A SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATION CULTURE THROUGH TEAM BUILDING CONCEPT.
INTRODUCTION
People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. In a team-oriented environment, we contributed overall success of the organization. Even though we have a specific job function and we belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from others.
Twelve C”s for Team Building
Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams; it requires attention to each of the following.
Clear Expectations
· Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes.
· Do team members understand why the team was created? and
· Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money?
Context
· The team members understand why they are participating on the team?
· They want to understand how the strategy of using teams? & how will help the organization attain its communicated business goals?
· The team members define their team’s importance then only they can able to accomplish the corporate goals.
· The team understands where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values.
Commitment
· The team members want to participate on the team & the team members feel the team mission is important.
· The team members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes. The team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization (as well as to their own careers).
· The team members anticipate recognition for their contributions.
Competence
· Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?)
· Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not,
· Does the team have access to the help it needs? and
· Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?
Charter
· Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission.
· The team has to define and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and
· How it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task?
Control
· Does the team have enough freedom &Empowerments to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? And
How far may members go in pursuit of solutions?
Collaboration
· The team understands team and group process. The team members also understand the stages of group development.
· The team members working together effectively interpersonally.
· All team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members & the team needs to use an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan
Communication
· The team members clear about the priority of their tasks. Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback?
Creative Innovation
· Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solution, and new ideas? and
· Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements?
Consequences
· Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements?
· Are Rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful?
· Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization?
· Do team members fear reprisal?
Coordination
· The teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success. Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments?
· The teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service.
Cultural Change
· The organization recognizes that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the other organizations (traditional, hierarchical organization).
REASON FOR TEAM BUILDING
Let us look at the reason to work on team building
Efficiency: Strong teams work together more efficiency. They know how others react on the certain situation and can be prepared for different issues that may come up.
Strengths: Having a strong team allows you to build on your team members’ strengths. This way we do not have the logistical member trying to work on the creative part.
Enjoyment: When our team gets along and feels a sense of commitment to each other, they have more fun at their job and experience employee motivation…
Commitment: we will be better experienced the employee retention.
Communication: it’s easier to communicate with the team who are willing to work together and help each other.
Relationship: It Create strong relationship helps to create a strong feeling of being part of team.
Cost effectiveness: when your employees work together your project will get done quicker more efficiently.
PROFESSIONAL
Once you have established your team camaraderie, we will fulfill your company’s objectives towards team building and can experience the benefits that come with this bond. Team building should be done one to two times a year to continue training and to strengthen the established bond. When you hire new employees, be sure to plan an activity that will help them feel more like part of the group.
Team building between teams is also very important
Although very many organizations have invested in team building within teams rather less have taken seriously team building between teams. There is scope for much more effective working. Most organizations, for example, could improve communication and co-operation between line and staff departments and vice versa. Line groups often experience staff ones as making demands rather than being helpful. Staff groups often say people from the line dismiss their work and are uninterested in the organization as a whole
HOW TO BUILD EFFECTIVE TEAM BUILDING
The Path to Team Building Success
Team work and team building is a challenge in every organization. Work environments tend to foster rugged individuals working on personal goals for personal gain. Typically reward, recognition, and pay systems single out the achievements of individual employees.
Here is the information you need to develop team work and effective work teams in your organization. Use this information for team building.
Employee Empowerment:
Employee empowerment is a strategy and philosophy that enables employees to make decisions about their jobs. Employee empowerment helps employees own their work and take responsibility for their results. Employee empowerment helps employees serve customers at the level of the organization where the customer interface exists.
Employee involvement:
Employee involvement is creating an environment in which people have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. Employee involvement is not the goal nor is it a tool, as practiced in many organizations. Employee involvement is a management and leadership philosophy about how people are enabled to contribute to continuous improvement and the ongoing success of their organization.
POSITIVE WORK RELATIONSHIP CONTRIBUTES TO EFFECTIVE TEAMS:
If we want to work more effectively with people at work means our relationship with team, supervisor, manager, customer or coworker interpersonal relationship must be effective.
CONCLUSION:
Many view team building as the best organization design for involving all employees in creating business success and profitability. I trust these resources will help us to create successful and effective teams and team work& team building.
Submitted by
S.Padmavathi & G.P.Divya.
Lecturer (MBA)
SSM Academy of textiles management, Erode.
By: S.Padmavathi
Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’
A Successfull Organisational Culture Through Team Building Concept
December 2nd, 2009Communicating in Your Corporate Culture
September 30th, 2009Corporate culture at its most basic is how a company does what it does. A business’s culture is made up of shared values, beliefs, habits and goals. A business’s location, its employees and even customers all have a hand in forming a culture. Most corporate cultures are created organically, which is a nice way of saying that they are left to chance. Sometimes though, the leadership of a company realizes that their culture is one of the best selling points of the company; sometimes they see that their culture is dooming them.
Your business’s culture is as important as your business plan and should be included in your thoughts as such. On a superficial level, a culture is how you’re seen and what you do. This includes your building’s layout, your equipment, the dress code, the organizational structure, your company policies, how you treat employees, and how you treat customers. Beneath all of this at the core, your culture is made up of the shared beliefs and values of the majority in the company.
