MAN 2100 Module 6 Team Building Discussion Example

Module 6 Discussion: Building and Developing an Effective Team

Six People From Six Branches: What Makes a New Cross-Branch Team Work

This month our library system approved the cross-branch program team I proposed in my Module 3 written assignment, and I have been asked to help launch it. Six people from different branches, a programming coordinator, three librarians, an IT specialist and a teen services assistant, will plan system-wide programs and lead the self-service technology rollout. None of them has worked together. Our reading describes teams as moving through predictable stages as members learn to work together, and stresses that clear goals, defined roles and agreed norms help them get there faster (Lumen Learning, n.d.).

Research suggests that how members interact matters more than how talented they are individually. Woolley et al. (2010) gave groups a range of tasks and found evidence of a general collective intelligence that predicted group performance across tasks. It was not strongly related to members' average or highest individual intelligence, but it was related to members' social sensitivity, how evenly conversation was shared, and the proportion of women in the group. For our team, that points to two practices from the first meeting: a facilitator who makes sure every member speaks on each agenda item, and a habit of reading the room, checking in with quieter members after the meeting rather than assuming silence means agreement.

Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) reviewed decades of research on work teams and emphasized that team effectiveness depends on processes that can be built deliberately, including shared understanding of the task, mutual trust and the team's belief in its own ability. Our first project will therefore be small and achievable: a single system-wide family reading night in six weeks. Success on a modest task builds confidence and shows each member what the others can do before the team takes on the larger technology rollout.

My question for classmates: how have you handled a team member whose home department keeps pulling them back to their regular duties?

Reply to Tanya

Tanya, your point about clarifying roles early is well taken, but I wonder if assigning roles too quickly can backfire. In the Woolley et al. (2010) findings, the groups that performed best were the ones where conversation was more evenly shared, which suggests letting people contribute broadly at first before narrowing into roles. In your hospital unit example, could the charge nurse have spent the first two meetings hearing from everyone before setting the duties? I would be interested to know whether the team that formed fastest also performed best.

Reply to Luis

Luis, I agree that trust is the foundation, and I would add that trust can be built through structure, not only through time together. Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) describe team trust and confidence as developing through shared experiences of working on the task. Your idea of a team lunch is good, but a small shared project with a visible result might build trust faster, because people see each other deliver. In your sales team, is there a short, low-risk goal the new members could achieve together in their first month?

References

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). Principles of management. Open Educational Resources. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-principlesofmanagement/

Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330(6004), 686-688. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147