Effective teams generate extraordinary results: we have seen professional footballers winning their matches because of excellent team work. With the synergy of teams, companies can progress to the top of the market.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MANY successful companies encourage team work among their staff. When companies decide to take this route to success, the first question they ask is how to choose the members of a team?

The team should not be too large otherwise it is difficult to organise and to keep the details confidential. You would choose people with special skills, expertise, and knowledge. All must have the ability to work together towards the same objective. At least one should have leadership qualities: a natural ability to bring out the best in others. Finally, there must be trust: trust that everyone will perform their best at critical moments, trust that all will share the rewards equally.

Forming a Team

You must select the right people to form a good team. Choosing a group of people who can work well together is an art. Borrowing a principle from magnetism, opposite poles attract so try to form a team with people with different skills, talents, and experience. Creative people contribute greatly to the success of a team.

You need a catalyst for every team. In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that causes a reaction without itself being affected. In team work, a catalyst is a person who precipitates an event or a change. Such people contribute ideas to keep the team moving forward. They are passionate about what they do and this will motivate the others to contribute.

Catalysts are often talented, they offer to do many things. They not only make promises but they deliver. You find them in study groups; they will type out the notes neatly and make copies for everyone present. They offer to do the Powerpoint presentations without being asked. Often, they do not seek special rewards for themselves. You must watch out for the perfectionist. With good intentions, this person may be over-ambitious. While high standards are good, if overdone, the team will never be able to meet the deadline.

Mutually Shared Goals

Team members must have mutually shared goals and benefits. Many team members will ask: What's in it for me? They want to receive tangible benefits in cash or kind. It's a natural human yearning for rewards and we have to learn to live with such people. We can find many examples of such people in grass-root organisations and social work. These volunteers contribute time and effort enthusiastically for the first year but later they fade away when they find that there is little personal gain.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the workplace, a team is a small group of employees who are working together to achieve a specific objective. The committee could be temporary, meeting for long hours to solve a problem. When the solution is accepted by management, the team is abandoned. Or it could be a longer term team for total quality management and quality circles.

In the Toyota Way of business beliefs and methods, team work is emphasised in the words: "We stimulate personal and professional growth, share the opportunities of development, and maximise individual and team performance".

Teams should learn how to analyse problems, document them, and come up with new ideas for improvements. These ideas are implemented using the 20-80 rule: 20 per cent of the new ideas generate 80 per cent of the gains.

Teams have the responsibility and authority to manage their day-to-day job functions. They also work collaboratively to set objectives, lighten each other's workload, and engage in cross training. A self-directed team can operate independently while a high performance work team places emphasis on improving work performance in the company.

Team Leader

To maintain a motivated team, it is best to change the role of the leader from being a commander to being a collaborator. Get the group to function together like a decision-making body.

The team leader has an important part to play in moving the team forward. Take the case of a committee set up to look into process improvements in a manufacturing plant. The leader, John, did not find time to hold regular meetings. When management required him to present a progress report at an executive staff meeting, John asked the members for their views one day before the meeting. He was honest enough to declare that they had no time to meet and the report was based on E-mailed contributions from his team mates. He should have termed his committee as a virtual team. This is useful if your team members are based in various subsidiaries based in several nations and it is expensive to meet face to face.

It is true that many companies the world over with employee teams and team work have added value to many areas of their business. If your company has not already done so, evaluate how forming the right committees can move productivity forward. If necessary, hire an expert to implement the team building programme. You will be pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the employees and the improved bottom line resulting from this new way of management.

Training

Teams are responsible for the individual operations they perform, for good coordination and cooperation, and for process improvement. When a firm embarks on changing employees to work as teams, much time, finance, and effort should be devoted to training the employees so that they are equipped with the tools to change their way of working and thinking.

Such training could include techniques on effective team work, project management, problem identification and solving, how to conduct meetings, and the use of statistical tools.

