Teams+&+Facilitation

Teams & Facilitation [|About Organized Change] Contact Us

toc The good news is: Your organization’s management is dedicated, smart, and capable. The bad news is: They’re just not working together.

That’s the signal to consider team-building. Whether they’re on a playing field or factory floor, good teams have a common quality: their accomplishments far surpass the capabilities of their individual members. Driven by a common purpose and skillful orchestration, they set aside individual agendas for group goals.

Our skill is knowing how to create maximum productivity from different types of teams. The key is to know how different styles of organizations, missions, industries and cultures – or even different individuals – require subtle differences in team-building techniques. When you work with Organized Change, you’ll be putting our considerable experience in team-building behind you and your understanding of what needs to be done. In other words, you’ll have a partner who is committed. To learn more about teams and facilitation click here [|Teams & Facilitation.]

=Articles by David Chaudron, PhD=

=Improving Cross-functional Teamwork=
 * David Chaudron, PhD**

Cross-functional team is a necessity in the global market. What makes up a team? How do you effectively get people from different departments to work together? This article provides recommendations for setting up an effective cross-functional team. To read the full article click here [|Improving Cross-functional Teamwork].

Facilitating Teams I: Types of Groups & Their Needs

 * David Chaudron, PhD**

How do you support different type of groups and their needs? Groups can be divided into 3 categories: strategic focus groups/standing committees, project groups, and natural work groups. This article discusses ways in which organizations can find, who their group members are, and the group members needs in order to support them. To read the full article click here [|Facilitating Teams I: Types of Groups & Their Needs].

Facilitating Teams II: Selecting and Training Facilitators

 * David Chaudron, PhD**

How can organizations select and train facilitators to use them effectively within the organization? Facilitators must have certain qualities such as being a neutral, well-liked individuals, that are flexibility and firm, knowledgeable, and have core skills. This article discusses the process of selecting and training facilitators. To read the full article click here [|Facilitating Teams II: Selecting and Training Facilitators].

Nailing Jelly to a Tree: Approaches to Self-directed Work Teams

 * David Chaudron, PhD**

Can a self-managed or self-directed team work in your organization? There is much talk these days about implementing self-managed or self-directed teams. Implementing self-directed work teams can substantially increase quality and productivity, if done correctly (in most cases 30-40%, sometimes over 200% with better implementation methods).

What exactly is a self-directed work team? How can you define it? Well if you are struggling between the definitions of process and outcomes, you are not alone. Self-directed work teams can be both—a //process// and an //outcome//. To read the full article click here [|Nailing Jelly to a Tree: Self-Directed Work Teams.]

= Additional Information on Teams & Facilitation =


 * Koeslag-Kreunen, M., Van den Bossche, P., Hoven, M., Van der Klink, M., & Gijselaers, W. (2018). When Leadership Powers Team Learning: A Meta-Analysis.**

Small Group Research, 1–39.

This article is a meta-analysis examining how and under what conditions team leadership behavior powers team learning behavior. The analysis shows that team leadership behaviorhas a significant influence on learning behavior. Second, the author found that the effect of different team leadership behavioral sources (i.e., vertical and shared) and styles (i.e., person-focused and task-focused) on team learning behavior was analyzed. The authors found that a growing amount of research on team leadership behaviors has become available, and includes more detailed information about leadership behavior (i.e., shared, vertical, person-focused, and task-focused team leadership behaviors).

The process of team learning behavior can help to achieve successful team performance, such as solving problems and team viability. Team leadership behavior is defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives. Team leaders can facilitate engaging in team learning behaviors by, for instance, expressing their own imperfections, tolerating failure, organizing reflection, and setting valuable team goals.

The author concludes that conclude that team leadership behavior is necessary to support team learning and our findings contribute toward understanding when. Team leadership powers team learning through person-focused and task-focused behaviors exhibited by a single leader and by team members. This involves leadership behaviors such as building trust and relations, empowering and challenging team members, and structuring teams’ tasks and goals.

Small Group Research, 48(3) 255–287.
 * Hedman-Phillips, E., & Barge, J. K. (2017). Facilitating Team Reflexivity About Communication.**

Team facilitation combines skill and art to help teams reach their objectives. Most of the skills, ranging from active listening to complex problem analysis techniques, can be readily learned by motivated individuals. This article examines how team facilitation can promote team reflexivity about communication. Team facilitation represents an important strategy for developing team reflexivity within organizations. Team facilitation is a sequence of interventions comprised of activities and techniques designed to help a team improve its processes and outcomes. Team facilitation techniques are valuable for enhancing the core processes associated with teamwork such as leadership, conflict management, decision making, knowledge sharing, relationship building, identity, and innovation Reflexivity influences team outcomes in different ways due to context. The authors finds our that recent research has attempted to clarify the reflexivity-team outcome relationship by examining how features of group context such as the physical work environment Understanding how reflexivity about communication operates within teams through team facilitation is important to develop interventions that enable shifts in discourses and patterns of communication that create new possibilities for meaning making and action. Effective team facilitation is particularly valuable for top teams given that they need to make both strategic and operative decisions in rather complex and ambiguous environments.


 * Seeber, I. (2013, September). Facilitating team processes with recommender systems: A behavioral science perspective.**
 * In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies (p. 25). ACM.**

This paper looks at how recommenders system should be considered as fully automated facilitators having positive impact on team processes and consequently on team effectiveness from a sociological point of view. The author argues that recommendations should be perceived as facilitators that have impact on a team’s processes. This position paper puts forward the idea that recommender systems perform next to process facilitation also content and technical facilitation.

Facilitation strives to intervene into these routinized behavior patterns and is described as a set of functions or behaviors carried out before, during, and after a meeting to help the group achieve its own outcomes. Facilitation aims at helping teams to work effectively in accomplishing and reaching their shared goal. Various types of facilitation include:


 * Content facilitation
 * Process facilitation
 * Technical facilitation

IT can provide process guidance by suggesting cues how to structure the process or process restrictiveness by preventing unintended usage behavior with specific tool configurations.Person and IT tool represent agents on a continuum performing facilitation. This continuum is represented with a double arrow whereas person on the outer left side represents human-facilitation and IT tool on the outer right side represents fully automated facilitation, e.g., recommender system. Therefore, recommender systems perform next to process facilitation also content and technical facilitation

Implementation Science, 11(1), 97.
 * Lessard, S., Bareil, C., Lalonde, L., Duhamel, F., Hudon, E., Goudreau, J., & Lévesque, L. (2015). External facilitators and interprofessional facilitation teams: a qualitative study of their roles in supporting practice change.**

Organization can use team facilitation to manage and support change as it is a powerful approach. This paper aims at understanding the facilitation roles exercised by both external facilitators and interprofessional facilitation teams to foster the implementation of change. The authors describes facilitation as an approach used by appointed individuals, which teams can also foster, to build capacity and support practice change. It also helps decision makers become aware of the multiple roles and dynamics involved and the key competencies needed to recruit facilitators and members of interprofessional facilitation teams. Facilitation involves roles from four fields of expertise. Implementation-oriented facilitation roles relate to roles in change management and roles in project management. Facilitation is an approach used by appointed individuals, which teams can also foster, to build capacity and support practice change. Increased understanding of facilitation roles constitutes an asset in training practitioners such as organizational development experts, consultants, facilitators, and facilitation teams. It also helps decision makers become aware of the multiple roles and dynamics involved and the key competencies needed to recruit facilitators and members of interprofessional facilitation teams.

Engineering Management Journal, 26(3), 25-35.
 * Aronson, Z. H., Dominick, P. G., & Wang, M. (2014). Exhibiting Leadership and Facilitation Behaviors in NPD Project-Based Work: Does Team Personal Style Composition Matter?.**

Team facilitation combines skill and art to help teams reach their objectives. This paper looks at the relationship between project team composition attributes and project team member’s team leadership and facilitation behaviors, drawing from the literature on similarity-attraction effect. Team facilitation behaviors include those actions individuals take successfully to facilitate rapport, such as managing conflicts, supportive communication, helping others and acknowledging contributions. According to the authors, when composing teams, two approaches have been considered in terms of their impact on team performance. Supplementary fit suggests that people are more comfortable and productive when they are similar to others. Complementary fit, on the other hand, suggests that people fit when they fill an unmet need. Neuroticism and extraversion have long been considered to have an affective or emotional nature. Employee diversity of affective traits is an important area, since it has consequences for group dynamics. In conclusion, the results of the study shows that the variance of conscientiousness was positively and significantly related to both team leadership and team facilitation behavior ratings; yet, we argue that the dynamics for traits, such as conscientiousness, that lack an affective nature, might play out in a different way in NPD projects.

European J. Of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, 4(3/4), 236-262.
 * Holtbrügge, D., & Engelhard, F. (2017). Biculturals, team facilitation, and multicultural team performance: an information-processing perspective.**

This paper aims at analyzing the role of bicultural individuals as facilitators in multicultural teams. With globalization leading to change in demographics, companies are seeing the need to use multicultural teams to cope with diverse customer demands through the internalization of diversity. The institutionalized communication of employees with different national and cultural backgrounds should increase creativity, promote innovation, and improve the quality of results. A significant objective of multicultural teams is to expand the pool of available information, thereby pushing the team to increase performance. Multicultural teams have to develop information-processing mechanisms that allow them to deal with both external and internal sources of diversity to reach this goal. In multicultural groups, bicultural are assumed to act as team facilitators and thereby improve the information-processing capability of the team. Cultural conflicts and language barriers are common challenges that a multicultural team faces. Bicultural individuals not only have an empathetic understanding and tolerance of cultural diversity as well as the ability to switch between different cultural frames but also often speak more languages than monocultures. In conclusion, team facilitation may also have indirect effects on multicultural team performance as internally and externally boundary spanning may be associated with activities that have a positive effect on team processes enabling higher team performance. Based on the information-processing theory, we applied PLS modeling and showed a significantly stronger propensity of bicultural to act as team facilitators. This has a significant and positive influence on team performance. A mediating effect of internal group processes and group cohesion was found.


 * Lessard, S., Bareil, C., Lalonde, L., Duhamel, F., Hudon, E., & Lnvesque, L. (2016). External facilitators and interprofessional facilitation teams: a qualitative study of their roles in supporting practice change.**

Implementation Science, 11(1), 1-12.

Highly motivated teams are so because of adequate facilitation. This paper represents a qualitative study of the roles in supporting practice change while focusing on the external facilitation and interprofessional facilitation teams. The authors noted that in the definition of facilitation are the emphases of various characters such as facilitation as the role of the single individual, facilitation as a process, and facilitation aiming at helping a group of people. Role refers to characteristic behaviors, to social parts to be played, or to scripts or expectations for social conduct. The authors conclude that facilitation is an approach that organizations use to build capacity and support practice change. Increased understanding of facilitation roles constitutes an asset in training practitioners such as organizational development experts, consultants, facilitators, and facilitation teams. It also helps decision-makers become aware of the multiple roles and dynamics involved and the key competencies needed to recruit facilitators and members of interprofessional facilitation teams.
 * Cagiltay, K., Bichelmeyer, B., & Akilli, G. K. (2015). Working with multicultural virtual teams: critical factors for facilitation, satisfaction and success.**

//Smart Learning Environments//, //2//(1), 1-16.

