SITXHRM402 Lead and Manage People

SITXHRM402 Lead and manage people

Topic 2 Develop team commitment

Overview

At the end of this topic you should be able to:

develop and clearly communicate plans and objectives in consultation with the team.
make plans and objectives consistent with organisational goals
communicate expectations, roles and responsibilities of team members and leaders in a way that encourages individuals and teams to take responsibility for their work.
encourage teams and individuals to develop innovative approaches to work
identify, encourage, value and reward individual and team efforts and contributions
model and support open and supportive communication styles within the team
seek and share information from the wider enterprise environment with the team
represent the team's interestsin the wider environment
seek feedback from team members and implement changes within the bounds of organisational goals and policies.

Introduction

A team is a collection of people working together to achieve a common goal, however teamwork is the collective effort of all team members to achieve the team's common goals. Planning is knowing what to achieve (i.e. a goal) and then sequencing activities that must be carried out by team members in order to achieve the goal.

Managing in today's streamlined, informal, team-based organisations is different from managing in the conformist, hierarchical organisations of the past. The ability to nurture high-performing teams and empower them to work effectively, with reduced management input and supervision is a key skill of 21st century managers.

Leading teams is about managing a diversity of people. It is about forging individuals, all of whom have their own needs, abilities, interests, backgrounds, and confidence levels, into a cohesive, cooperative whole that, together, is more effective than each individual could be alone.

Good communication skills and an understanding of team dynamics are essential. These, combined with clear and challenging goals and well-trained, motivated team members whose skills complement each other, enable teams to achieve synergy - the ability of the whole to be more than just the sum of its individual parts.

Recognising the behaviours that effective team members display and how teams develop, set goals, make decisions, motivate their members, celebrate and reward success, and manage change, are all part of building effective work teams.

Activity

Reflection

What does it ‘feel' like to be a member of a work team?

Think of teams you have been involved in.

Were team members courteous or rude; open or guarded; helpful or hurtful, supportive or undermining, tolerant or judgmental, trusting or cautious?
Did they aim to fix problems or fix blame?
Did they take responsibility?

Feedback

Whether you’ve been part of an effective team or not, read the following to clarify what it should feel like to be a member of a work team.

Teamwork is a joint action by two or more people or a group, in which each person contributes with different skills and expresses his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group in order to achieve common goals.

This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments. The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.

In order for teamwork to succeed one must be a ‘team player’. A ‘team player’ is one who subordinates personal aspirations and works in a coordinated effort with other members of a group, or team, in striving for a common goal. Businesses and other organisations often go to the effort of coordinating team building events in an attempt to get people to work as a team rather than as individuals.

The forming-storming-normingmodel (explained later in this topic) takes the team through four stages of team development and maps quite well on many project management life cyclemodels, such as initiation - definition - planning - realisation.

As teams grow larger, the skills and methods that people require grow as more ideas are expressed freely. Managers must use these to create or maintain a spirit of teamwork change.

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Although not compulsory, if you wish to read further material about team relationships, refer to the text Management Theory and Practice (details below).

Leadership and Communication

Effective communication is an essential part of any successful team. As the leader you are responsible for ensuring that all relevant information is distributed to team members. Without effective communication there can be no leadership. As the leader of a team, some of the roles that you play are:

coach
mentor
counsellor

As a leader, the way that you communicate with your team will determine the effectiveness of your roles.

Features of effective communication in organisations

Kris Cole, Managementtheory and practice, says that effective communication in organisations can both unite a group of individuals as a team, and weld the different parts of an organisation together into an enterprising, efficient and effective whole.

Cole says that effective communication:

with customers helps the organisation provide more useful services or products
within an organisation between sales and production departments helps plan to meet anticipated requirements and give more accurateinformation to customers
between finance, research & development and marketing helps an organisation develop strategies to meet market demands
between supervisors, employees and safety representatives helps an organisation to operate more safely and economically.

While everyone in an organisation communicates, leaders set the tone for this climate. They set the stage for how well ideas and information are exchanged through how they establish open and clear communication with each other, team members, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. The effectiveness of the resulting communication affects the organisation’s morale, productivity, and ultimately, its success.

Activity

Are you communicating effectively?

