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?

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