Despite the fact that information and communication technologies provide the necessary infrastructure for individuals from different cultures and locations to work and learn collaboratively, the inner workings of such collaboration still keeps its mystery. This paper therefore looks at the critical factors for facilitation, satisfaction, and success when working with multicultural virtual teams. Managing culturally derived orientations and preferences requires Making sure there is a high level of understanding of the intricacies to optimizing the opportunities in a diverse to reduce the problem of cross-cultural diversity in all countries understanding. Information and communication tools offer one of the most exciting and effective ways to teach people how to collaborate by connecting teams around the world. Collaborative learning and working is challenging when team members who are working together come from different nations with varied cultures, histories, and socio-political beliefs. Such an environment can only be productive if we are well prepared for potential problems and ready to take necessary actions in advance. The recurring themes from the literature have shown that several factors affect the performance of multicultural VTs. Facilitators or managers have important responsibilities in the preparation of healthy teamwork settings for VTs. The researchers did not find a well-defined model that specifically investigates the problem of designing complex systems for multiple cultures.

//Australian Journal of Sustainable Business and Society//, //2//(1). These research paper seeks to provide an integrated review of the role played by team composition and context on team performance, as well as exploring team trust as a possible linkage between the these linkages. The authors refer team as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and mutual accountability.” Where tasks are intricate and complex, teams are useful, as members of team will decide collectively on a situation or issue. According to the authors, “Team performance reflects shared understanding and support between team members.” The article looks at the linkage among team composition, team context, and team performance. Team performance is “the accomplishment of specific goals through accumulation of experience and effort of team members” factors of team performance are team task, team composition, team context, and team process. Team composition is a “direct result of the socialization process that shapes team behavior.” Team composition involves factors such as team knowledge and skills. Team context represents “the key features of team functioning, and is critical to the successful accomplishment of a team’s mission.” Team context comprises of team identification and support. The authors concludes that teams are the backbone of a productive organization, however, the success of team is dependent on factors such as team trust., team members must bring out the best in each other and complement each other’s strength to ensure performance. Salas et al., (2015) stresses the need for teams despite their pervasiveness in today’s world. For the effective performance of the teams in their daily functioning in organizations, the authors say that the teams must operate through interdependent actions of individuals working towards a common goal. This mode of functioning is guided by a set of actions and processes referred to as teamwork. The writers have defined terms as “a distinguishable set of two or more people who interact, dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively toward a common and valued goal or objective or mission.” They describe teamwork as an adaptive, dynamic, and episodic process that encompasses the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors among team members while they interact toward a common goal. The authors have mentioned nine factors that HR leaders use to determine what is needed when they are faced with situations that involve teamwork. The factors include: In conclusion, the paper ascertains that organizations and teams cannot afford to ignore the influence that team composition has on their performance. This includes the context, which the team operates in, organizational culture, individuals, and team. The authors concludes that the mentioned factors have a significant impact on the extent to which teams successfully engage in team work and achieve performance outcomes.
 * Zawawi, A. A., & Nasurdin, A. M. (2016). Championing a team: reviewing the role of team composition, context, and trust on nursing team performance.**
 * Salas, E., Shuffler, M. L., Thayer, A. L., Bedwell, W. L., & Lazzara, E. H. (2015). Understanding and Improving Teamwork in Organizations: A Scientifically Based Practical Guide**. //Human Resource Management//, 54(4), 599-622.
 * Cognition
 * Conflict
 * Coaching
 * Coordination
 * Communication
 * Cooperation
 * Context
 * Communication
 * Culture

Developmental space is defined as the “social space created by team members in their interactions with each other and their environment.” Developmental space is achieved by undertaking four activities: creating future (shared point), reflecting (evaluation and multiperspective), organizing (planning and coordination), and dialoguing (searching for shared reason). These four activities can be divided into two orientations: performance (which limits the team by demanding that they efficiently finish a task within a limited time frame) and sensemaking (which is about opening discussion in order to find all possible alternatives before working on the task). Developmental Space Paradox surfaces when teams face those two seemingly opposed orientations. The authors found that handling a paradox is a decision-making process with three stages: recognizing the paradox, responding to the paradox, and deploying coping strategies. The strategies used by teams to handle developmental space paradox can be divided according to the paradoxical frame’s state: not activated, and activated. An inactivated paradoxical frame occurs when the paradox is a) not recognized b) ignored or c) seen as something to get rid of. It was found that unsuccessful teams with an inactivated paradoxical frame use repression / denial (b) and choosing or splitting (c) as coping strategies. Successful teams on the other hand see the tension created by the paradox as an opportunity presenting advantages such as keeping the team alive; triggering “change, creativity, and the discovery of unconventional routes”; and being an “ubiquitous and persistent force challenging and fuelling long-term success”. Acknowledging and embracing the paradox leads to the use coping strategies like splitting, balancing, reinforcing each other, and sparring, of which balancing –recognizing the team’s diversity as an advantage as performance-oriented people make sure that deadlines are met while sensemaking-oriented team members encourage slowing down and reviewing the possibilities and approaches taken– is the most relevant strategy for successful teams.
 * Derksen, Karin, Robert J. Blomme, Léon de Caluwé, Joyce Rupert, and Robert Jan Simons. (2017). “Breaking the Paradox: Understanding How Teams Create Developmental Space**.” //Journal of Management Inquiry//.

This study focuses on the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge sharing, the three dimensions of social capital, and extrinsic incentives with team innovation. Explicit knowledge is that which can be easily transmitted provided that there is a common code and antecedents between team members while tacit knowledge is that which is not easily communicated and better acquired through personal experience or training. The aim of this study was to understand the link between both types of knowledge and team innovation as well as finding whether extrinsic incentives and social capital enhanced knowledge sharing. Social capital was assessed considering three dimensions: structural social capital, relational social capital, and cognitive social capital. The first dimension refers to the strength of the ties and frequency of interaction between team members; the relational dimension addresses the quality of the connection between individuals, trust being considered as the main factor influencing knowledge sharing; and the last dimension refers to the extent to which team members share a perspective or understanding. The results thrown by the assessments of the 219 work teams showed that the most important dimension of social capital for tacit knowledge sharing was the cognitive dimension. Explicit knowledge sharing on the other hand was most influenced by relational social capital, as trust, norms and obligations motivate team members to communicate their knowledge to others. Extrinsic incentives proved to be a viable motivator for knowledge sharing although future studies will have to make a distinction between the impact of extrinsic incentives on each type of knowledge. Relational and cognitive social capitals were found to be the dimensions leading to knowledge sharing and, thus, contributing to team innovation.
 * Hu, Lingyan and Amy E. Randel (2014). “Knowledge Sharing in Teams: Social Capital, Extrinsic Incentives and Team Innovation.**” //Group & Organization Management//. 39 (2), 213-243.

The Team Characteristics Model was developed as an extension of Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model with the purpose of explaining how effective group design can lead to positive work outcomes for teams. It describes five core team characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Skill variety refers to the extent to which team members have different knowledge, skills and experiences that can improve the team’s problem-solving and the project’s success, task identity refers to the ability of team members to work on a problem throughout all the stages, task significance is the degree to which the task is seen as relevant and meaningful to the organization’s growth, autonomy is the level of freedom granted to the team for taking decisions or planning their work schedules, and feedback is the extent to which the team is given feedback on the quality of their work. The Model was supported by this study for the critical psychological states of experience which include satisfaction with work, participation and influence in the organization as well as increased networking and work motivation, but was not supported for work outcomes. There is, however, a correlation between higher level or critical psychological states and higher levels of work outcomes. This study analyses the relevance of experienced participation for work outcomes by providing results on the testing, observation and surveying of team and non-team members over a 4-month period considering three moderators of the relationship between core team characteristics and work outcomes: past team success, team training, and implementation of countermeasures. This paper aims to “clarify team viability as a construct and (re)define it in terms that provide a unique and meaningful contribution to understanding the effectiveness of long-term and ongoing organizational teams”. For this, the authors discuss the differences between team viability and other constructs (team satisfaction, performance, cohesion) and outline boundary conditions for which team viability might be relevant. Early definitions of team viability are provided along with a review of how literature has inconsistently conceptualized it. The authors then proceed to define team viability, first, by listing those elements which make something viable: capacity of living, capacity of growing and developing, and a reasonable chance of succeeding or being sustainable. This, along with some considerations on team literature, allows the authors to consider team viability taking into account the “dynamic nature of teams in today’s organizations”. Basically, the study shows that miscomprehension of what team viability is leads to an underutilisation and underestimation of its utility when assessment team effectiveness for long-term or ongoing organizational teams.
 * C. Stubler, David and Kenneth M. York. (2007). An exploratory study of the team characteristics model using organizational teams.** Small Group Research. 38 (6), 670-691.
 * Suzanne T. Bell and Brian J. Marentette. (2011). //Team viability for long-term and ongoing organizational teams//.** Organizational Psychology Review. 1 (4), 275-292

Journal of Human Values. 20 (2), 193-207. Workplace spirituality has certain advantages for an organization that include fulfilment, job satisfaction, enhanced creativity and greater organizational effectiveness. This paper aims to prove that the utilization of the person-organization fit approach to recognise the compatibility or lack thereof of both factors and then search for ways to facilitate said spirituality. Workplace Spirituality has several levels: individual, organizational, and the interaction between those two divisions; it is defined, as quoted from Ashmos and Duchon as ”inner life, meaningful work and community”. The article, after defining both individual and organizational spirituality, proposes different approaches to spirituality facilitation and then lists four possible combinations for investigations pertaining the degree to which individual and organizational spirituality interact. The proposed approaches to spirituality facilitation go from HRM practices for reinforcing spiritual values to Interventions for implementing those values. These potential paths are suggested considering spirituality as the “ultimate competitive advantage of the organizations” and as an element that has an impact on a company’s success and awareness of its responsibilities. **Salomon Markos. (2010). Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management. Vol. 5, No. 12.** Employee engagement is an important element in foreseeing positive organizational performance. It shows the synergetic relationship between employee and employer compared to the concepts of job satisfaction, employee commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour upon which it is founded. The importance of engagement relies in the emotional attachment employers develop towards their organization and the level of involvement they acquire as a consequence. An engaged employer will work for the success of the employer “going extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement.” This paper states the importance of employee engagement, defines the concept and its evolution, and lists some of the drivers of employee engagement as well as some strategies for employee engagement. Some of the things that a manager must do to create a highly engaged workforce as stated by Development Dimensions International (DDI, 2005) and quoted by the author are: Align efforts with strategy, empower, promote and encourage teamwork and collaboration, help people grow and develop and provide support and recognition where appropriate. Another of the references, Robinson et al., 2004, points out that the key driver of employee engagement is //feeling valued and involved//. About the importance of employee engagement and its relation to organizational performance, the paper mentions that there are positive results in employee retention, productivity, profitability, customer loyalty and safety. Some of the negative results of employee disengagement as listed on the paper are: disengaged employers miss an average of 3.5 more days per year, are less productive and cost the US economy $292 to $355 billion per year. The employee engagement strategies proposed by Markos are: - Start it on day one: effective recruitment and orientation programs should be present on the first day of the new employee. - Start it from the top: “Employee engagement does not need lip-service rather dedicated heart and action-oriented service from top management.” - Enhance employee engagement through two-way communication: employees should have a say on issues that matter to their job and life; clear and consistent communication. - Give satisfactory opportunities for development and advancement: encourage independent thinking and give the employees more autonomy. - Ensure that employees have everything they need to do their jobs: physical, financial and information resources should be available. - Give employees appropriate training - Have strong feedback system: conduct regular survey of employee engagement level in order to make out factors that engage employees. - Incentives have a part to play - Build a distinctive corporate culture: promote a work culture with aligned goals and values. - Focus on top-performing employees.  Salomon Markos. (2010). Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management. Vol. 5, No. 12. Employee engagement is an important element in foreseeing positive organizational performance. It shows the synergetic relationship between employee and employer compared to the concepts of job satisfaction, employee commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour upon which it is founded. The importance of engagement relies in the emotional attachment employers develop towards their organization and the level of involvement they acquire as a consequence. An engaged employer will work for the success of the employer “going extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement.” This paper states the importance of employee engagement, defines the concept and its evolution, and lists some of the drivers of employee engagement as well as some strategies for employee engagement. Some of the things that a manager must do to create a highly engaged workforce as stated by Development Dimensions International (DDI, 2005) and quoted by the author are: Align efforts with strategy, empower, promote and encourage teamwork and collaboration, help people grow and develop and provide support and recognition where appropriate. Another of the references, Robinson et al., 2004, points out that the key driver of employee engagement is //feeling valued and involved//. About the importance of employee engagement and its relation to organizational performance, the paper mentions that there are positive results in employee retention, productivity, profitability, customer loyalty and safety. Some of the negative results of employee disengagement as listed on the paper are: disengaged employers miss an average of 3.5 more days per year, are less productive and cost the US economy $292 to $355 billion per year. The employee engagement strategies proposed by Markos are: - Start it on day one: effective recruitment and orientation programs should be present on the first day of the new employee. - Start it from the top: “Employee engagement does not need lip-service rather dedicated heart and action-oriented service from top management.” - Enhance employee engagement through two-way communication: employees should have a say on issues that matter to their job and life; clear and consistent communication. - Give satisfactory opportunities for development and advancement: encourage independent thinking and give the employees more autonomy. - Ensure that employees have everything they need to do their jobs: physical, financial and information resources should be available. - Give employees appropriate training - Have strong feedback system: conduct regular survey of employee engagement level in order to make out factors that engage employees. - Incentives have a part to play - Build a distinctive corporate culture: promote a work culture with aligned goals and values. - Focus on top-performing employees. Facilitating and Coaching
 * Vallabh, Priyanka and Manish Singhal. (2014). Workplace spirituality facilitation: A person-organization fit approach.**

