Overview
In our DMP4 project we created THE 5 C'S OF A SUCCESSFUL TEAM which shows the five most important elements in a team work based on our opinion and our experiences. After coming together and talking about what we think makes a cohesive team, we collectively voted what words would work best. We generated five individual elements commitment, competence, creativity, communication, and collaboration. Under each element we explained why it is important using several sources and our class required textbook, Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace, to support our model.
Commitment
Commitment is important because without it a team would not reach its goals. The more connected someone is with a project the more likely they are to give their best effort and commit themselves to accomplishing what is necessary. “All members of the HPRDT were given specific, important and personally meaningful tasks that matched as closely as possible with their own unique interests, skills and experiences. In this way, commitment was enhanced and engagement with their assigned task strengthened “(Daniel and Davis 43). When IBM studied a research team that had to create a brand-new type of semi-conductor, they discovered that recognition of everyone’s capabilities gave them a sense of pride and responsibility in their area of expertise. This recognition helped each person understand what their role was and what they needed to accomplish. By giving them specific duties, each professional was responsible therefore committed to doing their part. Daniel and Davis continue to explain the meaningfulness of community and commitment by saying “We have no doubt that the high-performing community that emerged was a direct result of the flexible and open team structure that supported the interactions of its members. Such community engagement was contingent on the recognition of the contribution each individual made to the overall success of the mission” (44). As we can see a person’s commitment may be affected by each person’s area of expertise. Commitment is also dependent on everyone trusting and respecting others that are a part of the team. As stated in Organizational Behavior “a team with members who tend to be more helpful, respectful and courteous is also likely to have a positive team atmosphere in which members trust one another. This type of situation is essential to foster the willingness of team members to work toward a common team goal…“ (Colquitt, LePine and Wesson 137) Teams must take care to be courteous of others within the team so that no one feels less committed to the task at hand. For example, if one person within the team is being disrespectful to others within the team, the disrespectful member cannot expect those members to be fully committed to the project. Instead they may put in less effort, be late to meeting, or give other signs of withdrawal for the remainder of the project.
Competence
In the article “3 skills every 21st-century manager needs,” that is published in Harvard Business Review, explains the primary techniques that can be adopted by managers to adapt in the current world of work. It has been noted that currently companies have become more global and seeks to employ workers from different cultures. This has made employees group be more diverse. It is because of this that manager is expected to be well rounded and creative and competent in order to cope up with the evolving world of work. For the survival and success of managers, they have to step up in term of competence. Managers are supposed to be creative enough to establish code-switching between cultures. This may be a risky step since it would make them feel incompetence as well as inauthentic. However, this is one of the skills that need creativity. The manager has to be creative enough to code switch between cultural codes as they go global to avoid risking incompetent. “They may also feel incompetent—anxious and embarrassed about acting in a way so far embracing the top-down, often harsh leadership style that his Mumbai team seemed to need in order to meet deadlines.”This might sound to be a threat to their identity as leaders, but they have to learn to effectively perform a cultural switch. It has been indicated that “Perceive a serious threat to their competence and identity, they often show a strong psychological resistance to appropriate behavior.”
The other skill is wielding digital influence. In this case, managers are expected to be creative enough to use online networks since they are crucial for success. It needs a lot of creativity on the side of the manager to maintain and create circles of communication among professionals. It is not easy to build effective online network thus a manager is forced to focus and concentrate. The primary focus is the reputation, specialization and network position of the firm. The final skills are dividing attention deliberately. It is indicated that “every member of a high performance team possesses unique knowledge that contributes to the development and refinement of the emerging technology. Complex outcomes required in the semiconductor industry, for example necessitate a multidisciplinary orchestrated team approach to achieve the project’s mission and goals, and to meet the technological challenge” (41). Many of the managers believe that focusing on the job is all that it takes to be successful but success is more than working hard. There are times that we get distracted and we have to embrace it instead of fighting the distractions. There is a time when the managers need to relax and surf the web. This will help enhance the strategies of success. To avoid the stress of work it has been advised that manager should some time gaze aimlessly out of the window since helps relieve the tension.
Creativity
In the article, “How successful leaders think,” by Martin Roger, it is critically explained how managers explore their creativity. All the effective leaders in action but what worked for them would not effectively work of us even if we were working in the same company. Thus, a leader is expected to be creative and adapt to the situation. When things fail to work in opposing models leaders are compelled to determine what is right and through the process of elimination understand which is wrong. When things come to this extent the leader, have the ability to hold two opposing concepts in their heads. It is indicated that “And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.” What differentiates leaders is their ability to think creatively. This comes in handy in active resolution. There are times where a serious decision has to be made, and disputes arise. It is indicated, “A leader who embraces holistic rather than segmented thinking can creatively resolve the tensions that launched the decision-making process.” Every decision-making process needs rational and creative thinkers to ensure that a sane decision is made.
