Brajesh Jha (2011HR020)

Team Building
Current Issues and New Alternatives - William G. Dyer

About the author William Gibb Dyer was an American educator who served as the fourth Dean of the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University (BYU). Dyers academic and professional careers focused on the topics of organizational change and team dynamics. Dyer also co-developed of the world's first 360-degree feedback instrument to evaluate managerial style and effectiveness. About the Book This book is a practical guide to effective Team Building which explores the whole nature of team building and its role in organizations. It emphasizes the needs of the Organization and the differing personalities and backgrounds of the individuals. The text covers major trends including self-directed work teams, total quality trends and cross cultural trends. Review The book as the name suggests starts with listing down the current trends issues that have emerged in the organisations due to increased use of teams. The pointers that have been covered were Self directed work teams, Total Quality Management programs, Downsizing, Importance of Employee Involvement, Cross functional teams, Interdepartmental Collaborations, Strategic Planning etc. The next chapter What Companies Say and What They Do focuses on current practices and emphasis laid on creating effective teams through survey across 200 organisations in U.S. This chapter clearly delineates the components of their survey questions and their results. The focus of this survey was to get answers to few fundamental points such as: Beliefs about Team Building

Team Building Activities Why Team Building is not done

Special emphasis has been laid on the last point because the answers clearly revealed an imbalance between what people what people in organizations say they are doing about team building and what they practice. It is of high importance to understand that people in power positions must begin to close the gap between what is said and what is done because it is the extensive use of teams that is the future of organizations style of working. The answers to why there isnt an effective Team Building exercise were :- Dont know how to do it - Dont understand the rewards - Dont feel it is being rewarded in their company - People feel they dont need it - People feel it takes too much time not enough time to do it - People feel they do not have the support of their bosses for this activity So, based on these issues, Dyer stated a 4 point check for an Effective Team Building Program:1. Top Management must provide Clear Support 2. Organisational rewards should Support Team Work 3. Time for Team Development should be Encouraged and Made Available 4. People must clearly what Team Building is and What it is not. The chapter later discusses on identifying Criteria for Effectiveness, designing a Teambuilding Session, Undertaking Team Building. The latter chapter focuses on the Dimensions of Teams. Dyer attributes the tasks of Decision Teams, Task Teams, Self Directed Work Teams. Special focus has been given on how to form teams. Should it be based on Friendship or should it be Diverse? Research shows that teams that are diverse in nature tend to be more innovative in terms of the output from the team. He further elaborates on degree of teamwork needed in different kind of team set ups. He professes that the quality of team work needed depends directly on the nature of the work of the Team. As an example he puts the following table:-

Continuum of Team Work Low Team work 1 Golf Team University of Dept. 2 3 Average Team work 4 Baseball Team Accounting Dept. 5 6 High Team work 7

Basketball Team Nasa Space Team/ SWAT Team

Through this model, dyer exemplifies the requirements of Team work in an organisational set up and the cohesiveness required in terms of co-ordination and accountability in the expected output. With regards to central dimensions required for fixing the team size, Dyer comes up with four crisp points i.e. Face-to-Face interaction and mutual influence, Interdependence and structured relationships, Perceived Membership, Common Goals and Tasks. However, Dyer professes that the size of the team does not play a very critical factor in determining a team or how to build it. The next chapter covers the Pretended Agreement Versus Constructive Controversy. This chapter was originally conceived by Jerry Harvey and contains his discussions about Abilene Paradox. Dyer points out that its the Inability to manage agreement which is the cause of dysfunction in an organization. The chapter aims at making the controversy constructive and to manage the diversity in the teams. Dyer stresses on the point that agreeing on surface while doing otherwise as individuals is something that needs to be evaded. However, he mentions that creation of a conflict is not an averse situation and hence talks about making those controversies turn out to be constructive for the team in particular and organization as a whole. In the subsequent chapter, Dyer with reference to the works Mr. Robert Dyer talks about the Team Development Model. He talks about the necessity of the Leader to transform from an educator to the role of a facilitator in case when the requirement from the team changes from an administrative in nature to more on the strategic output. Dyer also mentions about the Team Maturity Model where in Dyer emphasises on the relevance of measurement of maturity in an Ongoing team. In the next chapter, Dyer talks about building a Total Collaborative Organization wherein he mentions three important factors and their roles in making a high involvement collaborative

organization. With Reference to General Motors in particular Dyer argues about the need for congruency amongst the three factors that are mentioned below in the model to gain a Collaborative Organization.

Culture
High Involvement, Collaborative

Individual
Organization

System

Components of Collaborative Organization

The next part of the book deals with the new alternatives to Team Building Designs. Dyer starts with a basic understanding of the symptoms that bring out the concern and need for a Team Building process. The first couple of chapters deal with the preparation of Team Building and the Team Building Cycle. In the due process Dyer talks about the different dimensions of difficulty faced in the formation of team i.e. Difficulty between Team Members and the Team Leader and Difficulty among Team Members. Problem

Evaluation

Data Gathering

Implementation

Data analysis

Action Planning The Team Building Cycle

The next chapter talks about the designing of the Team Building Program and various issues that need to be addressed while planning and formation stage. In this context, Dyer also talks about the role of a Consultant and the conflicts that a consultant can help avoid in the due process. Dyer mentions about Subunit, Interpersonal and Group Feedback as major issue in Identification of problems. In the subsequent chapter Dyer extensively talks about Handling Conflict and Confusion in teams in which he uses the Expectation theory of Conflict and how this can be used to negotiate agreements. This chapter provides useful insight with respect to negotiation and its theories that help in solving Team confusion and the usage of Role Clarification Model in the same. Various centres of potential conflict such as Boss as centre of conflict or the conflict amongst team members and how the problem member identification can help in building a cohesive team. In the next chapter, Dyer talks about the design for a New Temporary Team. The steps mentioned by Dyer are:-. 1. Developing a Realistic Priority Level 2. Sharing Expectations 3. Clarifying Goals 4. Formulating Operating Guidelines These points address the various issues involved in forming a Temporary team such as how to make decisions, method of work, resolving differences, ensuring completion of work, changing things that are not producing. Towards the end, Dyer talks about reducing the Interteam Conflict and the follow up process after forming teams. In the process of designing of solutions Dyer Professes 6 designs ranging from A-F and how these solutions can be customized for an effective team building keeping in mind the diversity and the size of manpower. With the above details he ends up his book on The Team Building. This book provides an in depth understanding of real problems and churning out solutions for the same. Keeping in mind the perspective of OD, this book gives a holistic view of contemporary issues and ways of dealing them in an Organisational setup. x---------------------------------------------------x---------------------------------------------x