Building strengths based teams
“To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go into theirs – and it is necessary to follow in order to lead” William Hazlitt
What does the team you work in look and feel like? Is it a happy and productive team or is there continual tension as each one of you goes about your work in different ways?
Does your work fuel your passion? When you are passionate about the subject matter does it still feel like work? or, more like fun?
Or, are you stressed because you don’t feel appreciated?
There are many ways to help teams work better together by understanding the diversity of work preferences of each of the team members. We will cover three different psychometric approaches that you can use with your team. Each one of these methods brings a different perspective to the team – you would choose one based on your teams needs.
1. Team Management System
The TMS approach focuses on identifying and understanding key work elements that prove to be a reliable and valid focus in explaining why some individuals, teams and organisations perform, work effectively and achieve their objectives, while others fail.
TMS aims to measure:
- How you relate with others
- How you gather and use information
- How you make decisions
- How you organise yourself and others
TMS was developed by Drs Margerison and McCann (both Australians). Further information on TMS can be found on their web site
2. Belbin
In the 1970′s, Dr Meredith Belbin and his research team at Henley Management College set about observing teams, with a view to finding out where and how some teams just work and others seem to hit the rocks? They wanted to know why these differences occurred and to discover if the problems could be pre-empted and avoided. As the research progressed, the research revealed that the difference between success and failure for a team was not dependent on factors such as intellect, but more on behaviour.
The research team began to identify separate clusters of behaviour, each of which formed distinct team contributions or “Team Roles”. They identified 9 team roles, each of which are important in terms of their value and contribution to the overall team’s success. Full explanations and exercises on working which of these roles people play in your team can be found on the Belbin website.
3. Tuckman
First proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, “Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing” is a model of group development. Tuckman maintained that all teams need to move through the four stages in order to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and to deliver results. Details of the Tuckman methodology can be found in Wikipedia and in Tuckmans Team Development Model.
18 November 2010 12:33 pm
