Developing High Performance Team
Developing a High Performance Team
Purpose: In today’s industries, companies demand a kind of responsiveness, speed, and quality that is beyond the reach of individual performance. High performance teams generate commitment and provide the structures that inspire employees to give their very best effort. Compared to employees working alone, teams make better decisions, products, and services. Companies rely on team’s ability to perform at high levels and quickly adapt to escalating demands. With the right number of people and complimentary skills teams work together and fuse their talents to deliver tangible performance results. Teams commit to a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable.
Empowerment: Employee empowerment involves job satisfaction, decision making, trust, rewards, and autonomy. Employee involvement in the decision making process creates an environment were team members have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their job. Employee empowerment requires training in the skills necessary to accomplish the additional responsibilities. Managers need to demonstrate genuine commitment to employee’s well being. Provide freedom and independence for team members’ discretion in scheduling work and determining the procedures to be used to complete the work. Reward by recognizing employees for a job well done to strengthen employee engagement.
Roles: Every team member is expected to play a role in a team to maintain the team’s functioning. The following table shows Meredith Belbin’s team role theory which is the most popular. It identifies nine team roles related to specific personality characteristics. For optimal performance, all nine roles must be engaged.
Belbin’s Team Roles
Role Title Contributions Allowance Weaknesses
Plant Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems. Ignores details. Too preoccupied to
Purpose: In today’s industries, companies demand a kind of responsiveness, speed, and quality that is beyond the reach of individual performance. High performance teams generate commitment and provide the structures that inspire employees to give their very best effort. Compared to employees working alone, teams make better decisions, products, and services. Companies rely on team’s ability to perform at high levels and quickly adapt to escalating demands. With the right number of people and complimentary skills teams work together and fuse their talents to deliver tangible performance results. Teams commit to a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable.
Empowerment: Employee empowerment involves job satisfaction, decision making, trust, rewards, and autonomy. Employee involvement in the decision making process creates an environment were team members have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their job. Employee empowerment requires training in the skills necessary to accomplish the additional responsibilities. Managers need to demonstrate genuine commitment to employee’s well being. Provide freedom and independence for team members’ discretion in scheduling work and determining the procedures to be used to complete the work. Reward by recognizing employees for a job well done to strengthen employee engagement.
Roles: Every team member is expected to play a role in a team to maintain the team’s functioning. The following table shows Meredith Belbin’s team role theory which is the most popular. It identifies nine team roles related to specific personality characteristics. For optimal performance, all nine roles must be engaged.
Belbin’s Team Roles
Role Title Contributions Allowance Weaknesses
Plant Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems. Ignores details. Too preoccupied to
Cited: Katzenbach, Jon. "The Right Kind of Teamwork." The Wall Street Journal (1992): 1. McShane, Steve L.. Organizational Behavior. 4th. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008. Mourkogiannis, Nikos. "How to build a winning team." My Leadership Perspective December 20, 2007: "Optimal Performance Associates." Building Winning Teams. OPA Winning Teams. 20 Apr 2008 <http://www.opawinningteams.com/>. Sanna, Mark. "Creating a High-Performance Team." Dynamic Chiropractic. 15 January, 2005. The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, Inc.. 20 Apr 2008 <http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/23/02/08.html>.