MT140 Purdue Global University Unit 6 Effectiveness of Teams Paper The Unit 6 Assignment requires you to consider how effective teams are built. Some consi

MT140 Purdue Global University Unit 6 Effectiveness of Teams Paper The Unit 6 Assignment requires you to consider how effective teams are built. Some considerations in this assignment include the traits of an effective team leader as well as the strategies one would use to recruit team members that would work effectively together.

Using material from Chapter 12 of your text as well as the article in the supplemental reading (Rao, 2016), you will write an informative essay sharing best practices for effective team-building. Outcomes evaluated through this assignment include MT140-01.

Assignment Checklist:

Describe at least three specific ways an organization could build more effective teams.
Identify at least two traits demonstrated by effective team leaders.
Explain how an organization could ensure team leads are exhibiting the traits of an effective team leader.
Utilize at least two external sources as part of your research. Sources might include your textbook, the supplemental article, or another resource found in the university library.
Your submission should include a title page, introduction, main body, conclusion, and reference list.
The paper should be at least two double-spaced pages in length using size 12-point font. Collaborate to build effective teams
to achieve organizational excellence
and effectiveness
M.S. Rao
Professor M.S. Rao is based at
MSR Leadership Consultants
India, Hyderabad, India.
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to collaborate to build effective teams to achieve organizational
excellence and effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines a blueprint to build an effective team based on
various personality types leveraging their competencies and capabilities.
Findings – It implores to identify various personality types of your team members, leverage their strengths,
understand their expectations and apply different leadership tools and techniques as per the situation to build
an effective team.
Practical implications – The tools and techniques adopted by leaders to build teams can be applied in any
industry and in any size of organization.
Social implications – The social implications of this research suggests that leaders can do much better by
collaborating to bring synergy in team members.
Originality/value – It outlines to lead three types of employees – actors, spectators and speed breakers
in the workplace. It underscores to replace competitive mindset with a collaborative mindset to build
successful teams.
Keywords Organizational development, Collaboration, Leadership development, Team building
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual
accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain
uncommon results (Andrew Carnegie).
Building an effective team is easier said than done. You can manage machines easily, not people.
You can press buttons and get the things done by machines mechanically. Whereas managing
men throws lots of challenges as they have different mindsets, emotions, egos and feelings.
Leaders must find out various personality types, mindsets, emotions and expectations of the
team members to motivate them to accomplish their organizational objectives.
Synergy is strength
Stephen R. Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People highlights the
significance of working in teams as one of the habits – Synergize. Hence, all leaders irrespective
of their industry must acquire the ability to work in teams and collaborate to build effective teams.
There are innumerable advantages of working in teams. Leaders can leverage the strengths
of their team members as everyone has strengths. When they come together, they become
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a powerful team. Most organizations craft their vision, articulate it effectively, create a strong
organizational culture, build strong teams, leverage the strengths of its employees and finally,
accomplish their vision. Hence, when leaders build teams, they utilize the strengths of their
precious human resources to improve the organizational bottom lines. George Bernard Shaw
rightly remarked, “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then
you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we
exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” Hence, exchanging ideas generate
more ideas thus providing solutions to lots of problems.
Understand four personality types
It is essential to understand various personality types to build effective teams. Alessandra
and O’Connor (1998) outlined four personality types in their award-winning book The Platinum
Rule: Discover the Four Basic Business Personalities and How They Can Lead You to
Success[1] – Directors, Relaters, Socializers and Thinkers. “Directors” are firm and forceful,
confident and competitive, decisive and determined risk-takers. “Socializers” are outgoing,
optimistic and enthusiastic people who like to be at the center of things. “Relaters” are genial
team players who like stability more than risk, and who care greatly about relationships with
others. “Thinkers” are self-controlled and cautious, preferring analysis over emotion. Directors
and Socializers both prefer open and direct communication, whereas Relaters and Thinkers
are more reserved and indirect. Directors and Thinkers focus on work tasks, in contrast to
Relaters and Socializers, who focus on people. Understanding these personality types helps
you identify your personality and also that of your team members to build leadership compatibility
and enhance your leadership effectiveness.
A blueprint to build a successful team
Here is a blueprint to build your team successfully:
?
Identify the personality types and assess the strengths and weaknesses of your team
members and allocate them with roles and responsibilities as per their strengths and
competencies.
?
Encourage diversity in your team to get more ideas and insights. It brainstorms the team to get
more solutions to problems.
?
Be transparent to build trust in your team. It inspires them to deliver their best.
?
Inculcate emotional intelligence in your team members to enable them to get along with
others easily.
?
Provide clarity of tasks to be executed to eliminate any differences of opinions and views
among the team members. It helps them work as per the expected objectives.