There are benefits of integrative thinking which have forced many leaders to think of a way to become integrative thinkers. There is some distinction between integrative thinking and conventional mode of thinking. This is because integrative thinking leads to option as well as new solutions. A leader who thinks integrative has a sense of unlimited possibilities. He or she is viewed as open-minded. On the other, the hand that manager who is stack with conventional mode of thinking to not get the chance to think out of the box and find for a new solution. They are always stuck with the conventional way of doing things if it does not work then there are no solutions. It indicates in the article that “Conventional thinking glosses over potential solutions and fosters the illusion that creative solutions do not actually exist.” This is a wrong form of thinking if you want to be an effective and creative leader of the 21st century. Thus, instead of looking for a lesson from the action of all the leaders who have been termed as great we should seek to understand there a way of thought.
Communication
Communication is defined as the steps needed to be taken for information and meaning to get transferred from a sender to a receiver (OB 400). Communication plays a big role in how team processes function. In the article, “What Makes High Performance Teams Excel?” by Lisa J. Daniels and Charles Davis they describe the importance of the steps a team takes in performing efficient communication. Communication is established through the team's mission as a shared agenda The mission statement is a concise and explicit statement of what needed to be accomplished including the deadlines. The statement is used to provide a clear and unambiguous definition of what was expected of the team within a given time constraint (Daniel 43). The process of communication begins with a sender using verbal, written, and nonverbal language to encode information into a message for the receiver to interpret to form an understanding. For a team setting, it is important to understand the network structure of communication such as how the channel of communication is chosen and how effective it is in centralizing tasks. In the article, “The New Science of Building Great Teams” by A... Pentland states, “Communication indeed plays a critical role in building successful teams. In fact, we’ve found patterns of communication to be the most important predictor of a team’s success” (Pentland 62). How effective communication is within a team is based on the nature of the team’s work. When a team understands how they communicate with one another, they’re able to perform effectively and efficiently.
The want to build a successful team depends on how well a team can balance under and over communication happening within a completing a task. Also taking into account the noise that can negatively impact team performance and efficiency. Teams need to focus on the structure of their communication to avoid issues of wrong interpretations from the sender and the emotions that challenge how we perceive messages. Communication is transmission depends on team member’s own attention to information richness. To build a successful team, members must pay attention to the amount and depth of information that get transmitted in a message to a network (OB 402). A team must explore the energy and engagement given by individual members and how they come together as a whole. Exploring what best forms of communication work for a team is a deciding factor in how successful a team can become. Learning how to communicate ideas is an essential principle for each step in the Five C process. Each part of the process involves how the team decides to communicate the final product.
Collaboration
“Managing collaboration: Improving team effectiveness through a network perspective” by Rob Cross, Kate Ehrilich, Ross Dawson, and John Helferich focuses on the importance of having a network perspective when collaborating to help create the best results when working in a team. When building a successful team, a network lens is needed to analyze the internal and external factors that affect the performance of a team. The authors bring up six topic questions to help change the way teams should be viewed. The first question: “Are the right voices influencing team trajectory?” considers what voices need to be heard at what time to maximize time efficiency while in the process of creating. The article points out that a team leader uses a network lens to find the right balance of consistency, efficiency, and ensure innovation (Cross 77). Collaborating is knowing the individual team member’s expertise and applying it to team performance. The second question: “Is the team ‘appropriately’ connected for the task at hand?” takes the right voices to build information and decision-making networks (Cross 78). In this stage of questioning, collaborating is analyzed on how well communication is done within a team setting with the right balance of connectivity. The third question: “Has the team cultivated important external relationships?” considers all resources needed to bring the best expertise to the team. When collaborating, it's important to go outside of what internal resources that individuals can bear and seek external support. The fourth question to ask: “Are value-added collaborations occurring in the team network?”. This asks to view the quality of the information or knowledge being passed around in the team such as how interactions must be done to increase productivity (Cross 80). Team leaders must also assess time spent on interactions and helping individual members understand how to better collaborate. The fifth question: “Do underlying relationship qualities yield effective collaboration at the point of need?” considers how trust-building works to generate awareness throughout the team. All members of a team should consider other members’ abilities to better equip the team with communication and performance. The last question: “Does organizational context support collaboration and momentum” considers the importance of formal structure in help keeping an evolving team in check. As a team works towards success, they must keep in mind work process, development activities, and culture (Cross 82). Collaboration is a key tool of the Five C’s model in helping build up a team toward their goals.
Works Cited
Colquitt, J. A. , Lepine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2010). Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace, 2nd Ed. Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill, Inc
Cross, R. , Ehrlich, K. , Dawson, R. , & Helferich, J. (2008). "Managing collaboration: Improving team effectiveness through a network perspective." California Management Review, 74
Daniel, Lisa J., and Charles R. Davis. “What Makes High-Performance Teams Excel?” Research-Technology Management, 2009, pp. 40– 45.
Martin, Roger. "How successful leaders think." Harvard business review 85.6 (2007): 60.
Molinsky, Andy, et al. "Three skills every 21st-century manager needs." Harvard Business Review 90.1/2 (2012): 139-143.
Pentland, A. (2012). "The New Science of Building Great Teams." Harvard Business Review, 90(4). 60-70.
“Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds.” Wordle Introduction, www.wordle.net/.
OB Textbook