Effective Team Building

How to build effective team?

Team building is crucial in improving the collective performance of a group or organization and it is a powerful tools for a leader to use to increase the chances of success for himself or his group.

Although team building is often talked about and believed to be practiced, it can often be ineffective for several reasons: there is a lack of commitment in the group to a shared common goal; the team building activities practiced are too generic to add any lasting value and there is a lack of proper assessment of the team.

The Foundation of Team Building:

The most important factor to successful team building is a commitment to shared common objective or goal with their team. This is the foundation that all good team building is built upon without it; a lot of energy can be expended with very little result.

Remember that, most people are committed to their own objectives over and above everything else therefore, it is important that they see the collective group objective as important as their own, otherwise they will not invest time and energy in team building activities.

Group vs. Team?

Many people make the mistake of assuming that a group of people automatically forms a team. In fact, a group is simply a set of people who happen to share a workplace or be a part of the same organization unit. The people within the group will all have individual objectives which may converge and is the same as the group objective, but may also be distinctly different and even competitive.

By contrast, a team is a group made up of individuals who have committed to working towards a single, common objective. Naturally, they will still have their different, individual objectives but these will contribute towards a higher collective one.

For example: In a marketing team, one person may responsible for direct mail campaign, another person responsible for client liaison and another for sponsorship-but they are all united in the overall objective of improving brand awareness and image and therefore, not judged solely on their individual objectives.

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Team Building Strategic

There are various kinds of team building strategies which can be employed to enhance relationships between members of a group, as well as improving the collective performance of the group. These can be divided into:

- Individual strategies: this involves the development of individual skills and gaining familiarity with the shared process.

- Relationship strategies: this involves creating a sense of common purpose and commitment and improving the unconscious dynamics within the group

- Between Group Strategies: this involves tackling the barriers between different groups and organizational units

- Cultural strategies: this focuses on creating a teamwork ethos within the organization.

Shared Commitment:

Regardless of the strategy chosen, it must be focused ultimately in establishing a shared commitment to common goals. Without this foundation for good team work, any kind of team building strategy will only have limited impact and influence. So before rushing a group into any kind of team building activity or looking at relationships within a team, it is important to first establish this foundation of shared commitment.

Shared commitment can be encouraged by clarifying the team goals and identifying any issues which may inhibit the team from reaching these goals. Building ownership of these goals across the team is also vital, as well as putting team processes in place which have the correct sequence to help the team make progress along the “ladder of achievements”

Teambuilding: 

Can help eliminate these negative actions by fostering respect among employees. Teams should be created that give team member s the responsibility and power to solve problem, plan, and make decisions.

Solving problem makes member feel like they are needed, while planning help member learn techniques to employment various solution. The power to make decisions help employee realize their importance to the company.

This feeling is importance increases morale. It also improves attendance rate because this feeling of importance make the employee feel like the company really needs their presence. In order for teambuilding to work properly, the teams must be lead by someone with a facilitating nature.

Facilitating leaders help team members feel empowered, think things through thoroughly, and utilize their individual talents. Team members with these skills will work well together and feel as though they are part of an important whole. People working together in a team also needed. Feeling needed promotes a sense of responsibility, and people who feel needed tend to have better attendance rates.

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10 Tactics For Finding New Business Ideas

There are some tips for your own business ideas.

1. Expect to have ideas. If you believe you’re incapable of coming up with ideas then you won’t come up with any. Put aside any negativity about yourself or you creativity and expect to have ideas.

2. Keep and open mind. Ideas can come from anywhere and some of the best ideas will seem daft or impossible based on your current knowledge, experience and assumptions. Try to be prepared to explore new ideas and to change your view of the world.

3. Keep a written record of your ideas, ideas that inspire you or ideas that are new to you - When you write things down you are more likely to remember them and if you don’t you’ve got a record to refer back to. I keep a record of all the ideas I see, read/hear about or have and I review it regularly. My written record has also evolved into this blog full of ideas.

