Are Employees Responsible for their own Personal Development? Watch the video to learn more.
Monthly Archives: May 2018
Lack of Disagreement in Team Meetings is a Problem for Team Performance
Lack of Disagreement in Team Meetings is a Problem for Team Performance
The main purpose of team development is to have employees work together harmoniously to improve work performance and contribute to innovation and continuous improvement. For this to happen team members must have meetings to discuss solutions to problems and look for ways to improve products, services and processes.
One of the problems that inhibit team from being effective and progressing in their development is lack of disagreement in team meetings. This is especially common in newly formed teams or for organizations that are shifting from an autocratic style of leadership to a participative.
Why would you want disagreements in team meetings if you want people to work together harmoniously? Lack of disagreements means that people are not voicing their ideas and opinions. Thus, there is limited discussion and challenging of the status quo.
People may be reluctant to challenge ideas for fear of conflict. They may not see conflict as positive and thus avoid disagreement. Also, the team may not have expected risk taking and frank speaking to be a part of teamwork.
To resolve this the team needs to develop a team constitution that includes the need for disagreement and that team members are expected to speak frankly without penalty.
Leadership should also provide training to team members in conflict resolution and active listening.
Promoting open discussions in team meetings where members feel safe to express their ideas and challenge others is crucial to build effective teams that contribute to continuous improvement and find innovative solutions to problems.
Recipe for employee training
Can you create a recipe for employee training based on your best employees? It seems that is what the restaurant chain the Cheese Factory does to improve employee training and performance.
It appears to work the Cheesecake Factory, but will it work for you? Watch the video to learn more.
The Manager’s Role in Training Employees to Work as a Team
The Manager’s Role in Training Employees to Work as a Team
The manager is responsible to train employees to work as team. The manager cannot take it for granted that assembling talented people in the department will result in teamwork. There are essential skills that team members need to learn and develop for the team to move through the four stages of team development.
The purpose of teamwork is for teams to function more autonomously and take on higher level responsibilities such as problem solving, process improvement, innovation and even certain management functions such as hiring new team members.
The manager must give the training or work with internal or external resources to provide the training. The four clusters where team members require training are:
- Tasks: This is the basic level of employee functioning and team members must be able to perform their tasks according to set standards of quantity and quality. These standards are set by the manager/supervisor or by the quality control experts. Once these standards are established and being met, the team can move to the next cluster or phase.
- Team relationships: This is the next level where team members come together to discuss goals and ` projects. Team members need to learn interpersonal communication skills such as active listening, consensus and conflict resolution. Other skills such as mutual coaching and providing feedback and reinforcement are also essential to develop.
- Initiative: This is where teams engage in continuous improvement by looking for problems or opportunities to improve processes and functions. It could be related to the team or department goals. It may mean looking at obstacles that are holding the team back from achieving the goals. Team members need to learn group solving problem techniques such as controlled brainstorming, nominal group technique and force field analysis amongst others.
- Management relationship: Team members need to develop a relationship with management where they can communicate effectively and be able to present their ideas for continuous improvement that come from their efforts for taking initiative. Team members also need to learn how to implement the decisions by management once they are approved.
The manager or supervisor needs to provide the training for the skills described above, otherwise the team cannot continue to evolve and engage in taking more initiative and becoming more autonomous.