TEAM MANAGEMENT

There is a marked difference between management giving advice and lending a helping hand.  Handling multicultural teams is a challenge on individuals social skills and patience.  Teams involve different people, different cultural values, and different sets of regulatory rules.

The first challenge is to get a group of people to work together

• Togetherness is what a team is all about
• the right 'mix', communication, co-operation, conviction and commitment are things that a team can't do without
• everyone in the team need to be a team player
• team leaders need to place the interests of the team ahead of theirs

The second challenge is to get a good and working team-mix

• innovator
• analyst
• mentor
• expeditor

The third challenge is to set the team to think, act and work as one

• team players are never equal in calibre, maturity and energy
• see and understand the make up of the team
• be constantly aware of their weaknesses and strength

The fourth challenge is to ensure that teamwork is maintained consistently

• objectives must be achievable
• proper work ethics or standards
• time frame

The fifth challenge is to have total staff commitment

• adopt good life style of management
• meet expectation of the team
• don't over emphasised on cultural sensitivity

The sixth challenge is to ensure the corporate culture and management style of team's executive is not reflected in the final analysis.

The seventh challenge is to maintain the 'chemistry' between team members

• avoid conspiracy of silence and organisational politics

TEAM MANAGEMENT

IT IS NOT:

A SET OF THEORIES STRUNG TOGETHER

FOR MOANING AND GROANING

IT'S ABOUT:

IDEAS, FACTS AND CULTURAL SENSITIVITIES PUT TOGETHER INTO PRACTICE FOR POSITIVE RESULTS

WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE COMON OBJECTIVES

MATCH AND MOULD THEIR SKILLS; DISCUS, DEBATE ADN DELIBERATE

SHARING OF EXPERIENCES

One cannot be a better boss until you first learn how to be a better person.  Remember, good answers don't last forever, but strategic thinking does.  You'll travel the distance when you have a good and understanding team

SHARED FROM ARTICLE BY:

FRANK GILMORE

TEAM SUCCESS IS NO GUARANTEE

ACCOUNTANT TODAY, JULY 2004

Teamwork produces power

Team Work

Pays High Dividends

Strengthens Human Relationships

bniembarcadero.com

The Science of Success Management System strongly emphasizes the importance and need to maintain harmony within yourself; and also fostering, building and enhancing cooperative relationships.  Many people recognize the potential value of teamwork where it is also known that the concept of teamwork is a vital principle to success.

Humans are not made to live alone.  To achieve personal success, there is a need for all of us to understand that there is strength in numbers and integrity through unity.  The focus is upon the cooperative spirit.  Present and future depends on the ability of a person to join hands with others.

The cooperative spirit is a gift that can be offered to another human being.  It’s a torch that can be passed on, holding the light of hope, love, peace and harmony.  There are two (2) important concepts that are related to teamwork and the cooperative spirit:

                     i.        Consensus (to arrive at a point of agreement).

In today’s management decision-making system, much emphasis is placed on participatory management.  When group consensus is reached, the decisions made are consistently better and more appropriate than a unilateral decision by an individual or dictator.

ii.   Reciprocity (relates to each individual’s unique capacity to give and receive).

Reciprocity can be described as the ‘give and take’ process.  It characterizes the cooperative spirit of every number who is bound by common goals and interests.

Friendly cooperation always pays off.  It provides a positive mental attitude that does not recognize obstacles except to use them as stepping-stones to opportunity.  It is a mark of great wisdom when any person displays skill in winning the friendly cooperation of their associates.  Teamwork in a spirit of friendliness, costs little in time and effort, but pays huge dividends in money and in the finer things of life.

www.youtube.com

12 RICHES OF LIFE         A positive mental attitude         Sound health         Harmony in human relationships         Freedom from fear         Hope of achievement         The capacity of faith         Willingness to share blessings         Labor of love         An open mind on all subjects         Self-discipline         The capacity to understand people         Economic security

                The potential value of teamwork may be appropriated by applying self-discipline, maintaining a positive mental attitude and being willing to go the extra mile.  Generosity, fair treatment, courtesy and willingness to serve are qualities that pay high dividends whenever relationships.  These are the factors that carry a business through to safety in times of emergency.