4. Try to learn something new every day. Talk to other business people, talk to your friends and neighbours, talk to anyone that looks interesting and will talk to you. Read websites, magazines, books whatever medium you prefer try to read something that will expand your knowledge everyday. I enjoy business/entrepreneurs biographies and histories especially those that explain where the business or idea for it came from.

5. Talk about your ideas. Talk about your ideas to anyone who will listen, more often that not it’s my wife who has to listen to my ideas, if she’s not around however I’ll talk to myself! Failing that write down what you’d say to someone to explain the idea. The point is that in explaining the idea you’ll usually spot flaws or areas for improvement thus making the idea better.

6. Ask questions and listen to peoples problems, hopes, dreams and aspirations. As a small business consultant I always ask people what problems, issues or challenges they face in their business (or job), there are often good business opportunities in solving those problems. Peoples hopes, dreams and aspirations can provide ideas for example a business like Red Letter Days helps people fulfil their dreams by providing experiences such as driving a supercar or flying a plane. Weight Watchers appeals to those hoping to loose weight.

7. Research see what else is out there that is similar. Evaluate potential competition and keep notes on what you find. Use the search engines to look for similar ideas, businesses or products and take notes on them.

8. Draw a mind map. A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

9. Synthesise ideas. Put two or more unrelated ideas together. One way to do this is to brainstorm with your team. You’ll get the best results if you’ve followed steps 1 - 6 first as you’ll have a larger pool of ideas to combine.

10. Sleep on it. Go away for a while and think of something else, often your subconscious mind will continue to work on the problem and will come up with new ideas or refinements on the ideas you already have.

Read more in:Fundamental of Management "What Is Manager Do? 

What is supervisor do? 

Problem Solving and Decision Making 

Approach to Risk Management  

Planning

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Planning

Quick Look at Some Basic Terms

Planning typically includes use of the following basic terms.

1. Goals: are specific accomplishments that must be accomplished in total, or in some combination, in order to achieve some larger, overall result preferred from the system, for example, the mission of an organization. (Going back to our reference to systems, goals are outputs from the system.) 

2. Strategies or Activities: These are the methods or processes required in total, or in some combination, to achieve the goals. (Going back to our reference to systems, strategies are processes in the system.)

3. Objectives: are specific accomplishments that must be accomplished in total, or in some combination, to achieve the goals in the plan. Objectives are usually "milestones" along the way when implementing the strategies.

4. Tasks: Particularly in small organizations, people are assigned various tasks required to implement the plan. If the scope of the plan is very small, tasks and activities are often essentially the same.

5. Resources (and Budgets): Resources include the people, materials, technologies, money, etc., required to implement the strategies or processes. The costs of these resources are often depicted in the form of a budget. (Going back to our reference to systems, resources are input to the system.)

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What is supervisor do? 
Problem Solving and Decision Making 

Approach to Risk Management  

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Problem Solving and Decision Making

Much of what managers and supervisors do is solve problems and make decisions. New managers and supervisors, in particular, often solve problems and decisions by reacting to them. They are "under the gun", stressed and very short for time. Consequently, when they encounter a new problem or decision they must make, they react with a decision that seemed to work before. It's easy with this approach to get stuck in a circle of solving the same problem over and over again. Therefore, as a new manager or supervisor, get used to an organized approach to problem solving and decision making. Not all problems can be solved and decisions made by the following, rather rational approach. However, the following basic guidelines will get you started. Don't be intimidated by the length of the list of guidelines. After you've practiced them a few times, they'll become second nature to you -- enough that you can deepen and enrich them to suit your own needs and nature.

(Note that it might be more your nature to view a "problem" as an "opportunity". Therefore, you might substitute "opportunity" for "problem" in the following guidelines.)
  
1. Define the problem

This is often where people struggle. They react to what they think the problem is. Instead, seek to understand more about why you think there's a problem.

