Building Collaborative Teams: Key Insights and Strategies

Welcome! Well, here we are, the last module in Leading Through Relationship Building. We are going to be working on building a collaborative team, but let's remember what we've already covered. We have built a network of relationships, we have built emotional intelligence, we have built conflict resolution confidence, and we've built relationships as a coach and as a mentor.

And now we're going to take all of those things that we've built and move them into what we need to be doing to be influencing our teams to be collaborative. Before we get into exactly what we're doing with this module, let's review what we did in Module 5 very quickly. Remember that coaching and mentoring are effective approaches to maintaining and developing our employees and hopefully our leaders as well.

Leaders, that's us, emerging leaders, coach performance and mentor careers, and both of those are about helping people get where they want to go. So let's take a look at what it takes to build a collaborative team. Our learning objectives for today describe the impact of team dynamics in the workplace.

Why do we want teams? Why do teams matter? Why are they helpful? How do they influence productivity? To do that, we have to analyze the stages of team development and then describe the value of influence within a team. Obviously, we have to employ communication techniques that promote effective dialogue in the team environment. And we do want to be able to, at least at the start, to implement effective collaboration strategies in our work settings.

So let's go ahead and move forward on this. You'll see that this section is titled Workgroups versus Teams. And the reason we have to establish the difference between the two is that we don't usually talk about which workgroup you are in.

We tend to say, Well, what team are you? And we use the word team very loosely, and it may identify this group of people over here, or this group of people over there, or that group of people over there, that may or may not, in fact, be a team. There is a difference, obviously, then, by the way, I'm going at this, between a workgroup and a team. So let's start with the basics.

A workgroup is a collection of individuals with separate priorities united by their shared interests or experiences. So you may be grouped as a cadre of professionals in this area, and you each are doing your own thing in that area, but you share a common goal of making our area look good. Groups utilize the individual strengths in order to get the work done.

And the members in the workgroup focus on their own goals. So if I'm a participant in a workgroup, I would say, okay, I'm coming to work today, and I know exactly what my responsibilities are and what I'm supposed to be working on and doing. And so I am going to work hard today and be very productive.

So what word did I use over and over and over again? I, I, I, I. And so I work fairly individually, mostly individually, even though what I share with other people in my unit is that we have a related interest, which is the main purpose of our unit that brings us all together. In this description, it's really a group of people who work together. But again, it's not that we are working, working together.

It's that we share a space together and we share a common goal. It does not mean that we are ineffective, necessarily. We can have in a workgroup, highly motivated individuals, highly skilled individuals who actually work very well independently.

So we're not saying there's something wrong with a workgroup. We're just saying it has a different structure. In workgroups, there may be informal groups.

There may be formal groups. The informal groups are formed more naturally around common interests, identities, or social goals. And the formal groups are created by the leaders to perform a specific task for an organization.

There are going to be some debates over whether a workgroup is better than a team or a team is better than a workgroup. But there is a reality. Both of them have advantages and disadvantages.

And we'll talk about that in a minute. Let's talk about a team. Here's where we're going to see the difference. Now, when we talk about a team, we're talking about a number of people who work together, together is an important word, to accomplish a shared purpose or goal.

So in this case, each team is the sum of its parts, which means members of the team rely on one another to accomplish the outcome. Meaning I can't get there without you, and you can't get there without me. I think of it as complementary skill sets that we have to connect together in order to be able to produce that single collective work product.

And so when others go to assess what we have done, they look at that single work product and say, "The team produced that." That's different in the workgroup. It's well, Debbie did this over here, and Jonathan did this over here, and Sharifa did this over here.

And when we add all those things up, that's a really nice number, but we're evaluated for what we individually produced in a team. It's what the team produced that's being evaluated. So teams are much more interdependent, much more working together, and much more intent about maximizing each other's strengths so that they are complementary and produce more than what any group could produce.

So what we're saying about a team is because of the nature of the collective work product that they have to produce, that they need everybody in order to be able to produce that work product. In a group, you just need the individuals doing their things in order to get to that end goal. It's different.

And so groups are very good for what they do in the structure. Teams are structured differently and should be very good at what they produce. So I'm not sure that the discussion is about which is better.

The discussion ultimately is going to be, What do you need? What do you need in order to get this work accomplished? Now, I do think we have to look a bit more into workgroups and take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of workgroups. We're going to do the same then for teams. So when we're talking about a workgroup, the advantages are that it's more of an even though I might be side by side with somebody for an extended period of time, it would be considered a more temporary relationship because people move in and out of workgroups, and it really doesn't disrupt me.

So if Monica moves out and is replaced by Juan, I might miss Monica, but that movement doesn't really affect how I do my job. Efficiency-wise, this is usually, I think, one of the great aspects of workgroups because we don't have to sit around and talk about it. I'm doing my thing.

It is more about individual growth. And in this case, a single leader would be managing the whole group. But most of the interactions would be between the individual employee and the formal leader of the group.

