Build Positive Teamwork In The Workplace
>> Saturday, August 30, 2008
by JLGerardo
We don’t need tons of surveys in order to observe the declining morale in the workplace. Mean, hot-tempered bosses, at their own selfish whims and pleasure, indiscriminately fire employees. On the other hand, there are some employees who refuse sovereignty and who thinks the supervisor is a fool and quickly rise up to the occasion of challenging management decisions. This situation creates an atmosphere of hostility, distrust, and negativism. Left unchecked, the workplace will deteriorate to passivity, dismal work performance, and even bankruptcy.
The antidote against this perennial office problem is called positive team work. Susan M. Heathfield, author of “Tips for Team Building” and Gil Weinreich, author of “Three-Part Harmony” offer the following effective strategies in fostering positive team work in the workplace.
1.) BE COOL
While this approach applies to everybody, this is particularly useful to managers and supervisors. Remember that a management style that fosters trust, caring and respect in the office is essential to fostering positive team work. Just because you are the boss doesn’t give you the right to blow your top at the slightest infraction of the employees. If you are angry, take a break to cool off before summoning the employee in question. When you're angry about your employee or about anything, you are not in the best state of mind to solve a problem rationally. You are apt to be influenced by your emotional state. It is best to stay calm and say as little as possible. One wise way to do this is simply to ask the employee how she would go about fixing the problem. You can calmly listen and decide if the solution makes sense. This also initiates a virtuous cycle in the offending employee. Instead of feeling shame, an unproductive emotion, she instead feels.
2.) SCHEDULE REGULAR DEPARTMENT MEETINGS
Hold department meetings to review projects and progress, to obtain broad input, and to coordinate shared work processes. If group members are not getting along, examine the work processes they mutually own. The problem is not usually the personalities of the people. It’s the fact that they often haven’t agreed on how they will deliver a product or a service or the steps required to get something done.
3.) EMPLOYEES, RESPECT THE MAN WHO HOLDS THE POSITION
Just as we should rise in the presence of the President out of respect for the office even if we didn't vote for him, so too should we show a greater deference to supervisors. More often than not, one quickly learns on assuming higher career positions that the guy who was calling the shots wasn't a fool but was faced with very difficult decisions. Don’t challenge his decision, or talk against his back. If you have some concerns, schedule a time to discuss the issues one-on-one with him.
4.) FORM TEAMS
Form teams to solve real work issues and to improve real work processes. Provide training in systematic methods so the team expends its energy on the project, not on figuring out how to work together to approach it.
5.) GIVE EMPLOYEE A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN ANY LAPSE OF JUDGMENT
Bearing down on erring employee, cursing or humiliating him are methods employed by pea-sized brain managers. This approach is never productive and will not do any good to the company. But allowing employees to explain themselves shows respect and enables them to maintain their dignity. Equally important, employees allowed to tell their side of the story are more likely to admit their mistakes, accept responsibility and be forthcoming about any problems that may occur in the future.
6.) INCORPORATE FUN
Build fun and shared occasions into the organization’s agenda. Hold pot luck lunches; take the organization to a sporting event. Sponsor dinners at a local restaurant. Go hiking or to an amusement park.
7.) MAKE EMPLOYEES FEEL VALUED
To ingrain a sense of mutual benefit, the key is to show employees that they are valued
The most obvious way to do this is through salary increases or bonuses. But in the absence of financial incentives, routine respect, courtesy, praise and a sense of latitude to get the job done according to the worker's best professional judgment will militate against the propensity of workers to feel taken for granted. If employees feel they are not just helping the company make money but also bettering themselves and helping others, the manager is doing an effective job of inculcating a sense of mutual benefit.
8.) CELEBRATE GROUP SUCCESSES
Celebrate group successes publicly. Buy everyone the same t-shirt or hat. Put team member names in a drawing for company merchandise and gift certificates. You are limited only by your imagination.
IN A NUTSHELL
Here are additional ideas from Susan M. Heathfield, author of “Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams”, on fostering positive team work at the office.
1.) Clear Expectations---management should lay down in clear-cut terms what they expect from employees.
2.) Context---- employees must understand why they are on a team and how they should go about in accomplishing the company’s goals.
3.) Commitment –each employee must be committed to give his or her very best efforts in the fulfillment of team’s assigned tasks.
4.) Competence -- employees should feel that its team members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed.
5.) Charter--- employees should take its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the missions of the company.
6.) Control—employees must feel they have some form of control or latitude by making individual decisions in accomplishing its assigned goals, without losing sight of certain boundaries and limits.
7.) Collaboration---employees should understand that they should work collectively and harmoniously together as a team in order to accomplish the company’s objectives.
8.) Communications—employees should have access to honest feedbacks and support
9.) Creative Innovation—employees should be given a chance to show their creativity, practice creative thinking, come up with unique solutions, and new ideas. Management, for its part, should reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements.
10.) Consequences ---employees should feel responsible and accountable for team achievements.
11.) Coordination --- the employees’ efforts should be coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success. Management should make sure that priorities and resource allocation have been planned across departments.
12.) Cultural Change—management and staff should recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organization of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization of the present setup.