http://www.phf.org/resourcestools/Documents/Facilitating_and_Coaching_Teams.pdf

Facilitating and coaching teams are learned skills that require education, observation, and hands-on experience. The authors have used facilitation and coaching techniques with over a thousand teams to get them back on track and performing at maximum potential. This article includes tips on some effective techniques for facilitating and coaching teams. They discuss the goal of team facilitation and coaching in addition to eight key rules that need to be followed to be an effective coach. They also give some examples of issues that the authors addressed with teams in facilitation or coaching roles as things that may be encountered when helping a team. Finally, they include the Guidelines for Teams to Work Effectively.  The paper sought to recognize the various factors that drive motivation among employees in organizations. It classified rewards as financial and non-financial and then assessed the impact of both in keeping employees engaged and functioning at optimum performance. The paper also makes the case for employee motivation as an essential element of an organization’s general performance. Considering this, it is essential that an organization make concerted efforts to motivate its workforce to retain them. Simultaneously, the paper recognizes that motivation may be driven by a wide range of factors that differ across industries as well as across sections of employees, e.g., those employed in high-paying jobs as opposed to those working as low-skill, low-pay labor. The research methodology adopted for this paper encompassed both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Specifically, research was conducted among the employees of a company called Astro Films (PVT) in Lahore, Pakistan. The employees were administered a survey to gauge their responses vis-à-vis their motivation in working for the firm and what factors affected it positively or adversely. The format of the survey was a partially structured interview conducted one-on-one. After analyzing the responses received from the survey, the researchers concluded that both financial and non-financial rewards have a significant role to play in determining the motivation of employees. Especially in a country such as Pakistan (and other developing countries), where the standards of living are low and the inflation rate is high, financial rewards are undoubtedly vital. In the same breath, non-financial rewards are also imperative because they help enhance an employee’s self-worth. For instance, appreciation for good work, ongoing training and development, transportation to and from work, as well as several other factors help motivate employees and eventually retain them.
 * Impact of Financial and Non-Financial Rewards on Employee Motivation**

=
This research goes a long way in helping understand the dynamics of the employee-employer relationship in terms of employee retention and motivation. It lays the groundwork for organizations to understand their employees more comprehensively and accordingly develop strategies to motivate them, enhance their performance, and eventually retain them. It also goes to show that while financial rewards are undoubtedly vital, there is much else that employers can do to retain employees. This paper also develops a link between employee retention and motivation on the one hand and organizational performance on the other. =====


 * Managing sourcing team effectiveness: the need for a team perspective in purchasing organizations**

Driedonks, B. A., Gevers, J. M. P. & Van Weele, A. J. (2010). Managing sourcing team effectiveness: the need for a team perspective in purchasing organizations

Today, companies have started to install international, cross-business, and cross-functional sourcing teams. Sourcing teams are thought to be an effective organizational mechanism to achieve superior purchasing performance. Sourcing teams, also referred to as category or commodity teams, are assigned the task of finding, selecting, and managing suppliers for a category of products or services across businesses, functions. Creating successful teams requires careful consideration of a range of factors that enable and enhance effective teamwork, taking into account the context-specific requirements.However, there have been far fewer academic studies of sourcing teams. When the team approach emerged in purchasing.

Using a contextual framework in this study, the authors tested five hypotheses: H1. The employee involvement context significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H1a) teamwork training, and (H1b) team autonomy. H2. The organizational context significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H2a) formalization, and (H2b) information system effectiveness. H3. Team leadership significantly explains sourcing team effective- ness through positive effects of (H3a) transformational leadership and (H3b) initiating structure. H4. Team composition significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of functional diversity. H5. Team processes significantly explain sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H5a) effort, (H5b) internal communication, and (H4c) external communication. The findings suggest that the employee involvement context and team processes explain the variance in performance on all three dimensions of sourcing team effectiveness to a larger extent than the organizational context, team leadership, and team composition. The overall conclusion from this research is that sourcing team effectiveness depends strongly on the extent to which purchasing organizations have adopted a team management perspective, as reflected by the delegation of responsibilities to teams, providing training in team working skills, and the facilitation of effective team processes (i.e. effort and both internal and external communication). These findings confirm that purchasing organizations risk overlooking the people issues. Rather than focusing on technology, information and measurement systems, purchasing managers should enhance collaboration, teamwork, and empowerment.


 * A Theory of Team Coaching**

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (2005). A Theory of Team Coaching. //Academy of Management Review//, 30(2), 269-287.

After briefly reviewing the existing literature on team coaching, the purpose of this article is to propose a new model with three distinguishing features. The first branch of this model focuses on the function that coaching serves for a team rather than a specific individual. The second branch is to identify the specific times in the task performance process where coaching interventions are most likely to have their intended effects. Lastly, the model presents conditions under which team-focused coaching is likely to facilitate performance. The conclusion of this study points to the fact that this model fosters team effectiveness only when four conditions are met and two of these conditions have to do with organizational circumstances. The first one is that group processes are unstrained, the second one is that team is well designed within the organizational context. Thirdly coaching behavior focuses on task behavior rather members interpersonal behavior and lastly, coaching facilitations are done at a time when coaching is really needed. When these four conditions are met then coaching facilitation can bring about significant impact. Fostering innovation in functionally diverse teams: the two faces of transformational leadership.


 * Fostering innovation in functionally diverse teams: the two faces of transformational leadership**

Huttermann, H., & Boerner, S. (2011). Fostering innovation in functionally diverse teams: the two faces of transformational leadership. //European Journal of Work And Organizational Psychology//. 20(6), 833-854.

Previous studies provide inconclusive evidence for the effects of functional diversity on team innovation. The aim of this article is to provide an integrated framework by analyzing the moderating effects of transformational leadership on the relationship between cross-functionality and team innovation. Furthermore, the article introduces task and relationship conflicts as the moderating factor in this relationship.

The authors points to the facts that because cross-functional group members differ with regards to knowledge, experiences and perspectives when a problem arises they are likely to end up in task related conflicts. Similarly these differences may also have a negative influence on team innovation because of the relationship conflicts that arises from these differences. Furthermore, it is believed that transformation leadership may cushion these negative effects by the strengthening the level of team identification.

This study finds that transformational leadership can be helpful in preventing relationship as well as task conflicts. Moreover, its effects on the development of innovation-enhancing tasks are double edged. The overarching conclusion of the article is that blind enthusiasm for transformational leadership as a panacea for promoting innovation in functionally diverse teams is out of place.


 * Teams and Facilitation **
 * __http://www.phf.org/resourcestools/Documents/Facilitating_and_Coaching_Teams.pdf __**

This article begins by summarizing the definition of what the practice of facilitation as well as coaching entails. They define facilitation as the process of helping groups or individuals learn, find a solution, or reach consensus without imposing or dictating an outcome. Facilitation empowers individuals or groups to learn for themselves or to find their own answers to problems without control or manipulation. Coaching is defined as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Facilitation and coaching are closely related. Both facilitators and coaches strive to get clients or teams to improve performance. Coaching is slightly more directive than facilitation. The distinction between facilitation and coaching often becomes blurred. At times, a group is led through facilitation to a resolution. At other times, directive coaching is necessary in order to get the group moving.  The authors go on to discuss that before attempting any team facilitation or coaching, a team charter which provides start-up direction for the team’s task at hand must be in place. Successfully facilitating and coaching a team requires building a partnership among the facilitator/coach, sponsor, team leader, and team members. This partnership is most effective when ground rules, clear expectations, specific time frames, and goals and measures of success are established. The overall goal is to build a culture of commitment and accountability to the assigned task within the team. The eight key rules that need to be followed in order to be an effective facilitator and coach are: 1) know the needs of the team, 2) confirm that the team is ready to be coached, 3) set realistic expectations, 4) observe the team, 5) measure where the team is using a team development model, 6) develop an improvement plan, 7) confidentiality, and 8) follow-up. In addition they include examples of possible scenarios that may be encountered as well as the //Guidelines for Teams to Work Effectively.// They summarize by saying that facilitation and coaching are as much arts as sciences. They are skills honed through hands-on experience interacting with many teams in the group development process. Those who accept the role of a team facilitator or coach must understand the natural behaviors of teams and the individuals who comprise them. In the face of competitive and technological challenges, many organizations rely upon team-based work structures to remain productive and competitive. Teams are increasingly becoming primary in the way employees in organizations conduct work and this article focuses specifically on the effectiveness of new product development teams (NPD). In their study they center on whether or not team members process behaviors, that is, leadership and facilitation behaviors are influenced by their team’s trait composition. They discuss how recently there has been an increased focus toward trying to understand how the overall personality composition of a team might relate to members’ behavior and performance. There are two approaches to composing teams that are discussed and they are supplementary fit (more comfortable and productive when members are similar to each other, and complimentary fit (people fit when they fill an unmet need). The method used in this study included 144 participants that were working professionals. They worked in 48 project work teams composed of 3-5 individuals that were each responsible for specific tasks throughout the entire project. No formal ground rules were established nor was a formal leader assigned and they were measuring personality and team process behavior. Using HLM 6.0 (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), findings show that when it comes to project team composition, members of a team, who are similar on affective personal style traits, demonstrate greater team leadership and facilitation behaviors.
 * Aronson, Z. H., Dominick, P. G., & Wang, M. (2014). Exhibiting Leadership and Facilitation Behaviors in NPD Project-Based Work: Does Team Personal Style Composition Matter? //Engineering Management Journal//, //26//(3), 25–36.**

