Problem-Solving in Groups and Teams

Teams as Systems

Creating Successful Teams: A Holistic View

Teams are systems. Thinking about your team as part of a system encourages members to consider the context in which they work. Systems are groups of interacting or interrelated elements that combine to form a unified whole. A system is surrounded and influenced by its environment, and is described by its boundaries, structure, and purpose—all expressed in how it functions. Systems are divided into three parts: inputs, throughputs, and outputs. These highlight the different issues and activities that teams and leaders must engage with or oversee during the life of a team.

The Open Systems Approach to Teamwork: Inputs, Throughputs, and Outputs

The systems perspective asks us to think of teams as part of the wider context of an organization or community. It helps team leaders find the resources needed for the team to function successfully by asking: what needs to be controlled, monitored, and/or influenced inside and outside the team? At the same time, leaders must consider the team in terms of task phases and processes, from start to finish. Considering how the team is developing, where it stands in the project, and how the internal and external environments affect it all improve team function.

A leader's task is to understand, plan, and monitor all these processes. This seemingly complex and unwieldy task becomes easier to manage when broken into its component parts. The open systems model of teamwork can help explain and characterize effective teamwork processes.

Schermerhorn and colleagues suggest that teamwork can be considered a three-stage sequence: Inputs → Throughputs → Outputs, illustrated in Figure 2 below.

• Inputs are factors that management controls and influences.
• Throughputs are the activities and tasks that transform inputs into outputs. They may have the greatest influence on effective teamwork, since they include team processes such as developing and maintaining cohesiveness and communication, the task activities that get the work done, and the maintenance activities that support the team's development and smooth functioning.
• Outputs are the successful outcomes that satisfy organizational or personal goals or other predetermined criteria.

Inputs

Inputs are often controlled or influenced by management—either the direct manager of the group or the result of senior management decisions and strategies. In practice, the way a team is assembled and functions is shaped by the organization's values, vision, and strategy, and by its practices and procedures.

Two main factors to consider at this stage are communication climate and group configuration. Communication climate refers to the communicative norms of a workplace—usually how willing or unwilling people are to raise issues and speak freely. Group configuration refers to the roles adopted by group members: some groups have a strong hierarchy (the leader makes all decisions), while others distribute decisions among all members (democratic or egalitarian). Together, the communication climate and group configuration determine how inputs can be leveraged.

Some input-related questions to consider at this stage are given in Table 1.

Throughputs

Some common throughputs include:

• Team processes. A sense of unity is created by sharing clear goals that members understand and accept.
• Cohesiveness. Encouraging feelings of belonging, cooperation, openness, and commitment to the team.
• Communication. Shared meaning-making among team members. Many contend communication should be clear, accurate, open, and honest—though there are times when being vague, indirect, or even deceitful may be necessary.
• Decision-making. Engaging in meaningful deliberation and striving for a resolution. Successful decision-making often involves discussion, avoiding biases, and second-guessing assumptions.
• Task and maintenance activities. Activities that ensure the task is produced effectively (planning, agreeing on procedures and controls) as well as those that minimize threats to the process (monitoring and reviewing internal processes and dealing constructively with conflict).

Throughputs represent the work the group does to accomplish its goals. Some throughput-related questions are set out in Table 2.

Outputs

Outcomes can be examined in terms of task performance, individual performance, and other (incidental) outcomes.

• Task performance. Judged on criteria such as the quality of the formal outputs or objectives. Here, a product (a goal, materials, etc.) and the time taken to perform the task are the criteria.
• Individual outputs. These may include personal satisfaction, development, and learning.
• Other outcomes. Transferable skills to apply to future teamwork—for example, experience of effective teamwork and task-specific skills.

Outputs can take many forms depending on the group's criteria for success—for example, team commitment, performance on the task, team identification, and other outcomes of team experiences. Output-related questions are presented in Table 3.

