Team working

Quesion 1.     How does management differ from leadership? What qualities of each do you have?

Leadership is setting a new direction or vision for a group that they follow. A leader is the spearhead for that new direction. Management controls or directs people/resources in a group according to principles or values that have already been established.

Quesion 2.     How can you be a manager and a leader? - Leadership combined with management does both their functions ie it both sets a new direction and manages the resources to achieve

Quesion 3.     How  do  you  manage  people  who  are  working  under  you?  -  Providing  direction,  motivation, coordination, representation & development and also by a model to them.

Quesion 4.     What is meant by Team work - A co-operative effort by a group of people to achieve a common goal.

Quesion 5.     What qualities a team member should have?

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, published in 1990, is a book written by Stephen Covey. It lists seven behaviours that, if established as habits, are supposed to help a person achieve "effectiveness" by aligning him- or herself to principles of a character ethic.

·         Be Proactive. An attitude of initiative-taking and compares this to the less effective, but more common "reactive" stance.

·         Begin with the End in Mind. This chapter is about setting long-term goals based on "true-north principles" ie. to formulate a "personal mission statement" to document one's perception of one's own purpose in life. He sees visualization as an important tool to develop this. He also deals with organizational mission statements, which he claims to be more effective if developed and supported by all members of an organization, rather than being prescribed.

·         Put First Things First. Here, a framework for prioritizing work that is aimed at long-term goals, at the expense of tasks that appear to be urgent, but are in fact less important. Delegation is presented as an important part of time management. Successful delegation, according to Covey, focuses on results and benchmarks that are to be agreed in advance, rather than on prescribing detailed work plans.

·         Think Win-Win describes attitudes whereby solutions are sought that benefit oneself as well as others, or, in the case of a conflict, people on both sides of that conflict.

·         Seek First to Understand, Then to be understood. Giving out advice before having understood a person and their situation will likely result in the advice being rejected. Thoroughly listening to another person's concerns is purported to increase the chance of establishing a working communication.

·         Synergize describes a way of working in teams. It is purported that, when this is pursued as a habit, the result of the team work will exceed the sum of what each of the members could have achieved on their own.

·         Sharpen the saw focuses on regaining productive capacity by engaging in carefully selected recreational activities.

Quesion 6.     What is co-ordination – Means integrating or linking together different parts of an organization to accomplish a collective set of task.

Quesion 7.     Teamwork – Is a basic source of integrated activity. Fostering teamwork is creating a work culture that values collaboration. In a teamwork environment, people understand and believe that thinking, planning, decisions and actions are better when done cooperatively.

Quesion 8.     Strategies in Team Development in an organization. – 4 stages.

Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing. ie Formation stage, storming with ideas, normalizing & understanding the goals, performing stage.

Quesion 9.     Qualifications of an Ideal Team

·         Motivations are selfless

·         Everyone is aware of everything

·         Feelings are expressed and respected.

·         Trust and openness are highly valued by all.

·         Difficulties are discussed / resolved openly.

·         Process maintenance and task are focussed on equally

·         Commitment is very very high.

Quesion 10.   People Management –

It is about problems of motivating the project team, middle management and the work force and of gaining their commitment.

Quesion 11.  Team Dynamics - Cohesiveness

Group Cohesiveness is the force bringing group members closer together. Cohesiveness has two dimensions: emotional (or personal) and task-related. The emotional aspect of cohesiveness, which was studied more often, is derived from the connection that members feel to other group members and to their group as a whole. That is, how much do members like to spend time with other group members? Do they look forward to the next group meeting? Task-cohesiveness refers to the degree to which group members share group goals and work together to meet these goals. That is, is there a feeling that the group works smoothly as one unit or do different people pull in different directions?

Quesion 12.  SMART-ER – SMART / SMARTER is a mnemonic used in project management at the  project objective setting stage. It is a way of evaluating the objectives or goals for an individual project. The term is also in common usage in performance management, whereby goals and targets set for employees must fulfill the criteria.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time bound, - Evaluate, Re-evaluate

Quesion 13.  Keys to good team work – communication, accountability, motivation, leadership, co-operation, cohesiveness.

Quesion 14.  Strategic alliance – is the formal relationship between teo or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need while remaining independent organizations. They will provide strategic alliance with resources (products, labour, experience etc) Eg. JV. Allaince os a co- operation or collaboration between the parties to benefit each other.

Quesion 15.  Difference between Team and a Committee – Committee is a body of people appointed for a function.

There may not be a unity in actions and disagreement. Team is a group of people aiming for a common goal in good spirit. Team success will satisfy everyone. But committee’s success may not satisfy anyone.