**24-Karat or fool’s gold? Consequences of real team and co-acting group membership in healthcare organizations. ** **Lyubovnikova, Joanne ****, ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Carter, Matthew R. ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">1 ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">West, Michael A. ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">, ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Dawson, Jeremy F. ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology ****<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">. Dec2015, Vol. 24 Issue 6, p929-950. 22p. ** <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Although theory on team membership is emerging, limited empirical attention has been paid to the effects of different types membership on outcomes. An important but overlooked distinction is that between membership of real teams and membership of co-acting groups, with the former being characterized by members who report that their teams have shared objectives, and structural interdependence and engage in team reflexivity. We hypothesize that real team membership will be associated with more positive individual- and organizational-level outcomes. These predictions were tested in the English National Health Service, using data from 62,733 respondents from 147 acute hospitals. The results revealed that individuals reporting the characteristics of real team membership, in comparison with those reporting the characteristics of co-acting group membership, witnessed fewer errors and incidents, experienced fewer work related injuries and illness, were less likely to be victims of violence and harassment, and were less likely to intend to leave their current employment. At the organizational level, hospitals with higher proportions of staff reporting the characteristics of real team membership had lower levels of patient mortality and sickness absence. The results suggest the need to clearly delineate real team membership in order to advance scientific understanding of the processes and outcomes of organizational teamwork


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What Leaders Can Learn About Teamwork and Developing High Performance Teams From Organization Development Practitioners **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Warrick, D.D. (2014). What Leaders Can Learn About Teamwork and Developing High Performance Teams From Organization Development Practitioners. //OD Practitioner//. 46/3, 68-75

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Teamwork can greatly improve an organization’s performance, effectiveness, efficiency, communications, and innovative thinking; and consequently their competitive advantage. Although many organizations believe in the value of teamwork, however, few actually make it a priority. The author suggests that any organization should prioritize teamwork and leaders should be trained in developing high performance teams, as teamwork plays an important role in an organization’s success. The gap in the importance of teamwork established by research and the lack thereof in organizations presents opportunities for OD practitioners to make an impact by providing team development training.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Opening the Black Box of Team Processes and Emergent States: A Literature Review and A genda for Research on Team Facilitation**

Seeber, I.; Maier, R.; Weber, B., Opening the Black Box of Team Processes and Emergent States: A Literature Review and Agenda for Research on Team Facilitation, System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on vol., no., pp.473, 482, 6-9 Jan. 2014.

The study described the effects of facilitation on team outcomes have been in the main topics of many previous studies. Within those studies, there were only evidences from a few quantitative studies investigate how teams evolve through team processes and emergent states. Therefore, the main goal of this review paper is to synthesize quantitative research studies to better understand the constructs of facilitation and to identify future avenues of facilitation research. The authors performed a structured literature review to identify relevant quantitative studies using the input mediator-outcome model to group elicited constructs of facilitation. In the conclusion, authors found that most studies treat team processes and emergent states as a black box. They argued that they need to open this black box and include measures that allow for conceptualizing how human and automated facilitation affects team outcomes. In general, authors proposed a research agenda, which enhances current models explaining team outcomes by a conceptualization and measurement of team processes and emergent states.


 * Managing sourcing team effectiveness: the need for a team perspective in purchasing organizations**

Driedonks, B. A., Gevers, J. M. P. & Van Weele, A. J. (2010). Managing sourcing team effectiveness: the need for a team perspective in purchasing organizations

Today, companies have started to install international, cross-business, and cross-functional sourcing teams. Sourcing teams are thought to be an effective organizational mechanism to achieve superior purchasing performance. Sourcing teams, also referred to as category or commodity teams, are assigned the task of finding, selecting, and managing suppliers for a category of products or services across businesses, functions. Creating successful teams requires careful consideration of a range of factors that enable and enhance effective teamwork, taking into account the context-specific requirements.However, there have been far fewer academic studies of sourcing teams. When the team approach emerged in purchasing.

Using a contextual framework in this study, the authors tested five hypotheses: H1. The employee involvement context significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H1a) teamwork training, and (H1b) team autonomy. H2. The organizational context significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H2a) formalization, and (H2b) information system effectiveness. H3. Team leadership significantly explains sourcing team effective- ness through positive effects of (H3a) transformational leadership and (H3b) initiating structure. H4. Team composition significantly explains sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of functional diversity. H5. Team processes significantly explain sourcing team effectiveness through a positive effect of (H5a) effort, (H5b) internal communication, and (H4c) external communication. The findings suggest that the employee involvement context and team processes explain the variance in performance on all three dimensions of sourcing team effectiveness to a larger extent than the organizational context, team leadership, and team composition. The overall conclusion from this research is that sourcing team effectiveness depends strongly on the extent to which purchasing organizations have adopted a team management perspective, as reflected by the delegation of responsibilities to teams, providing training in team working skills, and the facilitation of effective team processes (i.e. effort and both internal and external communication). These findings confirm that purchasing organizations risk overlooking the people issues. Rather than focusing on technology, information and measurement systems, purchasing managers should enhance collaboration, teamwork, and empowerment.


 * A Theory of Team Coaching**

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (2005). A Theory of Team Coaching. //Academy of Management Review//, 30(2), 269-287.

After briefly reviewing the existing literature on team coaching, the purpose of this article is to propose a new model with three distinguishing features. The first branch of this model focuses on the function that coaching serves for a team rather than a specific individual. The second branch is to identify the specific times in the task performance process where coaching interventions are most likely to have their intended effects. Lastly, the model presents conditions under which team-focused coaching is likely to facilitate performance. The conclusion of this study points to the fact that this model fosters team effectiveness only when four conditions are met and two of these conditions have to do with organizational circumstances. The first one is that group processes are unstrained, the second one is that team is well designed within the organizational context. Thirdly coaching behavior focuses on task behavior rather members interpersonal behavior and lastly, coaching facilitations are done at a time when coaching is really needed. When these four conditions are met then coaching facilitation can bring about significant impact. Fostering innovation in functionally diverse teams: the two faces of transformational leadership.


 * Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here?**

Martins, L. L., Gilson, L. L., & Maynard, M. T. (2004). Virtual teams: What do we know and where do we go from here?. //Journal of management//, 30(6), 805-835

This article explains the use of virtual teams within organizations to interact with one another across geographic, organizational, and other boundaries in effective way. The authors’ begin by examining the various definitions of virtual teams used in the literature and then review the research findings. This study identifies the areas of agreement and disagreement related to virtual teams, as well as gaps in the literature. The authors’ suggests that empirical studies on virtual teams have been relatively limited in scope and offer few consistent findings, and many other aspects related to virtual teams left unexamined.

Virtual teams are increasingly used by many organizations and with rare exceptions all organizational teams are virtual to some extent. Virtual teams can enhance the flexibility of organizations and help the organizations maintain a competitive advantage over rivals. The article demonstrates that in order to understand virtual teams, researchers must move beyond simply comparing them to face-to-face teams.

The authors’ illustrates that there has been a proliferation of definitions on virtual teams. An examination of the definitions used indicated that there is considerable overlap in the core definition. One aspect of virtual teams that had not been addressed in traditional definitions was the degree of technology mediation, as opposed to face-to-face interaction, that is necessary for a team to be considered virtual. If you were running a virtual team in you organization, I would recommend this article to gain more knowledge about the structure of virtual teams.

High-performance teams and communities of practice
Hays, J. M. (2014). High-performance teams and communities of practice. //Oxford Journal: An International Journal of Business & Economics//, 5(1).

Businesses of various types have had their employees working in teams from the dawn of time. This article evaluates the pros and cons of two different types of team structures. One is a highly formalized team of individuals and the other is a Community of practice, which is a group of individuals that come together on their own accord (Martin, J., 2010). Community of practice groups are more fluid in their formation and governance therefore there is not one particular leader of the group, whereas formal teams consist of the traditional team structure we are familiar with, which has a well-defined hierarchy.

This piece illustrates many positive and negative aspects of each team structure, noting that the fluidity of leadership in community of practice groups results in members displaying and developing more leadership characteristics that would otherwise have not been shown or developed in a formal team structure. The authors research does conclude that formal teams do have an advantage over community of practice groups in that team members in formal teams had a better knowledge of what their responsibilities were as well as the responsibilities of other team members. It was also very interesting to note the characteristics of both structures and how team members (employees) perceive their role in each structure.

**الفرق الإدارية** **(Teams and Facilitation)** تقييم هذه المقالة إيجابيات وسلبيات نوعين مختلفين من هياكل فرق العمل. الفريق الأول رسمي للغاية والأخر هو جزء من المجتمع، والذي هو عبارة عن مجموعة من الأفراد التى تعمل معا من تلقاء نفسها. هذه النوع من الفرق يكون أكثر إنسيابية في التكوين ولا يوجد به قائد واحد معين للمجموعة، في حين تكون الفرق الرسمية أكثر تقليدية ولديها تسلسل هرمي واضح المعالم توضح هذه المقالة العديد من الجوانب السلبية والإيجابية لكل بنية فريق، وتوضح إيضا أن الفرق المجتمعة تعرض خصائص قيادية أكثر من الفرق التقليدية. تناقش إيضا أن الفرق التقليدية لديها ميزة عن الفرق المجتمعة بأن لديهم معرفة أكثر بمسؤولياتهم وكذلك مسؤوليات أعضاء الفرق الاخره

Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes
Morgeson, F.P., DeRue, D.S., Karam, E.P. (2010). Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes. Journal of Management 36(1).

This useful article is quite interesting in that it gives a comprehensive view and understanding into how organizations are increasingly using team work as a common framework and how leadership in teams plays an integral role in how business is commonly being done today.

The authors’ focus on leadership processes within a team and describes how a team leadership can arise from several sources inside and outside a team. The article articulates the role of leadership in fostering team effectiveness by obtaining an understanding of team leadership and the nature of team functioning. In this article, the authors explain that the sources of team leadership focuses on satisfying team needs with the goal of enhancing team effectiveness.

The article focusing on teams and facilitation articulately highlights the fact that an area that has begun to receive increased attention is the role of leadership in team settings. In this article, the authors stress that there is a needed framework that is imperative to integrate existing team leadership research and can also accurately describe the holistic ways in which leadership can manifest itself within a team. This article seeks to accomplish this goal while also discussing the nature of the team environment and the specific and emergent needs that arise when teams work together.