Some companies believe that to build a successful team, members must learn to work together and spend time doing challenging activities. Such learning and play programmes are termed as adventure learning. There are professionals who specialise in running team building programmes around activities such as sailing, trekking, scuba diving, or other outdoor activities. They choose secluded places away from the workplace as the venue of such programmes.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

During such activities, employees become aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They develop their strengths and address their weaknesses. They interact with their colleagues and get to know them better. It is easier to deal with someone you know rather than with a name without a face. The challenging outdoor tasks promote better communication, give them a better understanding of the shared vision, and provide them a chance to show their leadership qualities.

Team Spirit

The French phrase esprit de corps (pronounced as "espri-de-kor") best describes the main factors that contribute to great team work: It is the common feeling of purpose, pride, loyalty, and responsibility that unites a disciplined group. The military places great emphasis on developing esprit de corps among its members so that they are prepared to defend the organisation and nation with their lives if need be. From this spirit, established schools take pride in old school ties. Businesses can learn from them about how to build up this brand for the employees.

Team Identity

A good team leader should know that identification helps to keep up the team spirit. That's why the military spends a big part of the budget on uniforms. A hockey team, for example, all wear the same coloured jerseys. Close friends not only try to wear the same fashionable clothing, they also have the same hairstyle and hair colour. If your company has no budget for staff uniform, a spectacular team name helps, it's some form of branding. Much time and effort must be spent on team building. Good team work does not come naturally, it has to be weaned and nurtured. One of the basics of team building is good relationships among team mates. Some important elements include:

* Trust

* Mutual respect

* No blackmouthing

* No hidden agenda

* Open and honest communications

* Willingness to experiment with new things

* Don't run down other's ideas how ever dumb

* Action to promote long-term relationship

* Reliability, and

* Equality among all members.

Given time and the right people, building a successful team is not an impossible task. The challenge is keeping the same team together to solve bigger and bigger problems for the company.

Each team member should be willing to share their experience and information unselfishly. This knowledge may be put to good use by another team member who is good at seeing relationships. At meetings, brainstorming often leads to innovations.

Teams provide many opportunities for interaction. In many companies, various departments see the rest as rivals rather than as colleagues rowing in the same direction. The barriers between departments must be broken down for the good of the company.

Teams should share glories of success and bear the blame for failures. Taking the blame as a group is easier than admitting the grave error individually. Management does not usually mete out drastic punishment for a group of employees.

Disadvantages of Teams

While praising the advantages of teams, we should also be aware of the downsides. At team building sessions, certain employees may be cynical about their companies. This is especially so when the team building events are held outside of the context of the company's normal way of doing business. For example, if top management has often dictated policies to the staff, the committees feel that it is a waste of time sending recommendations for work improvement to management.

Or, if the firm sends people off to a team building retreat, but all rewards in the firm are based on individual goals and efforts, the retreat will have no lasting effect. Again, if after the team building sessions, there is no follow up by management, participants feel that the sessions are really an exercise in futility.

Hidden Agenda

We should also be aware if certain team members have hidden agenda. They want the group to follow a certain path to their own benefit. They try to manoeuvre the team in that direction without declaring their personal interest. Imagine that your team has identified an innovative way to reduce cost in the packaging department. Mr Chen tries very hard to point out the disadvantages of the scheme simply because he does not like the manager in charge.

We see teams at work in sports. We speak of the great teamwork of the national soccer players. We see the good combination of a team of huskies pulling a sled--if their steps are not in tune, the sled will not move forward. We see teams at work and play in the animal world. With a combination of working for the common purpose, the termites build their "skyscrapers" and ensure that the community thrives and progresses.

What Makes a Great Team

What separates a great team from a bunch of people who can't work together? A great team needs a good leader. He rallies the team together, gives them the big picture, and gets them focused towards the goal. He is the cheerleader who motivates the group to work towards success.

Teams must share information unselfishly. The same information may be put to good use by another team member who is good at seeing relationships. We can't achieve much by venturing alone. We get better perspective of a problem when sharing it with others who have experience and insight.

