Groups & Teams Overview
Setting Team Goals and Providing Team Feedback
Setting Goals and Providing Feedback
The team’s interpersonal communication contributes to its success and the quality of what it produces. Periodic self-assessments should consider the team’s progress, how it has gotten there, and where it is headed to allow the team to gauge its effectiveness and take steps to improve its performance.
To assess performance, a team may seek feedback from group members to identify the team’s strengths and weaknesses. Use feedback to perform a gap analysis. Once areas for improvement are identified, team members and others (such as managers) should develop a plan to close performance gaps.
Poor communication and conflict will disrupt a team’s performance, possibly caused by personality clashes between members. Another type of team assessment involves diagnostic tests (such as True Colors) to identify the dominant personality traits of each member. Understanding personality differences among team members can help change how they interact with each other.
Accountability in Teams
Accountability is acknowledging and assuming responsibility for actions, products, and decisions. In teams, accountability means that all members share responsibility for their collective output and their goals’ success. Since teamwork is organized at the collective level rather than on a per-person basis, its results are the sum of each member’s efforts. Organizations often use team-based rewards to hold teams accountable for their work.
Accountability for team members also implies that individuals have a responsibility to each other to complete tasks and contribute to the group effort. One benefit of teamwork is the mutual support and assistance that team members can provide each other. A sense of accountability to the team incentivizes individuals to provide help when needed. Since team tasks are interdependent, the quality of one person’s work affects that of the others. Teams use norms and other social pressure to hold one another accountable.
For teams to be fully accountable, they need to have the resources, skills, and authority to do what they will be held responsible for their goals. If leaders expect teams to accept the blame for failing to achieve an assigned goal, they should ensure teams have the tools and authority. For this reason, the choices made about goal-setting, team composition, and process design directly affect the degree of responsibility a team can assume for its performance.
Choosing Team Size, Roles, and Individual Strengths
Team size and composition affect team processes and outcomes. The optimal size and composition of teams depend on the scope of the team’s goals. With too few people, a team will not have the resources and skills to complete its tasks. Too many members can make communication and coordination difficult and lead to poor team performance.
Research shows that teams perform best with between five and nine members. Dr. Meredith B