**الفرق الإدارية** **(Teams and Facilitation)** قيادة الفرق: نهج لفهم هياكل القيادات وعملياتها في هذه الدراسة يقوم الكاتب بتوضيح كيفية إستخدام الشركات للعمل الجماعي والقيادة في الفرق كإطار مشترك ذو محور أساسي لكيفية مجرى العمل في الشركات اليوم. توضح الدراسة أن موضوع القيادة وإعداد فريق العمل يحظى بإهتمام متزايد من قبل الباحثين ويوضح الكاتب أهمية وجود إطار لدمج البحوث المتعلقة بقيادة الفرق ووصف دقيق يشمل طرق القيادة في الفرق. وتسعى هذه الدراسة لبناء هذا الإطار وتناقش طبيعة عمل الفرق معا

**Team** work engagement: A model of emergence
Costa, P. L., Passos, A. M., & Bakker, A. B. (2014). Team work engagement: A model of emergence. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 87(2), 414-436. doi:10.1111/joop.12057

<span style="font-family: AdvGSANS,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The authors present a model for teamwork engagement. The model includes team inputs and team outputs with mediator variables predicting the engagement of the team. There are eight propositions the authors highlight. They are: 1) Teamwork engagement is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption, 2) Teamwork will be a function of work structure along with individual, team, and task characteristics, 3) Teamwork engagement will be a function of affect management, conflict management, and motivational processes 4) The level of teamwork engagement in prior inputs, outputs and processes, 5) Teamwork engagement is positively related to collective efficiency, group potency, group cohesion, and group affect, 6) Teamwork engagement will be a function of previous team effectiveness, 7) Teamwork engagement fluctuates over time and 8) Team performance will be more salient during action phases. The authors recommend validating this model with empirically based literature.

**Facilitation in Management** Mann, T. (2013) Facilitation in management. Training Journal. 60-64.

This article talks about how facilitation is twofold; a skill for the individual and a business capability. It is often used to identify issues, resolve problems, encourage productive interaction, develop accurate objectives, define the scope of change projects, encourage and empower contributions, and engage stakeholders. Overall, facilitation can support organizations and provide a collaborative work environment and participative when identifying key issues and decisions.

Individuals who facilitate must balance three key factors: time, degree of uncertainty of the issues, and process maturity of the group while also finding the best possible process for the task leader. Facilitators are trained to access the situation and use the right model/tool at the right time to get the most helpful answer. This allows groups to make decisions on their own and get the most robust answer.

Facilitators can use a nine step process to account for all the stages of situational analysis. These nine steps include: 1) identifying issues, 2) Focus in on one main issue or cause, 3) Define the problem, 4) Find the main cause, 5) Select the criteria for an effective solution, 6) generate ideas for a potential solution, 7) pinpoint the ideas for the most appropriate solution, 8) Adverse consequences, and 9) Action planning. This framework reflects the six sigma approach because each step needs an effective process.

Executive teams: An analysis of popular models with a perspective from the field
Neatby, J., Aubé, C., & Rioux, P. (2013). //Organization Development Journal//, //31//(3), 73-89.

The article examines five popular executive team models and perspective on the usefulness of each of the models. The models were based on three criteria: They take a pragmatic approach to improving team effectiveness, they offer a holistic approach to executive team effectiveness, and they apply to executive. The models examined were Lencioni’s Five Team Dysfunctions model (Lencioni, 2002), The Six Conditions Model for Senior Leadership Team Effectiveness (Wageman et al., 2008), Executive Team Effectiveness Model (Nadler, 1988), West Executive Team Model (2012), and Trade-off Model (Katzenbach, 1998).

The models were analyzed based on the structure and were assessed by their usefulness in application. The article further details factors that impede effectiveness, areas worth developing, purpose, effectiveness, structure, and areas that were overemphasized. Overall, all executive teams benefit from answering the following question “what is your purpose as a group and why do you meet?”

The sharing imperative
[|Bala Chakravarthy] Strategy & Leadership, 2010, Vol.38(1), p.37-41

This article details four steps taken to fight the growing insularity among a firm's businesses and promote better sharing among them. The four steps are: reinforce the company's shared purpose and values; nurture boundary spanners; provide score cards that are balanced between horizontal contributions and vertical contributions; and support the informal organization by encouraging interactions, such as social events.

A manager's guide to virtual teams
== [|Yael S. Zofi (Yael Sara)] [|ebrary, Inc.] ==

New York : American Management Association

<span style="color: #262623; display: inline !important;">This paper seeks to educate leaders who are not yet familiar with the new tradition of teams (virtual teams). It focuses on steps to develop an effective virtual team, defining its challenges, how to develop accountability and get deliverables achieved as well as explain the future of virtual teams and its importance with respect to globalization.

<span style="color: #262523; font-family: ArialMT,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Team establishment of self-managed work teams: a model from the field
[|Emmett E. Perry Jr]; [|Dennis F. Karney]; [|Daniel G. Spencer] [|Team formation, Team establishment, Self-managed work teams, Team working, Leadership] Team Performance Management, 2013, Vol.19(1/2), p.87-108 The purpose of this paper is to describe a model of team establishment that emerged from 64 teams comprised of mid-career working professionals. A total of 64 similarly configured 18 member teams assembled for work on the same day and, afterwards, worked on similar tasks. A single representative team was observed throughout its process of its formation-establishment-using participant observation and interviews. A case report describing the process was co-constructed afterward. Individuals from remaining teams systematically compared/contrasted their experience with the case report. Teams formed very differently than expected. A highly dynamic and rapid process was seen. The model suggests interplay between ongoing assessment of the context and organizing for work while norms emerge and work is performed. It seems leaders can influence the speed of establishment through intentionality during the establishment phase. The rapid establishment process that emerged here may have application across a wider range of work settings—especially where members are experienced in working collaboratively.

Effort Intentions in Teams: Effects of Task Type and Teammate Performance

 * Hüffmeier, J., Dietrich, H., & Hertel, G. (2013). //Small Group Research//, //44//, 62-88. doi:10.1177/1046496412472242**

Theoretical models of individual motivation in groups represent overt effort intentions as precursors of observable effort expenditure in a group context. We examined established triggers of group motivation gains in a scenario-based paradigm, exploring which of these triggers are already manifested at the level of effort intentions. We expected higher effort intentions during teamwork as compared with individual work when teamwork enabled one of the following processes: social compensation, social comparison, or social indispensability. Fifty-seven basketball players (Study 1) and 97 adolescents (Study 2) were asked to imagine individual and team sports situations and to indicate their intended effort in these situations. Features of the team situations were manipulated following a 2 (task demands: conjunctive vs. additive) × 4 (partner performance: inferior, equally strong, moderately superior, very superior) design. Results showed that social compensation, social comparison, and social indispensability were already at work at the level of overt effort intentions.

Helping Teams to Help Themselves: Comparing two Team-Led Debriefing Methods.

 * Eddy, E. R., Tannenbaum, S. I., & Mathieu, J. E. (2013). Helping Teams to Help Themselves: Comparing two Team-Led Debriefing Methods. Personnel Psychology, 66(4), 975-1008. doi:10.1111/peps.12041**

Organizations are using team-based structures because organizational effectiveness relies more on teams working together to achieve organizational outcomes. There are a number of ways to improve the effectiveness of teams including properly staffing teams and training them to work together. However, the role of debriefing teams with respect to various techniques has been overlooked and could potential lead to better effectiveness because of how debriefing accelerates the learning process.

The study in this article examined team debriefing. Specifically, unguided debriefs and guided debriefs were studied to determine how teams coordinate their own unguided debriefs and how all debriefs affect individual level outcomes. This study employed a cluster randomized design and used hierarchical linear modeling to test hypotheses. Results indicated that guided debriefs lead to greater team processes when compared to the unguided debriefs. This is because debriefs provide an experience to process the information, reflect and self-explain. It also provides a way to verify data, provide feedback and share information in order to recalibrate the team as needed. Furthermore, when debriefs are led by trained facilitators it is effective when the following five factors are included: 1) allow team members to reflect independently and anonymously, 2) ensure all team members provide input, 3) focus attention on team work not just task work, 4) guide the team to discuss priority early, and 5) lead the formation to develop action plans and agreements.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 14pt;">Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Work Groups: A Team Cultural Perspective

 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">Lai, J., Lam, L., & Lam, S. (2012). Organizational citizenship behavior in work groups: A team cultural perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 1056(October 2012), 1039–1056. doi:10.1002/job **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Studies have often found positive relationships between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and performance rating; but very few studies have scrutinized the team contexts in which such relationships exist.To understand how culture moderates Organizational Citizen Behaviors influence on job performance rating the article looks at the moderator of culture- collective vs. individualistic teams. Plus it helps at understanding when to expect a strong relationship between OCB and job performance rating.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Individualistic teams put more emphasis on personal achievement, independence, and uniqueness unlike collective teams that place more value on interpersonal relationships, workplace harmony, and peer supportTherefore culture does moderate OCB–performance rating relationship such that OCBs targeting individuals improved rated performance in highly collectivistic teams, whereas OCBs produced a significant improvement in highly individualistic teams.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">Strategic Management of Intellectual Property: An Integrated Approach

 * Iii, W. W. F., & Oberholzer-gee, F. (2013). Strategic Management of Intellectual Property:, //55// **** (4), 157–184. **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is no one best way to manage IP as stated in Iii, W. W. F., & Oberholzer-gee, F. (2013) many managers overestimate the appeal of using IP to utilize market power. Instead, the value of the several means to protect and profit from IP depends on firm strategy, competitive landscape, and the rapidly changing contours of intellectual property law.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the attack, Using IP protection to avoid imitation and exercise market power is the most common method to thinking about IP followed by selling or licensing. Another option is to boost the value of a firm’s innovations and its associated IP assets through collaboration. Finally, the least reasonable of the offensive strategies is the option to give away a company’s IP.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Defending, companies that compete with competitors who own vital IP properties also have a range of opportunities to meet this task. In fact, the options for IP non-holders reflect the choices available to corporations who own and control IP such as asserting legal privilege to getting permission and licensing. To ward off patent violation suits and gain access to rivals’ technology, businesses can opt to build large patent portfolios. The capability to <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5;">threaten countersuits may deter competitors from aggressively proclaiming their legal rights. On the defense you can disregard the impending claims of rivals and instead disseminate a possibly infringing technology in rapid approach.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Concluding Iii, W. W. F., & Oberholzer-gee, F. (2013) supports that many IP-related assessments are of strategic significance, and they must not be given to specialists who tend to be little involved in strategy formulation and application. Also, early and continuous communication between executives, lawyers, and engineers are critical to recognizing the best opportunities for deploying IP. Lastly, managers believe all too often that the best technique of using IP rights is to suppress competition. the significant benefits of the close and early <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">collaboration between creators, managers, and lawyers. In order to benefit to the <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">greatest possible extent from novel technologies and products, managers need to collaborate <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">across functional silos.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Entrepreneurial Orientation and Firm Performance: Drawing Attention to the Senior Team

 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Van Doorn, S., Jansen, J. J. P., Van den Bosch, F. A. J., & Volberda, H. W. (2013). //Journal of Product Innovation and Management//, 30, 821-836. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Van Doorn et al. (2013) examined the relationship between senior team attributes, organizational performance and entrepreneurial orientation. A random sample of 9,000 Dutch firms was identified and data were collected in years 2007 with the response rate of 12.2% and in 2008 with the response rate of 31.5% or 346 firms (agricultural, semi-manufacturing, utilities and construction, trading, professional services, transportation and communication). The following variables were measured: entrepreneurial orientation (9-item scale measuring risk-taking and innovation), senior team heterogeneity (4-item scale evaluating task-related heterogeneity), senior team shared vision (5-item scale), environmental dynamism, and firm performance (4-item scale comparing revenue, profit, return on assets with competitors).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Van Doorn et al. (2013) found that the role of senior team heterogeneity moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. The researchers also found that the impact of senior teams on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance depended on the environmental dynamics. Senior team shared vision did not moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance, according to van Doorn et al. In conclusion, the researchers pointed out that the results from the current study confirm that senior management’s characteristics such as heterogeneity and shared vision play an important role in leading change.