Not all businesses are created equal or the same, but they all have a corporate culture of some sort. Identifying which culture they have isn’t as easy as looking at the size of the building or how many employees there are. A small business could have the same culture as a multi-national corporation; it all depends on the mindset. When it comes to understanding the best way to run your business, there are two important things you must do: identify what kind of culture it has and know the best way to communicate within that culture.
To better understand the differences, we look at the culture studies of Fons Trompenaars who identifies four main culture types and how to navigate within them.
Guided Missile
A guided missile culture is objective based and organized to accomplish specific projects or goals. Managers feel a higher sense of ownership and are able to move their projects forward easily. Results come faster, the company is more agile, and there is plenty of flexibility for the employees. While this can be effective for getting things done, it isn’t as beneficial for communication to the company as a whole. Communicating in this environment is more tactical than anything else, but you should hold on to the big picture to help keep these dynamic, but separate projects all heading in the same direction. Keep your global message based on the top priority project to get your audience’s attention.
Eiffel Tower
This culture focuses on the relationship employees have with their immediate boss. Someone’s position in the hierarchy vastly dictates what information they are receiving or able to give. While this is a strong culture, it is very slow to change. To communicate well, you need to have bottom-up and side-to-side communication channels in addition to the top-down information trickle. Make sure you have a solid and objective feedback process. A top managerial communications champion will be essential to make sure your information flows smoothly.
Familial
Like the name suggests, this kind of culture is similar to a family atmosphere. Loyalty, collaboration, and communication flow through relationships that are between people at any level. These relationships are driven through honor and respect. How much one can get done is dictated by who you know, how well you are liked, and how much of a fit in the company you are. Communicating in this culture is a more indirect process. Use celebrations and events to speak to the company as a whole. Direct criticism and confrontation will most likely backfire, so use stories, anecdotes, and non-personal examples to get your point across.
Incubator
Incubator cultures are a byproduct of the dot.com era and generations x and y. With the technology at hand, they get their information from almost every source except top-down communications. Once they have it, information billows out around them as they post on message boards, IM, and blogs. The best way to make an impression is to break them out of their normal, day-to-day atmosphere. Get them out from in front of their computers and into an auditorium. Make sure to include some moving around and good food. You’ll make them pay attention when you go through the senses they don’t normally use for work.
The culture of your business dictates how well your people will try to do the things that will make your business succeed. If you know what kind of culture you have, you can better understand how your employees think, how to communicate with them, and how best to use your culture to improve your company.
By: David Byrd
Directive Communication Psychology in the Work Place to Enhance the Workforce and Develop Positive Traits in the Employees
September 6th, 2009How did you feel the last time someone blamed you for something that went wrong? Did it actually solve a problem, or just make you resent people and circumstances?
When was the last time you blamed someone? Did it really solve the problem?
Have you ever really been passionate to achieve great things for an organisation, only to be brought down be the people around you, the “working environment”?
But even if an individual is affected by such a “blame” dynamic, it could hardly affect the rest of the staff or organisation, OR COULD IT?
The fact is that the actions and reactions of every individual in a group affects the rest of the members of that group to form a unique culture. And that culture drastically affects the bottom line.
If there are 100 employees in an organisation with a poor corporate culture, they will produce the work of 68. In an average work culture, they will do the work of 100, but in a leadership enriched or brand congruent culture, they produce the work of up to 159 employees – so what is the savings potential of creating a superior a superior culture? What would be the behaviours required to cultivate a positive culture. Or, will creating the culture nurture the behaviours and the workforce?
According to Directive Communication™ Psychology (DC), Enhancing a workforce and developing positive traits in your employees is a product of “Culture Evolution”. One of the five pillars** essential to breeding an effective, passionate workforce is a methodology that helps your people achieve something greater than themselves. This requires 3 fundamentals:
An awareness of how and why people are reacting to each other
The ability to apply this awareness to take more intelligent actions and less “reactions”
The ability to see the working environment and the people in it as a means to achieving something bigger in their lives.
In DC, awareness is initiated by realizations about the effects of your own communication and reactions that not only cause the others to treat you the way they do, but cause your own inefficiencies and disorganization. There are three conditions that are addressed to nurture this realisation:
The Mental, which uses the Colored Brain Communication Inventory (CBCI) to determine the way a person processes information and the world around them. This is a genetic process and cannot be changed.
The Emotional, which applies a fundamental Eight Emotional Drivers and their ranking that establishes motivation in various settings. This is environmental and changes as a person evolves emotionally.
The Physical, which identifies the five postures we all use and misuse in our effort to achieve our goals.
The point of this awareness is a consciousness of the affects the environment has on you and the affects you have on it. When you make realisations about yourself, you can see how you are being influenced and how you are influence others. You get a clear picture of where conflict and low cooperation really come from and how to prevent it. You identify the factors that have preventing greater leadership and inspire others to greater competence. You discover the gaps in customer service and sales success and how to overcome them.
But this is all just part of the system. Practitioners of Directive Communication™ Psychology apply two primary methods of influencing an organisations culture.