Defining the problem: (with input from yourself and others)

Ask yourself and others, the following questions:

a. What can you see that causes you to think there's a problem?

      b.  Where is it happening?

c.  How is it happening?
d.  When is it happening?
e.  With whom is it happening? (Hint: Don't jump to "Who is causing the problem?"

When we're stressed, blaming is often one of our first reactions. To be an effective manager, you need to address issues more than people.)

f.       Why is it happening?

g.     Write down a five-sentence description of the problem in terms of "The following

should be happening, but isn't ..." or "The following is happening and should be: ..." As much as possible, be specific in your description, including what is happening, where, how, with whom and why. (It may be helpful at this point to use a variety of research methods. See .

Defining complex problems:

a.     If the problem still seems overwhelming, break it down by repeating steps a-f until you have descriptions of several related problems.

Verifying your understanding of the problems:

a.     It helps a great deal to verify your problem analysis for conferring with a peer or someone else.

Prioritize the problems:

a.     If you discover that you are looking at several related problems, then prioritize which ones you should address first.

b.     Note the difference between "important" and "urgent" problems. Often, what we consider to be important problems to consider are really just urgent problems. Important problems deserve more attention. For example, if you're continually answering "urgent" phone calls, then you've probably got a more "important" problem and that's to design a system that screens and prioritizes your phone calls.

Understand your role in the problem:

a. Your role in the problem can greatly influence how you perceive the role of others. For example, if you're very stressed out, it'll probably look like others are, too, or, you may resort too quickly to blaming and reprimanding others. Or, you are feel very guilty about your role in the problem, you may ignore the accountabilities of others.

2. Look at potential causes for the problem

      a. It's amazing how much you don't know about what you don't know. Therefore, in this phase, it's critical to get input from other people who notice the problem and who are effected by it.

      b.  It's often useful to collect input from other individuals one at a time (at least at first). Otherwise, people tend to be inhibited about offering their impressions of the real causes of problems.

      c.  Write down what your opinions and what you've heard from others.

      d.  Regarding what you think might be performance problems associated with an employee, it's often useful to seek advice from a peer or your supervisor in order to verify your impression of the problem.

      e.  Write down a description of the cause of the problem and in terms of what is happening, where, when, how, with whom and why.

3. Identify alternatives for approaches to resolve the problem

     a.  At this point, it's useful to keep others involved (unless you're facing a personal and/or employee performance problem). Brainstorm for solutions to the problem. Very simply put, brainstorming is collecting as many ideas as possible, then screening them to find the best idea. It's critical when collecting the ideas to not pass any judgment on the ideas -- just write them down as you hear them. (A wonderful set of skills used to identify the underlying cause of issues is Systems Thinking.)

4. Select an approach to resolve the problem

When selecting the best approach, consider:
a. Which approach is the most likely to solve the problem for the long term?
b. Which approach is the most realistic to accomplish for now? Do you have the resources? Are they affordable? Do you have enough time to implement the approach?
c. What is the extent of risk associated with each alternative?
(The nature of this step, in particular, in the problem solving process is why problem solving and decision making are highly integrated.)

5. Plan the implementation of the best alternative (this is your action plan)

a. Carefully consider "What will the situation look like when the problem is solved?"
b. What steps should be taken to implement the best alternative to solving the problem? What systems or processes should be changed in your organization, for example, a new policy or procedure? Don't resort to solutions where someone is "just going to try harder".

c. How will you know if the steps are being followed or not? (these are your indicators of the success of your plan)

d. What resources will you need in terms of people, money and facilities?
e. How much time will you need to implement the solution? Write a schedule that includes the start and stop times, and when you expect to see certain indicators of success.
f. Who will primarily be responsible for ensuring implementation of the plan?
g. Write down the answers to the above questions and consider this as your action plan.
h. Communicate the plan to those who will involved in implementing it and, at least, to your immediate supervisor.

(An important aspect of this step in the problem-solving process is continually observation and feedback.)