==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Reciprocal Expertise Affirmation and Shared Expertise Perceptions in Work Teams: Their Implications for Coordinated Action and Team Performance == <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">**Grutterink, H., Vegt, Van G. S., Molleman, E. (2013).** //**Applied Psychology: An International Review,**// **62, 359-381.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The focus of this article is to find relationship between mutual recognition by team members and performance. Specifically, Grutterink and Molleman (2013) hypothesized that highly performing teams consist of team members who not only share high levels of expertise but also respect, value and affirm each other’s expertise.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two hundred twenty-six students were randomly assigned to 39 teams and worked on a four-week business simulation including making decisions regarding marketing strategy, budget, and reward system along with preparing a financial plan and business plan. The students fulfilled the roles of a general manager, financial manager, human resources manager, legal manager, commercial managers, and research and development manager.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Grutterink and Molleman (2013) used social network approach to measure reciprocal expertise affirmation by requesting participants to rate the extent to which their team members are aware of their level of expertise as well as to rate the level of expertise of their team members. The performance of each team was rated by students who took the role of external experts.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As predicted, Grutterink and Molleman (2013) documented that teams with high awareness about other’ expertise levels tended to show a strong positive association between coordinated action and reciprocal expertise affirmation. The researchers point out that reciprocal expertise affirmation is one of the most important aspects for team members when deciding how much effort they are willing to contribute to the team’s success.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Creative Collaboration and the Self-Concept: A Study of Toy Designers

 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Elsbach, K. D., & Flynn, F. J. (2013). //Journal of Management Studies//, 50, 515-544. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is collaboration an important aspect of organizational or personal growth? Does one-size-fits-all approach to designing and promoting creative collaboration really work? This paper discusses relationship between collaborative behavior and self-concept of professional creative employees. Specifically, Elsbach and Flynn (2013) examine how collaboration activities impact one’s self-concept.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Out of 200 designers employed by a large international toy company, 40 (35 men, 5 women) participated in the study that took place between 2003 and 2006. The researchers collected data from interviews and observations of each participant. Seven participants were employed as staff designers, 16 as project designers, and 17 as designers. The researchers developed six self-categorizations used for identifying of self-concept including: idealistic, pragmatist, creator, refiner, controller, and enabler. The collaborative behavior of participants related to giving ideas, taking ideas, and giving-taking ideas.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Elsbach and Flynn (2013) found that personal characteristics (idealistic, pragmatist, creator, refiner, controller, and enabler) but not social characteristics were related to collaborative tendencies of giving ideas and taking ideas. The researchers showed that the idea-giving such as “offering an idea” or “co-creating ideas” strongly related to problem-solving while designers were engaged in creative activity. Interestingly, creative designers who were taking ideas from others perceived such a behavior as threat to their personal identities. Similarly, “incorporating ideas” was perceived as inconvenient in those participants who scored high on artistic creativity.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Elsbach and Flynn (2013) suggested that future research examining collaboration and creativity across different organizational groups within an organization, across organizations with different structures, and across organizations with different cultures would be beneficial.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif;">Field Testing a Behavioral Teamwork Assessment Tool with U.S. Undergraduate Business Students

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hobson, C. J., Strupeck, D., Griffin, A., Szostek, J., Selladurai, R., & Rominer, A. S. (2013). //Business Education & Accreditation//, 5(2), 17-27. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This article addresses the behavioral assessment of teamwork skills among undergraduate business students. Hobson et al. (2013) suggest that higher levels of teamwork skills are much needed among college students who will join diverse group settings in the business industry.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two hundred forty-seven undergraduate students enrolled in a Teamwork course were grouped into six teams each of which participated in a Leadershipless Group Discussion (LGD) lasting 20 minutes. While the teams discussed possible obstacles to effective teamwork, the researchers videotaped each LGD discussion and produced a DVD.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After reviewing the video segments, the course Instructor completed The Teamwork Evaluation Form assessing 15 positive behaviors (“piggy-backed on teammate ideas” or “took notes on team discussion”) and 10 negative behaviors (“failed to offer verbal input to team discussion,” or “refused to compromise”) of each team member. Overall scores and sub-group scores on Teamwork Evaluation Form were calculated.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The results revealed that among the positive behaviors that received the highest scores on the five point scale were “listening attentively,” “answered teammate questions,” and “offered task-related input during team discussion.” Items that received the lowest scores included the following, “attempted to achieve win-win resolutions to conflict,” “expressed empathy for teammate feelings,” and “politely asked for input from a quiet teammate.” There were insignificant scores given to 10 negative team behaviors suggesting team participation was successful.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Researchers identified several limitations to interpreting the results of this study such as the use of non-controversial tasks, limited amount of time for each leaderless group discussion, discomfort of being videotaped, rater bias when scoring, and the fact that the sample consisted of students enrolled in the same course.

Teams Matter Talent is Not Enough
**Karlgaard, R. (2013). //Forbes.Com//**

The article emphasizes on how the right combination of different individual talents would make teams work. The author asserts that thinking about recruiting individual talents and retaining them are insufficient. Rather, it is important to consider how each different talent contributes to the team performance. Also, the team size matter. The number should not be too big. If the total number is too large, it must be broken down to multiple teams of no more than a rock band or a basketball team. The cases from the trios of executives at Apple, Intel, Google, NetApp, and Intuit are used as examples. Apple had Steve Jobs as CEO, Tim Cook as the operation guru and the whip-cracker, and Jony Ive as the chief designer to get successful. Intel had Bob Noyce as the charisma, Malone as the scientist, and Andy Grove as the whip-cracker to bring the results. The young talents of Sergey Brin and Larry Page needed the old wisdom of Eric Schmidt to run Google. Tom Georgens had Dave Hitz’s technological side and Tom Mendoza’s entrepreneurial experiences for NetApp. Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit since 2008 gets council of Scott Cook, the founder, and Cook is coached by Bill Campbell, the board chairman.

Feeling included and valued: How perceived respect affects positive team identity and willingness to invest in the team

 * Ellemers, N., Sleebos, E., Stam, D., & De Gilder, D. (2013). //British Journal of Management//, //24//, 21-37. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00784.x**

The authors propose that perceived inclusion of the self and value of the self by the group members may mean different psychological processes that affect the individual’s feeling about the group identity and willingness to invest in the group. Five hypotheses were proposed. Perceived respect from other team members is predicted to have a positive relation with individual perception of inclusion in the team (Hypothesis 1). Perceived respect from other team members is predicted to have a positive relation with the perceived value of the self for the team (Hypothesis 2). The perceived inclusion of the self in the team is predicted to have a positive relation with the tendency of individual team members to report a positive team identity (Hypothesis 3). The sense of value reported by team members is predicted to have a positive relation with their willingness to invest in the team (Hypothesis 4). At the team level, the average willingness of individual team members to invest in the team and the degree to which they report a positive identity are positively related to the team’s action readiness, as rated by the team supervisor (Hypothesis 5). Cavalry battalions of the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces underwent the survey. All of the hypotheses were supported.

Even Great Teams Need a Tune-Up.

 * Lloyd, J. (2012). //Receivables Report For America's Health Care Financial Managers//, //27//(5), 5-6.**

Lloyd provides an answer to a question on how to make a talented and dedicated team of healthcare facility managers get back their confidence. This question addresses a mid-size healthcare facility that used to run smoothly with a talented and dedicated team. However, within the last year, this facility has observed their employees’ finger pointing and blaming each other when a problem occurs instead of working together as team to solve the issue. This is a common issue within the current healthcare industry due to the increasing demands of patient care.

The healthcare industry is learning to adapt to the changing environment by “redefining itself-from how it is organized and how it gets paid, to whom it serves and where” (para. 2). The problem with this change is that the healthcare industry is short staffed, and some people refuse to think of healthcare as a business. This impacts the healthcare industry because the staff lacks the time to nurture and support patients, which leads to the staff doing more with less. With budget cuts and limited resources to hire more staff this results in employees not helping on another because they have little time to get their own work done. Lloyd states with less time, information communications slips. “A work team without that informal glue that holds them together as people degenerates into a group of people racing through the day with their own issues and agendas” (para. 4).

In order to solve this issue the healthcare industry needs to run it like a business and address their budget dollars to maintain their patient care goals. Also, they need to address their team dynamics to prevent conflicts and a power struggle between employees. The best way they can address their team dynamics is by having some meetings or “start asking fellow team members what their perception is and try to win support for regaining a healthy team atmosphere” (para.9). Once you have some answers or if you have the groups together address the things are important to them and identify the gaps. Then discuss “how the roles have changed and negotiate, or renegotiate roles” (para. 9). These steps will assist the healthcare industry in rebuilding a healthy infrastructure or bring in an experienced consultant.

Work teams that pull together are unstoppable

 * Healy, L. (2013). //Nursing Standard//, //27//, 26.**

In this article, Lynne Healy, a registered nurse, shared her positive team experience, and her reflection. She argues that, “a passionate team with a shared vision can be more than the sum of its parts” (p. 26). A number of factors are mentioned;


 * Presence of a good leader
 * Presence of strong personal leadership as the team’s culture
 * Mutual respect and support
 * Integrity with individual responsibility for the services
 * The qualities that each member brings to the team as a more important factor than better resources per se
 * A shared vision

In order to achieve the effective team dynamics, Healy suggest, as the starting step, reflection of individual work values and passions, and communication with the team members to share each other’s work values and passions to promote mutual understanding and support.

Making diverse teams click

 * Polzer, J. T. (2008). //Harvard Business Review//, //86//, 20-21.**

Diversity is a double-edged sword. The differences among the members, which are the advantage for creativity and high performance, can also lead to communication problems. The article reports on team building and the fit or interpersonal congruence among team members. The author reports that the performance of diverse teams improves when there is a high level of interpersonal congruence. Performance appraisals with 360-degree feedback improve team congruence and collaboration, open communication with transparency when feedback is discussed among the team members with an opportunity to review for more accurate self-assessments.

The discussion in this article shares some points with this month’s featured article about 360-degree feedback topic, too.

Facilitating Problem Solving: A Case Study Using the Devil's Advocacy Technique.

 * Hartwig, R. T. (2010). //Group Facilitation: A Research & Applications Journal//, //10//17-31.**

“The role of a Devil’s Advocate can be a useful one for problem-solving groups to employ in testing to see if proposed solutions to a given problem are robust and likely to succeed” (para. 1). In this article the author discusses the “Devil’s Advocacy technique as a group facilitation intervention and identifies recommendations for how this technique can be most effectively used” (para. 1). This study breaks up new students into work groups with assigned tasks, which are used in analyzing how they confront issues and develop actionable, productive solutions. With the Devil’s Advocate “one group or a subgroup critiques a group’s (or another subgroup’s) plan by raising questions about the plan’s assumptions and consequences, but does not offer a counter-plan” (table 1). Although, in this case study they use several facilitative procedures that are used by facilitators to assist other groups with solving problems to make decisions. The devil’s advocacy is the primary focus for this study because it has “received substantial attention from scholar studying management, organizational behavior, and business communication” (para. 3). With this technique to problem-solving helps people to solve challenging issues. During the new work group study at University of Denver, CO the devil’s advocacy technique give the new students a deeper understanding of the intricate aspects of their problem to solve and this allowed them to articulate a series of actions to solve their problem.