The open systems model of teamwork shows how effective teamwork can benefit both the organization and its staff. It also shows that these benefits do not occur without effort and planning. Leaders need to ensure the right team is assembled for a given task, that it is given appropriate work, and that it has the freedom, resources, and support to carry it out. The model alerts teams and leaders to both the micro and macro issues they must be aware of in managing effective teams.

Group Size

Another significant feature of a work group is its size: to be effective, it should be neither too large nor too small. As membership increases, there is a trade-off between increased collective expertise and decreased involvement and satisfaction of individual members. A very small group may lack the range of skills it needs to function well. The optimum size depends partly on the group's purpose—a group for information sharing or decision making may need to be larger than one for problem solving. A simple calculation shows how quickly two-way interactions multiply with size: in a group of N people, each individual relates to N − 1 others, so there are N × (N − 1) / 2 possible interactions.

In many organizations there is a tendency to include representatives from every conceivable grouping on all committees, in the belief that this enhances participation and effectiveness—and that representing every related department smooths information flow and project progress. In practice, communication is usually reduced in larger groups. As size grows, members feel less involved, alienation tends to increase, and commitment to the project tends to decrease. The numbers most commonly quoted for an effective face-to-face team are between 5 and 10, which reduces the number of interactions and lessens the risk of conflict.

There is a neat demonstration that the "between 5 and 10" rule stems from communication limitations: if we devise special procedures to manage interpersonal exchanges (as in some computer-based brainstorming systems, where the computers handle all the gathering and feeding back of ideas), the advantage of the small group disappears—the larger the group, the more ideas are generated.

In the normal face-to-face mode, however, more than about 12 members is likely to bring group-size problems. If the numbers cannot be reduced, we might restructure the team into sub-groups and delegate responsibility for some objectives. If we don't do this deliberately, it tends to happen anyway—members who like each other or share interests may spontaneously form sub-groups.

Unfortunately, the breakdown of large groups into sub-groups and cliques may not help a team achieve its goals. One device for keeping large numbers informed is for a small group to manage the task and invite relevant people to particular meetings; alternatively, the small group can give information seminars to larger groups of colleagues. For the purposes of achieving team goals, it is better that restructuring big groups into smaller ones is managed consciously and carefully.

Managing Group Membership

The range of people who make up a team, and the relationships among them, greatly influence the team's effectiveness. Members should all be able to contribute their skills and expertise toward the team's goals to make the best use of resources. If you are ever able to select your own team, you will need to identify your objectives and the methods for achieving them. From this come the competences—the knowledge, understanding, skills, and personal qualities—you need in your team members.

The least-sized group principle holds that the ideal group size incorporates a wide variety of views and opinions but contains as few members as possible. In other words, a group should be as small as possible while still incorporating as wide a range of perspectives as possible. It is important to appraise the relationship between team functions and required competences as systematically as possible, in order to identify gaps and begin allocating responsibilities, organizing training, and so on.

Figure 3 provides a useful way of weighing the mixture of "task" and "relational" functions (or "faces") of a team. Faces 1 and 2 are external to the team: adapting to the environment and using organizational resources effectively to satisfy the team's sponsor, and relating effectively with people outside the team to meet the needs of clients or customers (internal or external to the organization). Faces 3 and 4 are internal to the team: using systems and procedures appropriately to carry out goal-oriented tasks, and working in a way that makes people feel part of a team. Each face implies different competences.

When setting up a team, we may have to guess somewhat about the competences required. As the team develops and gets on with its work, everyone's perception of the skills and knowledge needed may change. It is therefore important to watch for changes that affect the expertise the team needs and to actively recruit new members if necessary. Team members often have other work commitments outside the team; these should be taken into account when recruiting and allocating tasks, balancing team loyalties with other loyalties and commitments. Often we have limited or no choice about who is recruited, and we may simply have to make do and struggle to be effective despite limitations in the competence base.