Teams provide opportunities for interaction. Although each department in a company is a team, it must also cooperate with other departments in the company. Some departments guard their interests so jealously that they are autonomous regions within a big nation. This works to the detriment of the company. One way to get around this is to form committees with members from different departments. Such committees will provide opportunities for staff from different parts of the company to get to know each other better, not only at meetings but also socially.

Teams share glories of success and bear the blame for failures. This ideal helps to cement the idea of working together as one happy family. It creates a sense of belonging and unity.

Many companies form teams to create competition. The various sales teams work hard to see which team can sell more and so win the overseas incentive trip at the end of the year. The rules are such that only one team will be sponsored for the trip so besides the sales commissions, the glory of beating the others help to spur team members to greater heights.

What should be the size of an ideal team? A good rule of the thumb is: The bigger the challenge, the larger the team. But a team of more than 10 people can be cumbersome to handle.

Obstacles to Team Development

There are certain factors that work against team development. For example, new employees are paid higher than those with the firm for many years. This causes resentment. Staff has little sense of long-term direction. Work groups have different perceptions of what is important and what is not. The top management has little interest in sharing their visions and power with the lower ranking staff.

Friction and disagreements between members can lead to team ineffectiveness. The team leader, Josie may hear complaints or gossip about the team from various sources. She should investigate such rumours and clarify certain facts with the team.

One main obstacle to team development is the lack of loyalty towards one another. Such suspicion will surely work against team work. Members must learn to trust each other and avoid backstabbing.

Some members may be more interested in working on projects outside the team rather than contributing to the team's objectives. Efforts must be taken to motivate the member to be more enthusiastic.

Members who are constantly absent from work and from meetings could make other members shun them. Some leaders are poor managers as a result there is poor coordination of team activities leading to disorganized and chaotic management of tasks to be done.

Differences between Team Building and Team Development

Dennis Kinlaw in his book Developing Superior Work Teams makes a distinction between team building and team development. He says that team building focuses on the team's deficits while team development focuses on the team's positive opportunities for continuous improvement.

Team building is for the short term. Term development is for the long term. Team building is intense while team development is diffused. Team building tasks involves extended meetings that can take place over many days until the problem is fixed. Team building primarily targets improving relationships on the team itself. Team development targets improvements in all the whole company as well as the team systems.

Getting a Team Going

Always think about the feelings of other team members. Some meetings can be confrontational but members should not take criticisms or rejection of ideas as a personal attack.

Think about the feeling of inclusion. Team members should get the information that affects their job and life in the company. They should have a say in decisions that affect them. New ideas are readily accepted or treated with respect. If every new idea is slammed down with remarks such as "We've done that before, it doesn't work" then members will remain quiet at future meetings.

Great appreciation must be shown that members are valued for their contributions for the successful implementation of new projects.

Members must be committed to their work in the committee. They should make personal sacrifices to ensure that the team succeeds. They should be single-minded and never give up easily. They should trust the other members of the team and work as one happy family.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Total quality management programmes require teamwork. The book Harvard Business Review on Manufacturing Excellence at Toyota has a suitable quote from a team leader at the GM-Toyota joint venture called New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, Nummi: "Once you start working as a real team, you're not just work acquaintances any more. When you really have confidence in your coworkers, you can trust them, you're proud of what you can do together, then you become loyal to them. That's what keeps the absenteeism rate so low here. When I wake up in the morning, I know there's no one out there to replace me if I'm feeling sick or hung over or whatever. ... At Nummi, I know my team needs me."

The Japanese recognise the value of extending team work beyond the organisation to include suppliers. If the firm wants to maintain the quality of its products, they must be assured of quality in the components that make up the product. This means establishing and maintaining cooperation, communication, and trust with their suppliers.

Work groups comprise employees who make up a section or a department. It could be made up of two or more employees with one acting as the leader.