6. Monitor implementation of the plan

Monitor the indicators of success:

a. Are you seeing what you would expect from the indicators?

b. Will the plan be done according to schedule?

c. If the plan is not being followed as expected, then consider: Was the plan realistic? Are there sufficient resources to accomplish the plan on schedule? Should more priority be placed on various aspects of the plan? Should the plan be changed?

7. Verify if the problem has been resolved or not

One of the best ways to verify if a problem has been solved or not is to resume normal operations in the organization. Still, you should consider:

a. What changes should be made to avoid this type of problem in the future? Consider changes to policies and procedures, training, etc.

b. Lastly, consider "What did you learn from this problem solving?" Consider new knowledge, understanding and/or skills.

c. Consider writing a brief memo that highlights the success of the problem solving effort, and what you learned as a result. Share it with your supervisor, peers and subordinates.
Relate Article:  What is supervisor do? 
Fundamental of Management "What Is Manager Do?
Approach to Risk Management 
Planning 
                                               

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What is "Supervision"? What Do Supervisors Do?

What is "Supervision"?

There are several interpretations of the term "supervision", but typically supervision is the activity carried out by supervisors to oversee the productivity and progress of employees who report directly to the supervisors. For example, first-level supervisors supervise entry-level employees. Depending on the size of the organization, middle-managers supervise first-level supervisors, chief executives supervise middle-managers, etc. Supervision is a management activity and supervisors have a management role in the organization.

What Do Supervisors Do?

Supervision of a group of employees often includes

1. Conducting basic management skills (decision making, problem solving, planning,

     delegation and meeting management)

2. Organizing their department and teams

3. Noticing the need for and designing new job roles in the group

4. Hiring new employees

5. Training new employees

6. Employee performance management (setting goals, observing and giving feedback,

     addressing performance issues, firing employees, etc.)

7. Conforming to personnel policies and other internal regulations 

Read more in:
*Fundamental of Management "What Is Manager Do?

*What is supervisor do? 

*Problem Solving and Decision Making
*Planning 

*Approach to Risk Management                                    
 

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Fundamental of Management

 What is "Management"?

The term of "management" refers to the set of activities, and often the group of people, involved in four general functions which include planning, organizing, leading and controlling/coordinating activities and management needs to focus more on leadership skills, e.g., establishing vision and goals, communicating the vision and goals, and guiding others to accomplish them. They also assert that leadership must be more facilitative, participative and empowering in how visions and goals are established and carried out. Some people assert that this really isn't a change in the management functions, rather it's re-emphasizing certain aspects of management.

What Do Managers Do?

To be a good manager must do/acknowledge the major functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling/coordinating activities:

1. Planning

including identifying goals, objectives, methods, resources needed to carry out methods, responsibilities and dates for completion of tasks. Examples of planning are strategic planning, business planning, project planning, staffing planning, advertising and promotions planning, etc.

2. Organizing resources

to achieve the goals in an optimum fashion. Examples are organizing new departments, human resources, office and file systems, re-organizing businesses, etc.

3. Leading

Including to set direction for the organization, groups and individuals and also influence people to follow that direction. Examples are establishing strategic direction (vision, values, mission and / or goals) and championing methods of organizational performance management to pursue that direction.

4. Controlling, or Coordinating

This occurs with the organization's systems, processes and structures to effectively and efficiently reach goals and objectives. This includes ongoing collection of feedback, and monitoring and adjustment of systems, processes and structures accordingly. Examples include use of financial controls, policies and procedures, performance management processes, measures to avoid risks etc.

Another common view is that "management" is getting things done through others. Yet another view, quite apart from the traditional view, asserts that the job of management is to support employee's efforts to be fully productive members of the organizations and citizens of the community.

To most employees, the term "management" probably means the group of people (executives and other managers) who are primarily responsible for making decisions in the organization. In a nonprofit, the term "management" might refer to all or any of the activities of the board, executive director and/or program directors.

Relate Article: What is supervisor do? 
Problem Solving and Decision Making 
Planning
Approach to Risk Management 

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