Benefits divined from teamwork:

i.            It inspire individual to contribute to success                 ii.            It develops self-reliance which will free individual from fear of failure               iii.            It encourages the development of the spirit of clean sportsmanship                iv.            It develops leadership with pleasing personality and a willingness to assume personal responsibility                  v.            It inspire teamwork between employees and management                vi.            It develops alertness of mind, keenness of imagination and creative vision              vii.            It provides an accurate outlet of the expression of individual ambition            viii.            It gives everyone a feeling of belongings               ix.            It inspires loyalty                 x.            It gives the team the fullest possible benefit of all talents, ingenuity and creative vision

Friendly teamwork is a fundamental principle of growth and power.  Willing teamwork leads to constructive ends.  Teamwork produces power.  Willing teamwork also leads to the attainment of the power to reach community held goals.  Harmonious teamwork is participation, cooperation, innovation, facilitation and sharing the credit.

www.takver.com 

Christina Chia

Management:  Teamwork Boon

Malaysian Business:  March 1 2011

13.4 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Henri Fayol's Principles of Management

(SHORT NOTES FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT:

Historical Management Theories at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Henri Fayol was born in Istanbul in 1841.  He began working as an engineer at the age of 19 in a large mining company in France.  He eventually became the director, at a time when the mining company employed more than 1,000 people.  Through the years, Fayol began to develop what he considered to be the 14 most important principles of management.  Essentially, these explained how managers should organize and interact with staff.

In 1916, two years before he stepped down as director, he published his "14 Principles of Management" in the book "Administration Industrielle et Generale".  Fayol also created a list of the six primary functions of management, which go hand in hand with the Principles.

Fayol's "14 Principles" was one of the earliest theories of management to be created, and remains one of the most comprehensive.  He's considered to be among the most influential contributors to the modern concept of management.  The theory falls under the Administrative Management school of thought (as opposed to the Scientific Management School, led by Fredrick Taylor).

Fayol's 14 Principles of Management

1.    Division of Work

·        When employees are specialized

·        output can increase because they become increasingly skilled and efficient.

2.   Authority

·        Managers must have the authority to give orders

·        but they must also keep in mind that with authority comes responsibility.

3.   Discipline

·        Discipline must be upheld in organizations

·        but methods for doing so can vary.

4.   Unity of Command

·        Employees should have only one direct supervisor.

5.   Unity of Direction

·        Teams with the same objective should be working under the direction of one manager, using one plan.

·        This will ensure that action is properly coordinated.

6.   Subordination of Individual Interests to the General Interest

·        The interests of one employee should not be allowed to become more important than those of the group.

·        This includes managers.

7.   Remuneration

·        Employee satisfaction depends on fair remuneration for everyone.

·        Including financial and non-financial compensation.

8.   Centralization

·        Refers to how close employees are to the decision-making process.

·        It is important to aim for an appropriate balance.

9.   Scalar Chain

·        Employees should be aware of where they stand in the organization's hierarchy, or chain of command.

10.Order

·        The workplace facilities must be clean, tidy and safe for employees.

·        Everything should have its place.

11. Equity

·        Managers should be fair to staff at all times, both maintaining discipline as necessary and acting with kindness where appropriate.

12.Stability of Tenure of Personnel

·        Managers should strive to minimize employee turnover.

·        Personnel planning should be a priority.

13.Initiative

·        Employees should be given the necessary level of freedom to create and carry out plans.

14.Esprit de Corps

·        Organizations should strive to promote team spirit and unity.

Fayol's Six Functions of Management, which go hand in hand with the Principles, are as follows:

1.    Forecasting.

2.   Planning.

3.   Organizing.

4.   Commanding.

5.   Coordinating.

6.   Controlling.

 

13.3 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

(SHORT NOTES FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT:

Historical Management Theories at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Efficiency and productivity go together.  Working efficiently has many meanings.  It's about working in a way that allows you to get the most done in a fixed period of time.  It also involves making sure that you don't hurt productivity.

Working too fast will risk making mistakes.  There is also the risk of becoming so tired, either mentally or physically, that work have to stop too early, which will affect the total efficiency.

The poorly-designed, inefficient workplaces of the late 19th century led to the scientific management movement in the early 20th century, which applied the scientific method to the study of the workplace.  Frank Gilbreth and his wife, Lillian, were supporters of this movement. The Gilbreths pioneered the study of "time and motion" at work. They were interested in efficiency, so they set up experiments to examine the movements that individual workers made while doing their daily work.

Before he became a workplace researcher, Frank was a bricklayer.  He noted that every worker had his own way of laying bricks.  By observing these individual methods, he determined the most efficient way to complete the task.  Frank believed that by working efficiently, both the employer and the worker would benefit – employers would gain more productivity, and workers would have reduced stress and fatigue.  His observations eventually led to a new way of laying bricks that more than doubled daily output.

13.2 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Elton Mayo's Hawthorne Experiments

(SHORT NOTES FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT:

Historical Management Theories at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Pioneering work began in the 1920s as an attempt to discover ways to increase production efficiency.  Elton Mayo, a Harvard researcher, looked at the results of early motivation experiments and concluded that psychological and social factors played a larger role in productivity than physical elements.

In 1927, researchers were trying to determine the optimal amount of lighting, temperature, and humidity for assembling electronic components at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant.  The results showed that lighting had no consistent effect on production.  Researchers were frustrated to discover that increasing light increased output, but reducing light also increased output.  The common factor, it seemed, was that something in the work environment was changed, and that positive effects were then observed.