Communication often involves a process of further explanation and clarification. Sometimes one or more parties walk away feeling frustrated or angry because the process has broken down somewhere along the line.

Click on this 'quiz' link to be taken to a short quizto find out whether you are communicating effectively.

While you are there,check your score and read the 'feedback.

Key points from Mind Tools

Communication model

Effectively communicating to others is a complex process. If it was simply a matter of delivering OUR message and the other person automatically understanding and agreeing, there would be few if any conflicts or misunderstandings around us.

There are many facets to effective communication. It is a complex process that involves a:

Sender: the person creating the message

Receiver: the person that gets the message

Channel: the medium used to transmit the message

Message: the information that is to be shared

Feedback: the receiver’s response to the message

Noise: any interference that could distort the message or feedback.

Consider the following communication model

In addition to the elements of the communication process, you must also consider each person's

Self-concept
Family and /or cultural background
Language skills and physical abilities
Attitudes and values
Status or relationship to the other people in the communication

Any or all of these elements have the potential to influence the effectiveness of the communication. For example, if the receiver perceived that the communication is just another attempt to blame them for something that went wrong, they are not likely to become actively involved in the communication unless it is to defend themself.

Each party to the communication has a responsibility to ensure that a ‘shared or common meaning is achieved’.

Attitude and Communication

In addition to sound communication skills, your attitude is a major influencing factor on your effectiveness as a communicator.

Attitudes influence your communication in three ways:

Your attitude towards yourself influences how you conduct yourself when you communicate. A positive attitude towards yourself will be seen by others as self-confidence while, a less than positive attitude may be interpreted as being uncertain or nervous. This will impact on the quality of the message and/or the receiver’s attention to it.
Your attitude towards the receiver will influence the tone, structure and/or content of the message being sent. For example, you are likely to communicate differently to a person in a high position compared to someone in a similar position as you or a lower one.
Yourattitude towards the subject matter will influence how you word your message and/or present it. If you have a positive attitude you may tend to ‘gloss’ over any negatives or focus only on positive aspects while, a negative attitude may have the opposite influence on how you present the information.

Communication chain

As mentioned previously,eachparty has a responsibility to achieve'shared or common meaning' when communicating.

Appropriate communication techniques help to overcome communication barriers.

Frontlineleaders,supervisors and team managers are the link in the communication chain between their own and other areas of the organisation, and between management and line team members.

To fulfil this role, they need to ensure that:

All team members understand their own, each other’s, and their department’s objectives

Members of their team understand the organisation’s values, mission, goals, and how they contribute to this big picture

Team members understand relevant policies and procedures

Team members can carry out their duties

A climate is established where team members feel free to ask questions, contribute ideas and challenge the status quo

The organisation’s changing requirements of its team members are explained

The needs and requirements of their work team are communicated to senior management.

By applying the following techniques a supervisor/manager can enhance organisational communication.

Lines of communication

Upward (from front line team up the management level)

Downward (from management to front line team)

Horizontal (between people on the same level)

/ Note that horizontal communication flow reduces the need for continual reference to a supervisor.

Criteria for effective upward communication include:

provide information on processes for completing tasks
keep communication lines open
plan the message before communicating it
ensure parties are receptive to new suggestions
act on problems and seek resolutions.

Criteria for effective downward communication include:

provide information on processes for completing tasks
explain the reasons behind tasks
explain the relevant organisational policies and practices and how the tasks relate to the corporate objectives
use different forms of communication to reinforce messages.

Horizontal communication takes place for many reasons, including, but not limited to:

sharing information about plans, tasks and activities
solving problems and coordinating the work effort
securing common understanding of issues

Although not compulsory, if you wish to read more about building effective teams, refer to the text Management Theory and Practice (details below)

Providing feedback

Providing feedback on performance is one of the most important duties of a leader. Feedback motivates, guides and offers an opportunity for improved performance. For example, for casual event staff and volunteers working all day and/or evening at event can be tiring and hard work, so it is important that Event Managers take time to provide positive feedback from the client, attendees etc. and ensure staff and volunteers leave the event on a high and feeling proud of their efforts.

Team leadersprovide feedback on a daily basis to their teams.While this is a useful process, there may be times when a more formal performance feedback process is necessary. In this case, your discussions will be documented and agreed outcomes developed andconfirmed.