?
Empower your team members. Allow them to explore and experiment. If they fail, correct and
ask them to learn lessons from failures. Do not criticize them.
?
Create healthy organizational culture and climate for employees to contribute their best.
Culture connects employees to create an emotional bonding to improve organizational
bottom lines. For instance, leaders like A.G. Lafley of P&G, Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos.
com and Ross Fowler, the Managing Director, Cisco Systems Australia strove hard to connect
people by emphasizing organizational culture.
“Most organizations craft their vision, articulate it
effectively, create a strong organizational culture,
build strong teams, leverage the strengths of its
employees and finally, accomplish their vision.”
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?
Adopt different tools and techniques to different team members based on their needs and
expectations. Additionally, adopt situational leadership to enhance your team’s effectiveness.
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach in team building.
?
Do not micromanage. Give them assignments and enough time to breathe to execute their
tasks. Give them freedom to work as they might surprise you with their performance.
?
Make your team members special. Build confidence in them that they will be able to execute
tasks without any hiccups.
?
Offer them feedback to enable them to assess their strengths and concerns. It helps them
overcome their concerns to grow as better performers and leaders.
?
Allay any apprehensions and fears among your team members. Constantly inspire them about
the possibilities to execute vision effectively. Enlighten them to look at the door that is opened,
not the one that is closed.
?
Emphasize on stretch goals. When employees stretch, they unlock their hidden potential.
For instance, Jack Welch emphasized on stretch goals and succeeded as a CEO in GE.
?
Align their energies and efforts toward organizational goals constantly.
?
Take initiative to inspire your employees as they prefer to work under good leaders than bad
bosses. Above all, treat your employees as people, not as workers.
Leaders must check their excessive ego while handling their team members. They must empathize
with their team members before assigning the tasks whether the assigned tasks can be executed
effectively with confidence. Additionally, leaders must handle differences among the team members
without any prejudice. Remember, the slogan: Always look at what is right and wrong, not who is
right and wrong. When you look at who is right or wrong, your heart rules your head leading to
ill-feelings among the team members, losing their trust and finally failing as a leader.
Actors, spectators and speed breakers in workplace
You will find three categories of people in the workplace – actors, spectators and speed
breakers. Actors are the employees who follow your ideas, insights, principles and philosophies.
Speed breakers are the employees who often criticize your leadership style, tools and
techniques. And spectators are the employees who oscillate between the actors and the speed
breakers without much clarity. One side, actors try to pull spectators into their group and on
another side, speed breakers try to pull them into their group. Your role as a leader is to ensure
that spectators become actors and follow your principles and philosophies and work in your
team as cohesion. You must ensure that these spectators are not influenced and instigated
by speed breakers.
Do not compete, collaborate
King Solomon once quoted, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their
work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to
help him up! Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three
strands is not quickly broken.” With a dynamic global business environment, the permutations
and combinations are changing rapidly. Companies are reinventing themselves with the changing
business scenario. They are finding that collaboration is better than competition. Every company
has its own strengths and weaknesses. The leaders currently capitalize on the strengths of
“Companies are reinventing themselves with the
changing business scenario. They are finding that
collaboration is better than competition.”
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competitors by collaborating, rather than competing with them. The truth is that while competition
is needed, excessive competition drains a lot of resources and energies. Hence, leaders must
consider the current global climate and redesign their strategies in order to collaborate.
Collaboration is the key to effective team building
Helen Keller once remarked, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” It indicates
the significance of collaboration, as there is synergy. Collaboration is not something new to
mankind. In the olden days, several leaders avoided competition with the strong ones and
collaborated for mutual benefit, peace and prosperity. Collaboration involves a win-win situation
for all, while competition involves win-lose or lose-win.
The advantage of collaboration is that people share their knowledge, skills, abilities and, above all,
ideas to deliver better results. We find more creative solutions for problems as people think
differently and present diversified ideas and insights. It adds value to work, thus leading to the
best decision or solution. It capitalizes on the strengths of all the people for the collective good.
We find several global researchers and authors collaborating, rather than competing, to provide the
best content to the readers. Although it does entail a division of labor and saves time, apart from
leveraging diversified competencies, such collaboration pays off for authors and mostly for readers,
as the latter receive a manuscript that has been well-edited and proofread. At the workplace, too, we
find employees coming together and working to achieve the best outcomes.
Collaboration and leadership
In her 1994 Harvard Business Review article “Collaborative advantage,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter
talks about leaders who recognize that there are critical business relationships “that cannot
be controlled by formal systems but require (a) dense web of interpersonal connections […].”
When we observe leaders like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford, we see that they believed
