Part 2
Developing Teams
Part 2 explores the processes of creating teams, leading teams effectively and training teams to work effectively together. Chapter 3 explores the question of who should be in the team and starts from the premise that team working is about the team task – a task that needs a group of people working together to coordinate their efforts and skills for success. That means identifying the skills needed to complete the task first and foremost. After that, we can consider how personality mix might affect team performance, and how gender and age diversity, functional background diversity (engineers, chemists, managers) and culture diversity will influence team processes and performance. The chapter explains how to ensure that the mix of people leads to innovation and effectiveness rather than conflict and failure.
Chapter 4 explores the key role of leadership in teams distinguishing between three related tasks for the leader – providing direction, managing the team’s performance and coaching members to success. Some of the tripwires for team leaders are identified and practical guidance for becoming an outstanding team leader is presented.
Chapter 5 considers the issue of team training and how we can intervene to promote team success. The gap between practice and evidence is described showing that many team training interventions have limited effectiveness. Well-designed team training does lead to improved team performance and the chapter explains what is required ...