Work teams are groups that have developed comradeship among the members. They enjoy a special kind of leadership and focuses on the development and performance of a project. Work teams cooperate in all aspects of their task performance. They share responsibilities for planning, organising the group, setting performance targets, assessing the team's performance, developing strategies to suit changes, and getting the resources necessary to obtain its goals.

Creating a Team Work Culture

You can work successfully with teams if the company can create a team work culture that percolates from top management to all the employees below.

To make team work happen, these actions must take place.

Senior executives must communicate clearly that team work and collaboration are expected.

Executives should maintain team work even when things are not working correctly and the temptation is to slip back into working in isolation.

Team work is rewarded and recognised. Employees must see the rewards and benefits of team work. Unfortunately, most current appraisal systems are based on the performance and skills of the individual. Companies must incorporate extra points for team work. The performing teams must enjoy other forms of motivation over and above salary increases. There could be vacation rewards for the best team. Management can make teams compete against each other and the winning team will get its members' names engraved on a plague at the reception area.

RELATED ARTICLE: Learning team work from the animal world.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

ANIMALS and insects are born with the instincts to protect the survival of their species. The human workforce should observe how these creatures do this and learn to improve team work in our workplaces.

In a paper in the journal Science, the researchers report that elephants, giraffes and other large plant-eaters spur acacias to "hire" and support ants as bodyguards. Without the mammals, the trees slash their investment in ants, opening both to other attackers.

Scientists have observed mutualism, or cooperative interactions between different species, throughout nature. Acacia trees have hundreds of thorns that serve as nests for three species of biting ants. The co-habitation between the trees and the ants serve to benefit both parties.

The ants collect nectar from the bases of the leaves of the tree. In return, the ants will attack anything that molests the trees.

Insect colonies live together in large groups in the belief that unity is strength. In the case of bees, their sole purpose in life is to protect the nest from attackers, to look after the queen bee and the grubs so that the next generation of bees can survive. Researchers have observed that a diseased bee will choose to die outside the nest so as not to endanger the species.

Worker bees can be very cruel. In the case of honey bees, any egg that is not laid by its queen is destroyed. This may not be something we want to adopt in our workplace teams. We need to import new expertise from other departments or external experts so that new ideas can flourish. We do not want to encourage in-breeding.

Studies of ant colonies have shown that they are prepared to die to protect the colony. When ants are marching in search of food and they come across a gap that is an obstacle to their destination, they cooperate by forming a bridge with their bodies clinging to each other so that the other ants can cross the gap. That is the kind of self sacrifice we like to see in teams.--CT Tan

RELATED ARTICLE: Ineffective teams can cause problems.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

THE problems within the team can eventually translate into problems for the company. It could affect the bottom line, customer dissatisfaction could increase, and business could go the way of your competitors.

Managers must act quickly if they see any symptoms of team ineffectiveness and investigate the cause. Six symptoms of team ineffectiveness and action to take are:

Role clarity: Like a bee colony, each team member must know his role and how he can contribute to the team's success.

Lack of clear-cut goals: The team is unclear about its objectives and the direction to take. It is useful to have the terms of reference in writing. The members should know the scope and limitations of what they set out to do.

Inadequate training: Without proper training, the team cannot achieve its objectives. It is better to spend some time on relevant training before throwing the members into the middle of the pool in the hope that they will not drown.

Differences in work styles: Some members may not like the working style of another. In any group, there will be the loners, the show-offs, the loud mouths, and the naysayers. The loners must be encouraged to work as a team; the show-offs can be given time to prove that their views matter; the loud mouths must be told to tone down their critical remarks and be sensitive to others; and the naysayers must prove that they have other creative ideas rather than just saying "no" to every suggestion.

Poor leadership: Selecting a good leader is important. The leader must be able to walk the talk. He should have sufficient knowledge and expertise in the task in hand. He must be able to motivate the team and bring out the best in its members.

Poor planning: No project can meet its objectives if there is no good plan to follow. At the first few meetings, the group must come up with a solid plan on how to achieve its targets. This plan can be modified and improved upon subsequently.--CT Tan