in more collaboration. Presently, the steel giant Lakshmi Niwas Mittal also believes strongly in
collaboration. Leaders like Rick Wagoner (who turned General Motors around) were collaborative
leaders who believed in hiring the best talent for restructuring the company.
Collaborative leaders have open minds and are free of prejudices. They have the flexibility to
accommodate and adjust with realities. They look below the surface and are visionaries. They are
good listeners, and above all, they look at the ground realities.
Competition vs collaboration
Competition emphasizes on “who wins,” while collaboration involves “we all win.” Competition
often creates complications, while collaboration creates camaraderie. By nature, people prefer
to compete rather than collaborate. There are challenges involved in competition, as well as
resources such as time, money and energy. However, when we take a long-term view, we see
that it is ideal to work together for the overall benefit of the people and society, rather than
involving focussed negative energies to outsmart others. Man, by instinct, is competitive, and has
been since primitive times. However, with civilization there is need for a change in the mindset of
people, to work in peace for the overall good of the society.
The downside of collaboration is that it keeps people in their comfort zones rather than in effective
zones. But when viewed in totality, competition is seen to create ill-will and envy. It does
more harm than good. It results in a loss of peace and prosperity. Hence, it is better to go by
collaboration than competition.
“Collaborative leaders have open minds and are
free of prejudices.”
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A Creative Center for Leadership study reveals, “Collaboration is critical to success.” It further
says, “Relationship building ranked tenth out of sixteen leadership competencies”[2]. It indicates
the growing importance attached to collaboration. Collaboration is desirable when more damage
is being done through competition, and in situations where we can ensure peace, security and
productivity of the people. What matters at the end of the day is the value we are adding and the
difference we are making in the lives of others. Whether in politics or business, we have to look at
the overall prosperity. If the gains are greater and the results concrete, then it is advisable to
collaborate rather than compete.
Conclusion
In the ancient days, the slogan might is right prevailed. However, in today’s world this has been
replaced by just is right. Similarly, in ancient days competition and the rule of the jungle prevailed.
However, in today’s world people appreciate collaboration, which is congenial for both growth
and prosperity. Hence, it is obvious that what worked in the past no longer works in the present.
Henry Ford rightly noted, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress; working
together is success.” The twenty-first century is a period of coalition and collaboration. A new
mindset must replace competition with collaboration. Mother Teresa rightly quoted, “I can do
what you can’t do and you can do what I can’t do. Together we can do great things.”
To summarize, identify various personality types of your team members, leverage their strengths,
understand their expectations and apply different leadership tools and techniques as per the
situation to build an effective team to achieve organizational excellence and effectiveness.
Notes
1. www.amazon.com/The-Platinum-Rule-Discover-Personalities/product-reviews/0446673439?
pageNumber¼2
2. www.cio.com/article/152451/Great_Leaders_Build_Off_Great_Relationships
Reference
Alessandra, T. and O’Connor, M.J. (1998), The Platinum Rule: Discover the Four Basic Business Personalities
and How They Can Lead You to Success, Warner Business Books, New York, NY.
Web reference
www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI
Further reading
Rao, M.S. (2012), 21 Success Sutras for Leaders, 1st ed., Pearson.
Corresponding author
Professor M.S. Rao can be contacted at: profrao11@yahoo.com
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MT140: Introduction to Management | Unit 6 Assignment
Assignment Details and Rubric
The Unit 6 Assignment requires you to consider how effective teams are built. Some considerations in this
assignment include the traits of an effective team leader as well as the strategies one would use to recruit team
members that would work effectively together.
Using material from Chapter 12 of your text as well as the article in the supplemental reading (Rao, 2016), you
will write an informative essay sharing best practices for effective team-building. Outcomes evaluated through
this assignment include MT140-01.
Assignment Checklist:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Describe at least three specific ways an organization could build more effective teams.
Identify at least two traits demonstrated by effective team leaders.
Explain how an organization could ensure team leads are exhibiting the traits of an effective team
leader.
Utilize at least two external sources as part of your research. Sources might include your textbook, the
supplemental article, or another resource found in the university library.
Your submission should include a title page, introduction, main body, conclusion, and reference list.
The paper should be at least two double-spaced pages in length using size 12-point font.
Assignments are due Tuesday 11:59 p.m. ET of their assigned unit.
Once completed, submit your Assignment to the Unit 6 Assignment Dropbox. Assignments are due Tuesday
11:59 p.m. ET of their assigned unit.
MT140: Assignment Grading Rubric
Item criteria
Points
Possible
Content, Focus, Use of Text, and Research:
• Describe three specific ways an organization could build more effective
teams.
• Identify at least two traits demonstrated by effective team leaders.
• Explain how an organization could ensure team leads are exhibiting the traits
of an effective team leader.
• Utilize and reference at least two external sources.
20
Analysis and Critical Thinking:
Responses demonstrated critical thinking and analysis and exhibited application of
information.
12
Spelling, Grammar, and Format:
Clear business writing. Spelling and grammar are acceptable. Formatting follows
instructions. All external sources are properly cited and included in reference list.
8
Total Points
40
Points
Earned

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