Beyond competences, other factors influence a team's functioning. The balance of men and women, and of people from different nationalities or cultural backgrounds, all play a part, as do differences in personality. Achieving the best mix invariably means working through tensions around uniformity and diversity, managing the pushes and pulls in different directions. The dismantling of many restrictions in the European labor market supports recruitment practices that seek team members with proven capabilities to work in other countries, and legislation and social changes make it easier for organizations to develop staff who appreciate ethnic and national differences in values, style, attitudes, and performance standards. Nevertheless, there are countervailing tendencies, internally and externally.

Developing openness and trust, for example, can seem easier at first on the basis of a high degree of homogeneity, and strengthening diversity can feel threatening in an established team.

Functional and Team Roles

When individuals are selected for a team, the choice is usually made on task-related grounds—their prior skills, knowledge, and experience. However, team effectiveness depends equally on members' personal qualities and attributes, so it is just as important to select for these.

When we work with others in a group, we each bring two types of role to the relationship. The first, and more obvious, is our functional role, which relies on the skills and experience we bring to the project or problem at hand. The second, and often overlooked, is our team role, which tends to be based on our personality or preferred style of action. To a large extent, our team role determines how we apply the skills and experience that make up our functional role.

Belbin (1981, 1993) researched the functional-role/team-role distinction and its implications for teams. She found that, while a few people do not function well in any team role, most of us have perhaps two or three roles we feel comfortable in (our "preferred roles") and others in which we feel less at ease (our "non-preferred roles"). Belbin and her associates identified nine such team roles. Some non-preferred roles are ones we can cope with if we must; others are ones in which we are both uncomfortable and ineffective. Belbin's team roles are listed in Table 4. All nine are equally important to team effectiveness, provided they are used at the right times and in an appropriate manner.

When a team first addresses a problem or kicks off a project, the basic requirement is usually for innovative ideas (the "plant"), closely followed by the ability to turn those ideas into practical actions and manageable tasks (the "implementer"). These steps stand the best chance of success when the team has a good chairperson (the "coordinator") who ensures the right members contribute at the right times. Drive and impetus come from the energetic "shaper." When delicate negotiations with outside contacts are needed, the "resource investigator" comes into their own. To keep the team from becoming over-enthusiastic and missing key points, the "monitor/evaluator" must play a part. Friction and misunderstanding within the team are diffused by the "teamworker," while the "specialist" supplies skills or knowledge in short supply and not used regularly. The "completer/finisher" ensures proper attention to the details of solutions and follow-up actions.

It is essential that members share details of their team roles with colleagues if the team is to gain full benefit from its range of roles; the team can then see whether any of the nine roles are missing. If so, members whose non-preferred roles match the gaps need to make the effort to fill them—or additional members may need to be brought in. This sharing calls for openness and trust, which should exist in a well-organized, well-led team. In teams that have not yet developed mutual trust, some people who are open about their functional roles can be coy about sharing personality details; a competent leader handles this sensitively.

Leaders sometimes rationalize having teams that are unbalanced in a team-role sense by claiming they were simply assigned a group of people and must live with it. In most of today's workplaces, however, there is a steady movement of staff in and out of management groups and departments. When selecting or accepting new people, leaders who understand team-role concepts will look for team-role strengths in addition to functional-role strengths.

Each team role brings valuable strengths, but each also has a downside. Belbin coined the phrase "an allowable weakness" for the converse of a team strength. The tendency is for a leader to try to correct perceived weaknesses in an employee—but doing this with allowable weaknesses risks not only failing to eradicate what is, after all, a natural weakness, but also undermining the strength that goes with it. This is not to say weaknesses should never be addressed; the point is that any attempts at improvement should be kept in balance, and we should be prepared to manage and work around the weaknesses of our colleagues and ourselves. Many people put on an act to hide their weaknesses. Once they see they can admit to them without prejudice, they feel a sense of relief and are ready to play their part more openly.

Source: Cameron W. Piercy. View original source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.