Good interpersonal skills
Following the previous section, this task will evaluate dysfunctional teams and analyses all the different aspects that may effect an underperforming team and provide detailed recommendations as to how it could be improved and how they can be resolved to overall help achieve there goals. I will do this by weighing out whether it is the team that is dysfunctional or whether the other factors are genuinely amenable to help improve team activity and progress.
To have effective teams they need to have good interpersonal skills in order to grow and develop successfully, also these skills and qualities help teams to bond and build relationships so they all feel part of the group and co-operate together. However, it is not always teams interpersonal skill’s that help complete tasks or make a team dysfunctional. Other factors such as experience in carrying out certain tasks or knowledge in that field, do determine the extent of how successful a team will be or can be. The following is an analysis of different aspects of why a team may be dysfunctional and detailed recommendations as to how this can be resolved.
Analyses of why a team may be underperforming. Task-relevant Experience: This has a big impact on whether a team may be able to carry out the task or to the best of their abilities. This is simply because a team with experience will be able to make a better contribution to the team were as a team with no experience will have to learn from the beginning so will need more time to learn and adjust to what is needed in order to be successful. This leads to the theory that most people feel more comfortable with what they already know than they do learning new skills or theory, especially in a group of individuals who may be still at the forming stage of their development.
The extent of the impact depends upon how well developed interpersonally the team is, to stay focused on meeting their targets. On the one hand, this affects whether the team is able to do the task if they are new to it and what it requires. For example a team of engineers are asked to carry out research on the market in which they operate in, whether they are able to do this task effectively will depend on the knowledge they have in carrying research out and what methods are available to them. Without experience, they are more likely to produce a poor out come and co-operate less effectively and fluently as individually, they may be scared of getting it wrong.
On the other hand if the group is at the norming stage, then the group will feel comfortable to accept criticism if they are wrong and may motivate each other to meet the challenge of doing something new and may enjoy learning new skills and knowledge to help meet their goals. So on balance there are two ways a team may accept the task if they have no experience and may be the cause to why a team may be underperforming. However if a team has excellent inter-personal skills they could overall overcome this problem and seek new opportunities from this task. In this scenario, I recommend that a team should look for solutions and better ways of completing their task to over come the problem. However having the right resource to carry out the task is equally important to be able to produce a high standard and to overall complete the work they are given.
In addition, the team may not have definitions of responsibility between members. For example they may not have a team leader to lead them and organise the group to get a tasks done and on time. This could lead to members being left out and a feeling of tension within the group, which will result in less co-operation and less team work being done. Without a team leader the group will have no one to manage the project so will not operate effectively as their will be no leader to define the objectives to help meet them in the most appropriate, simplest and logic lest order
The question to consider is whether a team is capable of achieving the task or whether they are able to for example may not have the resources needed to complete the assignment or may have a team leader with poor communication and interpersonal skills. Recommendations From the above information on the different aspect that can affect a team and make it dysfunctional the following are recommendations to help raise the achievement of an underperforming team.
I recommend team-building techniques are used to help improve the productivity and interaction of the team members to help the group bond and feel part of something. Successful team building has far-reaching communication skills in an organisation. Improve the way team members interact and you improve their ability to solve problems. Better problem solving means better efficiency in general. Increased efficiency tends to boost morale and productivity. It also helps to decrease stress, turnover and operating costs. In addition, all of these improvements bolster the organisations public image. Once established an effective team becomes self-perpetuating.
In addition, I recommend that a point scoring system that has prospects should be used to help motivate teams to achieve their targets so they have something to work towards, as they will want to get the highest score so they can be recognised for their hard work and rewarded. This will help the teams within an organisation become more competitive and work much harder to achieve their goals. This will encourage underperforming teams to be motivated to work together to get their tasks done so they can be recognised by the business for their contribution to their success. Also to scope for personal and professional development through training and international mobility.
This will mean employees can continue to learn and gain new skills through their work. This will help motivate staff to do the most amount of work they are able to do to, to the best standard they can achieve. So they have a better chance of being promoted. This will help underacheiving teams to be motivated to do the work as they can learn how to do it if they done know how. In addition to the above recommendations, my final recommendation is to overall increase employee motivation by concentrating on the environment they work in and what can be done to provide a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere so the productivity can be increase and stress levels can be decreased. Techniques such as bringing plants into the work place have proved to reduce stress and bring a more calmed environment to the workforce.
It is very important for any organisation/business to improve underperforming teams as they result in increasing levels of customer complaints, high staff turnover and incomplete tasks. So overall it leader to an under performing business as they will not be meeting their strategic aims and objectives. Overall action needs to be taken at the first signs of a dysfunctional team.