After thoroughly examining the results, Elton Mayo and his fellow researchers determined that workers weren't responding to the change in lighting conditions, but instead were reacting to the fact that they were being observed by the experimenters.  This phenomenon became known as the Hawthorne effect.  The workers' awareness that researchers were measuring their productivity was sufficient to increase productivity.

13.1 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management

(SHORT NOTES FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT:

Historical Management Theories at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

People have been managing work for hundreds of years.  The formal management ideas can be traced to the 1700s.  Most significant developments in management theory emerged in the 20th century.

One of the earliest of these theorists was Frederick Winslow Taylor.  He started the Scientific Management movement.  He and his associates were the first to study the work process scientifically.  They studied how work was performed, and they looked at how this affected worker productivity.  Taylor's philosophy focused on the belief that making people work as hard as they could was not as efficient as optimizing the way the work was done.

In 1909, he proposed that by optimizing and simplifying jobs, productivity would increase.  He also advanced the idea that workers and managers needed to cooperate with one another.  Taylor believed that all workers were motivated by money, so he promoted the idea of "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work", where, if a worker didn't achieve enough in a day, he didn't deserve to be paid as much as another worker who was highly productive.

With a background in mechanical engineering, Taylor was very interested in efficiency.  He applied the scientific method to study the optimal way to do any type of workplace task.  He found that by calculating the time needed for the various elements of a task, he could develop the "best" way to complete that task.  These "time and motion" studies led Taylor to conclude that certain people could work more efficiently than others.  Taking what he learned from these workplace experiments, Taylor developed four principles of scientific management.  These principles are also known simply as "Taylorism":

1.    Use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks.

2.   Match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency.

3.   Monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision

4.   Allocate the work between managers and workers.

·        managers spend their time planning and training

·        allowing workers to perform their tasks efficiently

Taylorism promotes the idea that there is "one right way" to do something.  Taylorism breaks tasks down into tiny steps, and focuses on how each person can do his or her specific series of steps best.  Taylorism separates manual from mental work.

Scientific management in its pure form focuses too much on the mechanics, and fails to value the people side of work, whereby motivation and workplace satisfaction are key elements in an efficient and productive organization.

12.7 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Minimize Problems by Being Prepared

(SHORT NOTES FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT:

Difficult Management Situations at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Discrimination is a word that conjures up fear, anger, stress, and a whole host of negative emotions.  Complaints of discrimination can severely damage businesses.  Discrimination in the workplace creates an unfair and unpleasant working environment.

Reactive management refers to a situation in which you don’t – or can't – plan ahead for problems or opportunities. Instead, you react to them as they happen.  In contrast, proactive management happens when you plan ahead to avoid or manage problems.  You might be in a reactive state for several reasons:

o   A crisis may have forced you to change or abandon your plans.  You need to make short-term decisions to cope with the situation.

o   Your organization may have poorly planned processes or policies.  You need to spend your time fixing these or working around them, instead of planning for the future.

o   You may find a reactive management style exciting.  People with certain personality types can enjoy the "buzz" that goes along with it.

 

Firefighting is sometimes essential during a rush, or as part of a short period of change. However, it can have serious implications when it becomes the norm:

o   likely to deliver lower quality work

o   may be able to fight fires successfully most of the time, but sometimes it may fail

o   will need to shift your team members from one task to another

o   deal with constantly changing information

o   leaving staff frustrated, and they may start to look for more satisfying opportunities outside your team

o   individual performance will fall

o   hard to find the root causes of problems when you have to focus urgently on symptoms

o   less likely to spot the strategic opportunities that proactive managers exploit, because you don’t have the time and mind space to see them.

o   also stressful

o   don’t have time to unwind when dealing with one crisis after another

o    team members may be less resilient and not able to cope with this pressure

Moving to Proactive Management

Take Back Control of Time ·        Time is an essential weapon against reactive management ·        determine which tasks and responsibilities are critical or delay any non-critical tasks ·        prioritize ·        focus on essential tasks

Look at Processes ·        do a thorough review of all of the processes ·        look at people’s working practices ·        Map and challenge each process ·        explore possible process improvements ·        create checklists ·        involve your team members in this work

Turn Risks Into Plans ·        Conduct a Risk Analysis ·        prioritize the risks that you face ·        create a contingency plan each risk

Focus on Morale ·        bring positive emotions back to the team ·        look for small wins ·        create opportunities for your team to discuss problems, share information, and support one another, via team meetings or informal get-togethers

Build in Continuous Improvement ·        Make the most of your people’s knowledge and experience ·        encourage them to suggest changes ·        Create opportunities for your team to explore and implement ideas ·        schedule a regular time to discuss new ideas ·        set objectives that encourage creativity ·        simply create a suggestions box