When providing feedback, consider the various methods of communication available because they may vary depending on who is to receive it. For example, you may choose to provide verbal feedback ie: face to face to an individual, while written communication may be more appropriate to a group.

Another important aspect of your communication is the confidence that your team has in your message. As with any relationship, trust is a critical factor. A frequent mistake made by inexperienced leaders is to not follow through on their statements. Some leaders promise to do something and never actually do it. This tends to devalue the communication and the relationship as a whole. Generally, your communications have maximum impact when the receiver sees you as credible, objective and knowledgeable.

The key to providing useful feedback is to reward or discourage the specific behaviour. Focus on the issue not the person. Some questions to consider when preparing feedback are:

Is the person delivering the required standard of performance?
Do they clearly understand the performance standards?
Are they demonstrating appropriate behaviours?

Explore Further

Visit the NSW SmallBiz Connect website to learn more about the importance of providing feedback for employee motivation and development. There is also a short video you can watch on feedback

While it is easy to provide positive feedback when your team is performing well, you may find it more difficult to maintain a positive team focus when they are not performing well. Providing constructive feedback in these situations is a skill that all effective leaders must have. If you acknowledge the efforts of your team, you are providing them with feedback on their performance. This is a powerful motivational tool as well as helping to develop their sense of belonging to a larger group.

Internal communication

There is always a need to keep people informed of policies, procedures, and impending changes within an organisation.

Effective internal communication includes:

written communication
meetings and minutes
letters, memos and newsletters.

The use of email has reduced face-to-face and telephone communication and made it easier and quicker to broadcast information; however, sorting messages can be difficult and time consuming.

Methodsand types of internal communication frequently used in the Events Industry include:

Memos

Memos are a written message for use within an organisation.

There are various types of memos. For example: handwritten/typedorelectronic via email. Memos have advantages over spoken messages, e.g. when a record is required, when complex information is to be transmitted or when many workers need to be reached simultaneously.

Email is a method of deliveringcommunication and has replaced many other forms of written communication. There are problems with emails, however. For example, privacy can be compromised when a chain of information develops every time you hit one of the following buttons:

Before sending an email you need to ensure that the email trail does not contain information which should not be distributed,that you have checked the spelling and content, and the people receiving the email are the intended recipients.

Reports

Reports are documents that discuss what has been learned by observation or investigation. Theyideallydraw a conclusion about the information they contain andmake recommendations.

When writing long reports there are five steps in planning:

Determine your purpose
Consider your receiver/s
Gather your information
Evaluate your results
Prepare your outline.

Team meetings

One of the most effective ways of maintaining contact with the everyday workings of the team is through holding regular meetings.

Team meetings provide the opportunity to pass on information relevant to everyone in a department or team. An effective supervisor or manager uses the meeting forum to reinforce task priorities and seek feedback on any potential challenges.Meetings can also bea productive way ofmaking decisions and planning for the future.

Areas of Responsibility

There are three main areas of responsibility that must be met if a meeting is to be successful. These are:

The company must provide the policies and procedures necessary to run the meeting in addition to operating the business
The chairperson has a responsibility to organise and run the meeting in the most productive manner possible
All participants have a responsibility to actively participate and contribute to the meeting

When all of these responsibilities are met, each participant has the opportunity to contribute new ideas, develop actions and solve existing problems in a constructive manner.

All meetings should have a purpose. It’s a good idea to prepare an agenda before the meeting and circulate it to all participants beforehand so they have time to adequately prepare for the meeting or add items to the agenda.

While there are specific formal meeting conventions that are applied in official meetings (i.e. Annual General Meetings), it is unlikely that a small team meeting should be run with such formality. The general rule of thumb is for each person to show courtesy to other participants and for the chair to keep the meeting on track.

Informal Meetings

These are less structured meetings usually run in a more relaxed atmosphere than formal meetings. They are an ideal forum to:

Share ideas or new information
Discuss existing problems or performance gaps
Generate new ideas or build on existing ones
Set team and individual goals
Provide feedback on performance, sales

Informal meetings provide the opportunity for members to use their expertise and contribute in a constructive way. However, these type of meetings need to be organised so they don’t degenerate into a ‘talk fest’ with no real outcomes or actions at the end.