gets 30 seconds to answer the question or talk on the topic
• The team leader goes first
• No interruptions from other team members
• Team members can pass if they don’t feel comfortable
• The team leader thanks each person for his contribution
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Exercise 2
Choose another team leader
Go through the same exercise as exercise 1 but start the process with a check-in
Example questions/topics:
• Why did you sign up to this course today?
• What is one things you’ve done this week that you are proud of?
• Are there any obstacles in your way this week?
• What is one thing that you hope to achieve this week?
• What are you grateful for?
• What word or phrase would describe how you are feeling right now?
• ???
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Communication
Communication format Frequency of use Training provided
Listening Most frequent No training
Speaking and presenting Next most frequent Optional training course
Writing and reading Least frequent Formal education
Taken from Managing for Dummies by Bob Nelson and Peter Economy
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Listening
•Bad habits
• Not looking at the speaker
• Showing interest in something else (looking at watch or phone)
• Interrupting or asking too many questions
• Finishing the speaker’s sentences
• Topping the story with “that’s nothing, let me tell you about…”
•Good habits
• Give them your full attention
• Help them to speak if needed
• Support the speaker
• Manage your reactions
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Exercise 3
Get into pairs
Each person will take turns to speak for 2 minutes while the other person listens
NO INTERUPTIONS!
The second person will really focus on listening using the good habits from the previous slide
At the end of the minute, person 2 will summarise back to person 1 what they took in
Swap roles and repeat
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Team intelligence
What causes one team to be more intelligent than another?
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Collective intelligence factor
Good collaboration:
• Equality of communication
• Social sensitivity
• Trust
Cognitive diversity:
• Gender
• Race/nationality/culture
• Age
• Educational background
• Education level
• Job level
High Collective Intelligence
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The 5 dimensions of trust
• I trust that you won’t stab me in the backLoyalty
• I am confident that you know what you’re doingCompetence
• I trust that you’ll do what you say you’re going to doReliability
• I trust you to listen to me and my concernsUnderstanding
• I trust you to share information that’s important to meSharing
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Managing diverse teams
Top priority for a team leader is to use the team’s diversity productively:
• Do not dominate meetings
• Give all members have an equal chance to contribute
• Don’t have favourites
• Don’t make assumptions or stereotype people
• Encourage the “valuing of difference”
• Discourage categorisation of the team into sub-groups
• Create a team identity
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Key takeaways
• Teams are made up of people
• Teams without trust between members break down
• Listening is the most important communication skill
• A team is more than the sum of its parts
• Diversity can bring great benefits but needs to be handled well
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Key takeaway
Teams are made up of PEOPLE
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Questions?
?