In this case, the devil’s advocacy technique serves three main objectives,” (a) to reinvigorate interest in the devil’s advocacy technique in the scholarly and practitioner communities, (b) to explore the efficacy of the devil’s advocacy technique for practicing facilitators, and (c) to assist a real-world group in analyzing and managing a significant organizational problem”(para. 4). With this technique it approaches issues with a straightforward approach to explain the complex problem, while working towards a solution by building recommendations based on critiques. This is a more effective and one of the fastest ways to work out a complex problem. This technique is easily adaptable to any main principle of programming conflicts into decision making groups with a high quality decisions to assist any company.

The secrets of team facilitation.

 * Burns, G. (1995). //Training & Development//, //49//(6), 46.**

This article discusses the guidelines of group process facilitation by individuals with top notch skills in dealing with several different types of teams. The author outlines expert facilitators’ guidelines in how their skills improve organizations products, processes, and services through teams.

According to Burns, the first process of establishing teams is by setting up meetings, set a clear goal, roles and procedures, discourage disruptive behavior, clearly communicate with all team members, guide the teams’ decision-making process and interpret the teams’ dynamics’. This process creates a foundation for teams to carry out both content tasks and their group process. The next process the author outlines the expert facilitators eight domain of knowledge:


 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">group development
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">goals
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">roles
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">communication
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">meeting management
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">decision making
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">problem solving
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,&#39;serif&#39;; font-size: 16px;">conflict management.

With these eight domains this is how experts apply their diagnostic and intervention skills in addressing issues within teams. In order to have an effective group development, teams can not have any development issues present and goals, roles with communication must be clearly established. As for meetings they must be managed correctly with a clear agenda. Then as for decision making, problem solving and conflict management these are vital areas that need to be monitored with in teams to make your team work effective. With problem solving most issues fall under technical, systems or people-related programs which can impact an organization with decision making. If an organization experiences a problem within this domain you must address the problem by determining the root cause, and then develop a solution. As a facilitator it is important that you lead the team with internal projects and apply each of these domains to eliminate any problems.

Principles for effective virtual teamwork

 * Nunamaker Jr., J. F., Reinig, B. A., & Briggs, R. O. (2009). //Communication of the ACM//, //52//, 113-117. doi:10.1145/1498765.1498797**

The article outlines the principles for effective virtual teamwork, derived from field experiences with government, military, and business organizations, and from laboratory studies. The list of the principles is as follows;


 * 1) Realign reward structures for virtual teams.
 * 2) Find new ways to focus attention on task.
 * 3) Design activities that cause people to get to know each other.
 * 4) Build a virtual presence.
 * 5) Agree on standards and terminology.
 * 6) Leverage anonymity when appropriate.
 * 7) Be more explicit.
 * 8) Train teams to self-facilitate.
 * 9) Embed collaboration technology into everyday work.

Virtual teamwork faces different challenges than face-to-face teamwork. It is challenged with competing demands for attention between the local office and virtual work, uncertainty and anxiety in remote communication, development of trusting relationships, and accessible, stable, and user-friendly technology. In order to achieve success in virtual teamwork, it is necessary to put explicit efforts to institutionalize the systems and process specifically for it.

Facilitation roles and responsibilities for sustained collaboration support in organizations

 * Kolfschoten, G. L., Niederman, F., Briggs, R. O., & de Vreede, G. (2012). //Journal Of Management Information Systems//, //28//(4), 129-162.**

Kolfschoten’s research “shows that under certain conditions, groups using collaboration technologies such as group support systems (GSS) can gain substantial improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of their work processes. With this strategic planning it can be slow to develop self-sustaining communities of users in the workplace, given the issues of people and groups with varied goals and objectives. With technology several organizations take the form of facilitating tools and training.

Organizations that use collaboration technology may require two kinds of support: process and technical support. These types of support involves “(1) design tasks (e.g., designing a work process and designing the technology to support the process), (2) application tasks (to apply the process and to use the technology), and (3) management tasks (to monitor and control the process and to oversee the maintenance of the technology)” (p130). As a result the relationship of task allocation patterns are sustained use of collaboration technology in organizations. As a result of this group facilitation this requires some complex skills and extensive training and the facilitator encompasses process design and guidance and tool application but requires management of facilities and business administration.

Team conflict management and team effectiveness: the effects of task interdependence and team identification

 * Somech, A., Desivilya, H., & Lidogoster, A. (2009). //Journal of Organizational Behavior//, //30//, 359-378.**

The present study explores the dynamics of conflict management as a team phenomenon. The study examines how the input variable of task structure (task interdependence) is related to team conflict management style (cooperative versus competitive) and to team performance, and how team identity moderates these relationships. Seventy-seven intact work teams from high-technology companies participated in the study. Results revealed that at high levels of team identity, task interdependence was positively associated with the cooperative style of conflict management, which in turn fostered team performance. Although a negative association was found between competitive style and team performance, this style of team conflict management did not mediate between the interactive effect of task interdependence and team identity on team performance.

Linking capacities of high-quality relationships to team learning and performance in service organizations

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Brueller, D., & Carmeli, A. (2011). //Human Resource Management//, //50//(4), 455-477. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“This study examines the impact of intrateam and external high-quality relationships (HQRs) on learning processes and performance. Data collected from 178 teams in the service sector indicate that (a) intrateam HQRs (i.e., between team members and between team members and their manager) are related to psychological safety, which in turn facilitates learning processes; (b) external HQRs are associated directly with team learning; and (c) team learning is positively associated with enhanced team performance. The findings highlight the importance of both internal and external HQRs to facilitate learning and enhance performance in service organizations.” (Abstract)

Peer-based control in self-managing teams: Linking rational and normative influence with individual and group performance

 * Stewart, G. L., Courtright, S. H., & Barrick, M. R. (2012). //Journal of Applied Psychology//, //97//, 435-447. doi:10.1037/a0025303**

The study highlights peer-based control as an emergent motivational state in self-managing teams to replace hierarchical control to coordinate team members. The authors defined peer-based rational control as team members perceiving the distribution of economic rewards as dependent on input from teammates, and proposed that it extends and interacts with the more commonly studied normative control force of group cohesion to explain both individual and collective performance in teams. Four hypotheses were proposed: “Peer-based rational control is positively related to individual performance….Peer-based rational control interacts with normative cohesion such that its positive relationship with individual performance attenuates when cohesion is high….Peer-based rational control is positively related to team performance…Peer-based rational control interacts with normative cohesion such that its positive relationship with team performance attenuates when cohesion is high” (p. 438-440). Data was collected from 587 factory workers in 45 self-managing teams at 3 organizations, peer-based rational control corresponded with higher performance for both individuals and collective teams. Peer-based rational control, team cohesion, supervisor’s rating on individual performance and team performance, and covariates (team tenure, organization, team size, degree of task interdependence, and peer-based feedback) were assessed via 5-point Likert scales. Hierarchical linear modeling techniques were performed to assess relationships with individual performance and regression techniques to explore relationships with collective performance. The results supported all of the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicate that peer-based rational control as a motivational state can improve performance across individuals and teams. However, the effects may not be equally beneficial to all teams. Teams with low cohesiveness may benefit from peer-based rational control more than teams with high cohesiveness do.

Facilitating conversational learning in a project team practice

 * Sense, A. J. (2005). //Journal of Workplace Learning//, //17//, 178-193. doi:10.1108/13665620510588699**

Based on a case study of the learning activities of one project team, this paper explored an empirical insight into the facilitation dilemmas for conversational learning in a project team environment. As part of the organizational change project, the team underwent a series of participative “learning-how-to-learn” workshops. These workshops were “learning spaces” that were centered on “conversations” to promote interpersonal understanding and critical reflective practice. Three key lessons about facilitating conversational learning in this setting are identified: 1) the degree of control an individual perceives that they have over the activities of the “learning space”; 2) the ability of the applied framework to facilitate or to impede the exploration process; 3) the capacity to isolate from, or incorporate into the “learning space”, the contextual conditions of the organization.

Modifiers for quality assurance in group facilitation

 * G. L. Kolfschoten, P. Grünbacher, & R. O. Briggs (2011). //Group Decision & Negotiation//, //20//, 685-705. doi:10.1007/s10726-011-9234-x**

The authors presented, for the benefit of facilitators to perform quality controls in the group contributions, a framework for quality assessment and a toolbox with flexible quality intervention for collaborative process. Essential quality dimensions are correctness, consistency, completeness, parsimoniousness, and relevance. The authors listed a number of quality modifying tools in relation to ThinkLets technique. The modifiers listed for deficiency prevention are input template, constraint emphasis, constraint re-emphasis, contribution training, defining quality criteria, and one up. The modifiers listed for deficiency discovery are input monitoring, quality evaluation, comparison, step by step checking, and cluster check. The modifiers listed for deficiency fixing are expert fixing, chauffer fixing, and parallel fixing.

Antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness: An examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership

 * J. Hu & R. C. Liden**

Goal clarity, process clarity, and servant leadership (a type of leadership that focuses more on the followers than the leader him/herself) were hypothesized to be the antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness. The results supported the hypothesis. Furthermore, goal and process clarity showed stronger positive correlation in the presence of high servant leadership than low servant leadership.

Click here to read the full article

Effectiveness in top management group meetings: The role of goal clarity, focused communication, and learning behavior

 * H. Bang, S. L. Fuglesang, M. R. Ovesen & D. E. Eilertsen**

Are you sure you are clearly communicating with your team, and clarify the goal as their leader? Remember your frustrating experiences with annoying supervisor with his/her ambiguity in the early stage of your career. Bang and the colleagues investigated and found that goal clarity and focused communication was positively related to team effectiveness.

Click here to read more about the patterns of their relationships

People Skills: Optimizing Team Development and Performance

 * R. E. Levasseur**

This very short article walks you through effective development high-performing team through organizational development principles. It presents the reviews of group development stages, the role of conflict in the process, and conflict management. Pretty easy read!

Click here to read the full article

**Facilitation Skills: Using Training Games**

 * S. Karve**

When trying to decide what facilitation activity to do with your team, there are a number of things that can go wrong. This article contains a few tips to keep in mind during the planning phases of an activity in order to get the desired results. This brief on facilitating can help those at any level in your organization design an exercise that’s just right for their team’s needs.

Read on to discover how to make facilitation rewarding for your team:

Information sharing and team performance: A meta-analysis

 * J. R. Mesmer-Magnus & L. A. DeChurch**

It is very frustrating when the team that you formed for the project does not really communicate with each other and share information so the team does not function because the members do not know what others are doing. Are you sure you share enough information with the teams under your management responsibility? If not, you can imagine they are frustrated with you. Information sharing is essential. But you have to push yourself to share information because you are less willing to share information with certain factors. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 72 independent studies, and identified the factors that enhance information sharing, and those that hinder information sharing. It seems that you are less likely to share information especially when you should, and more likely to share information when you do not have to.

Click here to read the full article

Fluid teams: Solutions to the problems of unstable team membership

 * G. R. Bushe & A. Chu**

Effective teams are something that almost every organization must develop. Though we may think of teams who are constantly gaining and losing members an unattractive situation, there are conditions which create positive outcomes from an unstable team membership. This article in Organizational Dynamics contributes to understanding the requirements and difficulties in creating fluid teams, helping you make the most of such a workplace environment.

Read on to discover how to make team fluidity work for you:

Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups

 * A. W. Wooley, C. F. Chabris, A. Pentland, N. Hashmi, & T. W. Malone**

Have you ever experienced putting bunch of smart people in a team, and they somehow did a lousy job? A team of smart people is not always that bad. Surely, each individual’s intelligence is important to the team performance but not as important as how well each member can work with others. The results of this study indicated that social sensitivity of individuals significantly predicts team performance in cognitive tasks while average and maximum intelligence of team members did not.