Method #1: Breaking tradition
Traditionally training for leadership, customer service, communication, sales, project management, etc. is all separately conducted and all applying independent methodologies. Courses usually last 2 days each and while people do take back some skills, they cannot fully understand each other’s roles and how those roles can connect to achieve Cooperative and competent execution of a common goal.
The Directive Communication™ Solution – One Language, One Vision
The system uses a “Common” methodology across the organisation, this not only allows organisations to save time by simplifying planning and centralizing soft skills competency with a process that is adapted across most people disciplines, but saves time with less training days required to achieve higher levels of competency. It is designed from the beginning for cross-organisational implementation and result measurement. The byproduct is an organisation that is more cooperative because employees are speaking the same language and cultivating a culture to reinforce the greater abilities of the workforce.
How it works
When an organisation is trained in the Fundamental DC Methodology with a 2 day course, they are primed to take specialized “Application Modules” that only last 1 day (instead of the traditional 2days). This allows Training and HR managers to maximize the training effect and still keep their workforce working. The DC methodology itself promotes a better culture and gets 42% better implementation results than traditional training. This is due to its unique psychology base that puts everyone in the company that is learning different skills, on the same page. Each application module builds on the Core DC psychology foundation – and all DC accredited practitioners are experts in their specific fields and apply their expertise in shorter times for a diversely competent and cohesive workforce and more effective culture.
Method #2: creating a revolution
This strategy is based on U.S. Special Forces PYOPS tactics for creating revolutions in countries combined with DC Corporate Re-Culturing strategies and psychology. When a core group has internalized “Directive Communication foundations” the psychological weapons of workforce enhancement are systematically applied across the organization. The key influencers (core group attending the workshops) within the organization are simultaneously trained in “Force Multiplication” tactics.
From the core group, individuals create DC A-teams incorporating different organizational hierarchies (i.e. management, supervisors, front line, and support). They then become the strike force that ignites culture enhancement from within, they are the force for the good of the organization and infect the rest with the same vision (usually suggested by senior management). They gain a strong sense of purpose because they fulfilling their own needs through the organization, not just doing the job.
The key influencers or “informal leaders” of an organisation are chosen to be internal consultants (one person for every 35 in the company) their purpose is to multiply the effects of DC Psychology and direct enthusiasm and action in the groups and teams they interact with uniting them in one direction.
The process is a 6 day interactive DC “Revolution” program spread out over 2 to 4 weeks (including the discovery and strategy component), and applicable Projects implemented in between the workshops. After each workshop, these Key Influencers involve a sub-group, which includes their managers as well as senior management, of about 5 or 6 individuals in immediately implementing what they have learned. That sub-group in turn involves a secondary sub-group and staff and management alike make realizations that influence their perspective of their place in the organization, and the fulfillment they gain from what the organization can bring to their own lives.
In one recent case study in creating the culture for the new Emirates Hotel & Resort chain, Directive Communication Practitioners from Singapore and Malaysia used the “revolution” process together with 22 Emirates staff and 2 midlevel managers, to cultivate powerful perceptions that created an almost instant energy that spread throughout the entire Hotel. It literally changed the way managers and staff alike treated and cooperated with each other. According to Bruno Hivon, the Emirates Marina General Manager, “The whole hotel is teaming with an energy that is truly exhilarating. I think the program is so successful because it calls on the significance and substance of people rather than on material things and that is what service is all about. The revolutionary attitude and group dynamics that came out of this program can put into every aspect of our work across all departments and every stage of the operations.
All of us have been channeled in one passionate direction and one focus, and this has been achieved in quite a dynamic and fun way that got buy in at all levels. Even the management team here we have discovered quite a bit about ourselves that will certainly make a difference in our directions.
As for our Patriots and their revolution, this is so different from other service concepts that they will definitely set the path for things to come.”
The revolution, measured by the Emirates head office against pre-revolution assessments, yielded substantial improvements in various areas:
Working with and Developing Others – up 54.64%,
Leadership – up 48.2%,
Communication – up 65.38%
Productivity – up 42.71%
Both methods require a “Buy In” from senior management because a letting go of Ego with a focus on results is required. In each method, the driving force comes from the employees, and cooperation and personal effectiveness is inspired from a self interest and development perspective. When employees feel their place in the organisation makes a significant difference and they discover how to gain more from work than just money, they create an environment that reinforces teamwork, creativity, passion and the emotional levers (outside of ego) that will lead to the improvement in their quality of life in and out of work.
While DC is not the only Psychology based methodology that affects individual perceptions, Steven Covey’s Seven Habits and P.E.P. have also proven successful in this area, the byproduct of culture and workforce enhancement is the premise for long lasting retention and consistent application of these perceptions. The reason? This can be answered with a question: Have you ever really been passionate to achieve great things for an organisation, only to be brought down be the people around you, the “working environment”?
**The Directive Communication five pillars are the foundational conditions of culture change, they are as follows: The group must have a greater purpose, The group must speak a common language, The group must have a technology or a structured approach which they believe will help them achieve that greater purpose, The group must have an integral support system, The group must have a unified identity.
By: Arthur F Carmazzi
