Building a Team
So you have a group project to work on! Be thankful! Workplace
collaboration is growing in importance and the people who are good
at it have the best chances for success in it. This page is intended to
help you through the phases of coming together as a team for any
project
Working in Teams
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Why Teams?
Communications & Team Building
Running a Meeting
Leader and Member Roles
Team Contracts
Towards Effective Teams
Why Teams?
Teams are formed to coordinate smaller tasks to accomplish a larger objective. Typically,
those objectives are part of some larger goals. Effective teams produce work of far
greater quality than most individuals could manage.
In business, teams come together to work on projects, such as developing a Web site, that
will further the corporate goals of their company. As students, you could be doing a
presentation in a course as one part of the personal development your school wants to
encourage.
Understanding these two things helps you get motivated. You need to have a clear sense
of the purpose of your group. Is it to develop an interactive presentation or report on
some research? Is it to present academic research or personal opinions? You can’t stay on
track if you don’t know what track you are on.
Then, what is this project’s relationship to the big picture? If the Web site is a large
part of corporate strategy, you are part of something important. It is valuable to keep in
mind both the short- and long-term goals of your team project so you don’t get mired in
the trivial details.
Communications & Team Building
We all have styles of communication which may enhance or hamper the
development of effective team solutions.
Listening is the most important communications skill in any situation, but it
is essential in teams. Active listening is the skill of focusing on the words
and feelings of the person speaking and trying to tie their ideas in to the
team purpose. Rather than impatiently waiting to get your two cents worth
in, you think about what the person is saying and feeling.
We are discussing feelings because they often must be dealt with to move
on to the group’s goals. If we feel people are not listening to what we have
to say, we can become angry or alienated from the group. Generally, the
more a group practices active listening, the more effective it will be.
In contrast, aggressive, manipulative or competitive styles of communications create
division and reduce the effectiveness of the team. For some tips on effective listening and
avoiding poor communications practices, here is some good listening advice.
With a sound communications climate in place, a team can be built. Team building lets
the group move towards its goal by understanding the team and the task. To understand
the team, it is helpful for each person to identify their strengths, weaknesses and goals. In
baseball, where the idea is to get players on the bases and then get them around all the
bases, some players are good at getting on base, while others are good at driving them
around the bases to score.
Here is an online survey to help you identify your personal team player style. Read the
instructions carefully and think through the issues it presents. You will get a selfassessment which you can then explore.
Use this assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses as a meeting participant,
as well as what you bring to the needs of the team, such as specialized knowledge or
experience. Other self-assessment tools are available in our resources page.
Teams function best when they interact supportively, use facts as much as possible,
communicate effectively and move the discussion along to its goal.
Running a Meeting
To be useful and effective, meetings must have a clear sense of purpose,
value and leadership (discussed in next section).
To establish purpose, an agenda is essential and should be sent out before
the meeting. An agenda sets out when and where the meeting is to be, what
is to be discussed and what preparation is required. This helps ensure you
accomplish all the things you set out to do. The first order of business at your
meeting should be adopting the agenda; that means everyone agrees that this
is what you should be discussing.
In formal meeting rules, any item that is not on the agenda should not be
brought up, except with the approval of all members. If discussion strays
from the agenda, any member has the right to call for discussion to return to
it. The idea is to accomplish what you set out to do and not get sidetracked. If something
new has come up just before the meeting it should be added to the agenda at the start so
everyone knows where they stand. For a sample agenda for a student group project, see
this Word document.
Team members need to know their work has value. There is nothing worse than being
asked to work as a team on something, only to discover your work was ignored.
Individually and as a team, it is important that all concerned agree on the worth of having
this team. Remember that this applies when people report back to the group as well.
Leader & Member Roles
Meetings run by leaders work better. While students are reluctant to seem to “take over”
a meeting, it is important that someone provides leadership. In any case, the meeting
leader, formally termed the chair, is not taking over the meeting at all.
The role of the chair is to lead the meeting toward its planned objectives. The chair has
no power, except that conferred on her by the group. The chair never votes, except to
break a tie. Even then, the prudent chair will vote to defeat most items, since they
obviously lack broad support.
So what should the chair be doing? Here are some ideas from Cielins and Aquino1:
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Promote lively, focused discussion
Maintain even speaking times for all
Restrict private discussion
Stop any “ganging up”
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Help members to express their ideas
Ask questions to stimulate discussion
As this implies, the chair must be an excellent listener who is able to
sit back and take it all in to see the broad picture and to relate the
discussion to the group’s objectives. This is leadership, as you help
others work through problems. On seeing that someone is having
trouble getting a word in edgewise, or has offered little, the solid
chair will ask: “Do you have anything to add?”
Team members also have roles, Cielins and Aquino note:
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 Respect other members and their opinions
Understand team dynamics
Speak clearly and succinctly
Listen actively
Think logically and analytically
Share speaking time fairly
Help keep the discussion on track
In other words, members are responsible for the meeting as well. They have the right -make that the responsibility -- to point out to the chair that the agenda is not being
followed.
All this leads to a climate of open discussion. That means people can and do speak up
without fear of being put down. When outcomes are uncertain, members should be
supportive and recognize that if things don’t work out, there is nobody to blame, as all
agreed to the decision. This lets you learn and move on.
Team Contracts
One useful approach to clarifying team roles and expectations is to develop a team
contract. This sets out who is doing what, the team’s expectations and penalties for
failure to perform. While it sounds a bit formal, the contract serves to remind all
members that they are into something serious and should view it accordingly. If one
member chooses not to support the group effort, a contract can set out how that person
will be removed.
Contracts can get overwhelming and tedious, so leave the lawyers out of them! However,
do ensure you have the following information:
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Who is part of the team?
What is the team’s task?
What are the steps in the team’s task?
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Who (an individual, not “everyone”) is responsible for each specific step?
What are the expectations in terms of performance?
What are the expectations of team members?
What will happen if team members do not deliver?
At what point (i.e. number of missed meetings, number of incomplete
assignments) will non-performing members be asked to leave the group?
Here is a template you can use to create your own team contract. Give it a lot of thought
and ask yourself if you really want to be part of a high performing team, or if you are
more interested in getting minimal results.
A sample for an introductory marketing class seminar shows another way of approaching
the task.
Provided the above elements are included and, more importantly, everyone in the group
agrees to the terms, the contract has done its job. While it is never easy removing nonperformers from a group, that job is made much easier when it is done under rules agreed
upon by everyone. It is also far less likely that weak performance will emerge in a group
that has a contract.
Towards Effective Teams
Here is a collection of tips from several sources2 which give some ideas on what does
and doesn’t work for team building:
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Recognize the importance of developing and retaining skills, besides doing what
you set out to do.
Make sure everyone knows why they and others are on the team.
Make sure everyone considers the information, knowledge and skills they bring to
the team.
Support and encourage leadership.
Work with the different styles of leadership: Tell, sell, delegate and facilitate.
Avoid groupthink by rewarding openness and disagreement.
Thank those who disagree and ask others how they feel.
While team members are often specialists, help them become generalists by
developing their other skills.
Encourage and support a shared vision with the team.
Seek feedback from inside and outside the team to keep on getting better.
Commit to continuous improvement.
Be accountable, individually and collectively.
Make sure people want to work with you again.