The disadvantages are going to surround, well, you can feel a little alienated in this one. And they, the groups, while it says they don't support organizational goals, that's usually not the big topic of conversation. The conversation is usually, What did you accomplish today? And in the accountability factor, I don't have to be accountable to the next person over because we are working independently.

So my accountability is to me. Did I do what I think was a reasonable amount of work for me to do at a reasonable quality? And how did that work with my manager or my leader? So it's pretty important that if we're going to be successful in workgroups, the individuals have to be pretty self-motivated, don't they? And are willing to work on their own on their tasks. Now, quite honestly, there are employees out there who love being part of a workgroup rather than a team.

They prefer that, let me just go do my own thing. And I understand that. It still comes down to what the organization needs in order to create the best results. And we might say, workgroups work best, even though there are some disadvantages.

Now, when we talk about a team, remember that a team produces a collective work product. Yes, on the advantages side, teams are better for problem solving because they can pull their thinking, and they can come up with more creative, innovative approaches to problems that are unique. It does encourage collaboration and working together and figuring out how to work with these individuals who may be very different from me, but we all serve the same goal and we have to produce a collective work product.

In addition to being accountable to one another, we have to get better at our own personal skills because we are dealing with team members. The leader is a facilitator rather than a director. The leader here is usually saying, How can we pull our talents? How can we solve this problem? How can we share responsibilities? How can we ensure this is done by the deadline? And leadership can actually be shared within a team.

What I oftentimes say is if we get to a high-performing team in a workplace and I walk into that room because everyone is taking on a leadership role, it's very likely that I could not identify immediately the formal leader because everyone is sharing in the leadership roles. It can be motivating. Team members, you know, come on, you better step it up over here.

I remember in one of my first work experiences, we were kind of competitive and we would each be teaching our own courses, but we would all be getting, each of us would be getting our course evaluation marks. And those marks were scores; they'd keep scores on us. And in my one particular group, we decided that we wanted to pressure each other to average a higher quality score than all of the other curriculum areas.

And so what would have been totally acceptable for us as a group to produce 4.6 quality overall, we decided to push it to 4.9. And we were already at 4.7, 4.8. And so even though we taught separately, we would share a lot of information and have a lot of conversations about what's the best way to teach a course, and that kind of thing. But what we also did in terms of motivating, what was your quality score? What was your quality score? Did you bring us up or did you bring us down? Did you bring us up or did you bring us down? And it was really highly motivating, a whole lot of fun. We, as team members, rely on each other, not only for knowledge and expertise, but also for emotional strength.

And yes, in a team, you are going to have people with individual strengths. And what we're trying to do is maximize the use of those individual strengths in order to produce a collective work product. And to do that, members share priorities and work toward the same end goal.

Okay, disadvantages. You might say, Hey, this sounds pretty good. What are the disadvantages? Oh my gosh, it takes time.

It takes time to learn how to work together. It takes time to solve problems together. It takes time to discuss things and agree upon them.

It takes time. And not only does it take time, it takes energy. And so there may be some teams that struggle fostering individual growth because the focus is on what the team is doing.

And teams are not always the most efficient way of going about doing things. Yeah. Now, they may be extremely effective as an end result, but getting there is not always the fastest way to go from A to B to C to D to E. So, in both cases, we have clear advantages and definitely some disadvantages.

So, remember I said the question is, what do I need? Not as to which one is better, but what do you need? Do you need a work group or do you need a team? Well, you need a work group when you want things done quickly and efficiently. And when your project doesn't have a definite endpoint. I come into work every day knowing exactly what I'm expected to do.

Individual goals that I'm held accountable for accomplishing. You have one leader, and I can go ask that leader. And you want to delegate problem resolution to individuals.

So, I would sit here as an individual and say, okay, I'm sitting here with a problem. Let me see how I'm going to work through this. I think based on now, I might check in with my formal leader, my supervisor, but between the two of us, we will find a resolution.

Team. Big project, long amount of time to work. Remember, this is collective.

So, you're going to work together in order to accomplish that big project. You have deadlines. We've got to do it by.

And that's one overall goal, an overarching goal to accomplish. You have multiple leaders in that process, and you want the problems to be solved collectively. And that means we come up with solutions, and then we support the solutions and employ the solutions.

And that's why we look toward having buy-in to the problems that we are buying into, solving the problems that are in front of us. So, you can see there is a very different way I come to work if I'm working in a work group or I'm working in a team. Now, with that being said, you go to exercise 5-1 and it asks you to list any of the work groups and or teams you lead or are a member of in your organization, which are work groups and which are teams.

Now, the reason that question is asked that way is because you may in your singular work setting, have some things that you work on as a work group and other things that you work on as a team. And that's why the question is there. Another question that I think is important is if you do work in a work group, should that really be a team? Should that be a team? Should it be more interdependent than it already is? And why would you say so? You might also, on the other hand, look at some of your teams and say, you know, this team thing is kind of stupid here.

We don't have to be teams in order to accomplish this. Let us be work groups and let us go out on ourselves as individuals. So again, this is about what you see in your organization, and do you see it as working to its advantage, or maybe there should be some shifts between work groups and teams.

I'll let you spend some time on that.