Click here to read the full article

Creativity and Standardization: Complementary or Conflicting Drivers of Team Effectiveness?

 * L. L. Gilson, J. E. Mathieu, C. E. Shalley & T. M. Ruddy**

In current times, innovation is often a necessity for an organization to have continued success. By accepting the status quo, you may be losing out on opportunities, and some discover this principle too late to bounce back. A great way to reveal the greatest creative potential is to build a team that can help solve tomorrow's problems today. This study finds that teams may need to strike a balance between creative potential and standardized practices. Find out if these principles complement or contradict one another, and learn what can be done to effectively utilize both together.

Read this article to find out more

Facilitative Leadership: One Approach to Empowering Staff and Other Stakeholders

 * T. L. Moore**

Moore presents principles of facilitative leadership according to the work of Roger Schwarz. The lists and the definitions of the four core values are as follows: valid information, free and informed choice, internal commitment, and compassion. He also describes left-hand column exercise, which can be used for developing effective leadership by identifying and exploring one’s typical action strategies. The actual use of the principles of facilitative leadership in Wake County Public Library System is briefly illustrated in the end.

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Multigenerational and Virtual: How do we Build a Mentoring Program for Today’s Workforce?

 * C. Hauck**

The author discusses and an exploratory study investigating the mentoring relationship, the use of technology and how the workforce communicates as a team. The author studies variables such as age and generation. Conflict in teamwork showed an increase with teams of separate generational origin rather than teams within their generational origin. The research studies communication patterns as well as how technology fits into the big picture. The article provides more detail information, specifically on virtual teams and technology. If these variables interest you, we suggest you read the full article by clicking here.

Managing Global IT Teams: Considering Cultural Dynamics

 * F. Niederman & F. B. Tan**

This article provides a set of principles that are effective for virtual teamwork. It also provides a table of global IT team and project activities. The cross-cultural manager needs basic skills in the facets of global IT teams presented by the table. In addition, the paper states two additional skill sets to help manage global teams. What are they? A description of the additional skill sets are on page 26-27. Read the full article by clicking here.

Teamwork on the line can pay off down the line

 * A. Lantz**

Brainstorming, generating ideas, researching and development are ways in which innovation is able to grow and produce new products and services. 104 work groups were analyzed and given questionnaires. Results indicate that teamwork can benefit innovation when complex tasks are provided, autonomy is given and reflectivity is established.

The article speaks further and in detail about how job design, autonomy, reflectivity, cooperation, social support, group initiative and self-organizational activities affect the process of innovation. Results from the aforementioned variables tested showed that job design, group processes and group initiative were connected to self-organizational activities as well as interrelated.

To read the full article click here.

Relationships among Teamwork Behavior, Trust, Perceived Team Support, and Team Commitment

 * S. Sheng & Y. Tian**

You are attending the weekly staff meeting when you hear those dreaded words....... 'You have been appointed to the new inter-departmental task-force and will be working with a team to address the most recently identified organizational issue.'

Wait! Stop!

Do not roll your eyes and cancel plans for the next six weekends. Take a few minutes to discover how to create team commitment, efficiency, and productive team behaviors. The authors discuss how trust moderates team outcomes and interactions with respect to information sharing and inter-team supportive behaviors.

To read the full article click here.

Leadership and Teamwork Paradigms: Two Models for Baseball Coaches
Chao-Chien Chen

Building teamwork in any organization may be a daunting task but building teamwork with regards to coaching a baseball team may prove to be more difficult. This article explains to popular leadership models, transformational/transactional leadership and leader member exchange to find out which model, if any, is appropriate to use when coaching a baseball team. Please read the article to find out the results of this study. Click here to read the full article.

Using Reflective Thinking to Enhance Decision Skills, Cultural Sensitivity, and Teamwork
C. Mcinnis-Bowers, E. B. Chew & M. R. Bowers

The authors explain how to prepare students for the global Market, International Business, and Marketing. Cognitive skills are learned in the form of reflective thinking rather than retrospective thinking. There were more fascinating results attained from this article on how to better prepare our students. To find out the methods of teaching these skills can be attained by reading the full article. To continue reading this article click here.

"Partners in perfection”: Human resources facilitating creation and ongoing implementation of self-managed manufacturing teams in a small medium enterprise

 * A. J. Fazzari & J. B. Mosca**

The authors explain how is possible to create long lasting change management. They tried a different approach on how they incorporated the use of SMEs. Instead of using SMEs ineffectively, they use them for consultation and facilitation. This method created work-teams that were self-managed, high performers, increased quality, improvements in turnover, health, and so much more. Just knowing all the positive findings of such a method is sure to spark interest.

Read more regarding the additional positive findings by clicking here.

Team Learning in Technology: Mediated Distributed Teams

 * H. P. Andres & B. P. Shipps**

Common sense dictates that face-to-face team collaboration will exhibit more effective learning behaviors than settings mediated by technology. This article researches this assumption and provides evidence of how psychological distance can impact a teams performance. Is there a fast difference in productivity, learning and quality among face-to-face communication or are we just fooling ourselves into thinking that technology mediated collaboration will produce the same results as in person teams? Does empirical research align with common sense?

Find out the answers to these questions and more by reading the full article.

=**Toward a Group Facilitation Technique for Project Teams**= = By Erich H. Witte =

This study discusses the Procedural Moderation technique (PROMOD) used to facilitate interaction among group members. In a comparison of two conditions-one with and one without PROMOD-when group members were given the task of making decisions about what important items to take after a plane crash, the quality of decisions and performance were higher for the PROMOD group than the control group.

Click here to read more

= Personalities into teams: We take different approaches to problems, and the best solutions = =are achieved by the greatest diversity.= = By Doug Wilde =

Team dynamics is an important part of any organization. Understanding the dynamics and fundamentals of creating successful work groups is imperative to organizational success. This article looks at the cognitive modes and team roles to be aware of when creating work groups.

Click here to read more.

**The Group Needs Model**

Geoffrey M. Bellman and Kathleen D. Ryan
This article presents a new model of group needs. It explores self, group and world variables with six needs. The article implies that once we understand and evaluate the needs of the group we can successfully create extraordinary groups that perform at the highest capabilities.

To read the full article click here = = =**When Mentoring Goes Bad**= //A good relationship can help both mentor and protégé. Here's how to make sure that happens.//

By Dawn E. Chandler, Lillian Eby & Stacy E. McManus
Formal mentoring has been used over the years to help acclimate young professionals to an organization's culture. This article explains how mentoring, if done right, can be a beneficial tool. However, when formal mentoring does not follow guidelines, organization cohesiveness can go awry.

Click her to read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016920463719744.html

Toward a group facilitation technique for project teams

 * Witte, E. H.**

This article discusses effective ways groups can facilitate themselves within their teams. The author addressed strategies of accomplishing roles within groups, and productively accomplishing tasks and decision making.

To read the full article click here.

Laying the Foundation for Successful Team Performance Trajectories: The Role of Team Charters and Performance Strategies

 * John E. Mathieu & Tammy L. Rapp**

The authors discuss the staying power of high functioning performance teams. Both teamwork (the process of performance) and task-work (the process of performance are discussed relative to the team charter and team development process.

To read the full article click here.

The Right People for the Right Team

 * B.L. Goldense & J. R. Power**

Goldense and Power explain the benefits of using cross functional teams. Finding the right mix helps "to bring a design to market at the right time, right price, and with the right features."

Click here to read the full article.

Cross-functional Team Decision-Making and Learning Outcomes: A Qualitative Illustration

 * M. A. Clark, S. D. Amundson, & R. L. Cardy**

This research study examined the experience of being in a cross-functional team. Interviews were conducted on 39 members of cross functional teams in 4 large organizations in the Midwest. The results of the study supported that cross-functional team heighten individual and organizational learning.

Click here to read the full article.

Team Characteristics and Team Member Knowledge, Skills, and Ability Relationships to the Effectiveness of Cross-functional Teams in Public Sector

 * Y. A. Athanasaw**

This study examined the effectiveness of cross functional teams in the public sector. It was determined that 4 factors were key in the function of cross-functional teams. The 4 factors were years of professional work experience, frequency of team participation, the type of team training, and situational entry to team assignments.

Click here to read the full article.

Functional Background Identity, Diversity, and Individual Performance in Cross Functional Teams

 * A. E. Randel & K. S. Jaussi**

These researchers examined if an individual's performance was affected by their demography, personal, and social identity.

Click here to read the full article.

Cross-functional Teams

 * J. Dyer**

This article discusses the benefits of cross-functional teams. She also emphasizes the use of cross-functional teams for sole practitioners.

Click here to read the full article.

Strengthening Identification with the Team in Virtual Teams: The Leaders’ Perspective

 * A. Sinuven**

This qualitative study focuses on strategies to manage diverse virtual teams. In addition to communication tactics, technology and organizational change play a role in these strategies.

Click here to read the full article.

The Contagious Leader: Impact of the Leader’s Mood on the Mood of Group Members, Group Affective Tone, and Group Processes

 * T. Sy, S. Cote, R. Saavedra**

This study reveals the contagion of emotion and tone from leaders to groups. Differences in leader mood is found to effect efficiency and coordination.

Click here to read the full article.

The Impact of Perceived Group Success-Failure on Motivational Beliefs and Attitudes: A Causal Model

 * M. L. Riggs & P. A. Knight**

The success or failure of a group has an effect on both personal and collective efficacy when evaluating the difficulty of future tasks. This can ultimately affect satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Click here to read the full article.

Relations between Teamwork and Innovation in Organizations and the Job Satisfaction of Employees: A Factor Analytic Study

 * Y. Lee**

A Taiwanese study reveals that group-orientated company culture tends to promote job satisfaction. Additionally, positive external recognition of companies also helps job satisfaction.

Click here to read the full article.

Motivating Interdependent Teams: Individual Rewards, Shared Rewards, or Something in Between?

 * M. J. Pearsall, M. S. Christian, & A. P. Ellis**

This study elaborates on previous findings regarding mixed rewards for team performance. Rewards can either be individual or shared. The observation of 90 teams revealed that a hybrid of rewards may be ideal for decreasing social loafing.

Click here to read the full article.

Managing the Life Cycle of Virtual Teams

 * S. A. Furst, M. Reeves, B. Rosen & R. S. Blackburn**

Teams without spacial boundaries, teams without time constraints, teams that are essentially virtual-- are the teams of the present day. These present day teams, virtual teams, have a life cycle that affect their performance. Increasing the effectiveness of virtual teams by strategic intervention at each stage of the life cycle is discussed literally and in tabular form.

Click here to read the full article.

Freelance Facilitators

 * S. Thiagarajan**

The article is based on the workshop created by the author Thiagarajan and teaches individuals with facilitative expertise to branch out and build upon their strengths in facilitating. The author instructs the reader in games, knowledge building and skill building tips in facilitating groups. The article goes into depth of how an individual can become a good freelance facilitator by researching, branding themselves, seeking out small groups, building on personality characteristics and cognitive processes that the facilitator should be having when working. This article is a great source of information for coaches who would like to have more confidence when doing one on one consulting or individuals who have to lead important meetings in the organizations. Overall, the author introduced methods that are practical and engaging for the facilitator and the group being lead.

Click here to read the full article.



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