Driving Business – Interpersonal Team Dynamics

Author: Business Beyond Reality

“No matter how good your project or the technology you have to work with, if your team doesn’t mesh – your project’s in trouble” , Says Stephen Howard-Sarin, Vice President, CNET’s business sites.

Team Dynamics are the unseen forces that operate in a team between different people or groups. Team Dynamics can strongly influence how a team reacts, behaves or performs, and the effects of team dynamics are often very complex.

Team Dynamics

A lot of issues personal and professional come up, when a Team is asked to collaborate between itself. They are:

1. Picking a Leader: Until and unless there is a Leader defined by the heirarchy of the organization, the team generally suffers the issue of lack of directionality. Once the leader is chosen by the team members, directionality is observed.
2. Unclear Team Objectives: Due to conflicting personal objectives, team goals are often randomly chosen and rarely tied up with overall objectives of the team. It is imperative for the leader to step in and define the team objectives clearly and objectively to avoid ambiguity.
3. Inadequate Communication: It is important for every teammate to be updated on whatever happens and to have a transparent reporting system to ensure that all misunderstandings are ironed out. It is also important to deal with contentious issues without delay.
4. Ironing Out Differences: Every inter-personal and intra-personal issue has to be addressed instantaneously for the team to function smoothly.

How Can Team Dynamics Be Managed Constructively?

1. One has to look for the team dynamics – the ‘natural forces’ at play.
2. One has to determine whether the natural forces are acting for good or bad.
3. One has to make interventions to make the effect of those dynamics more positive.

To access the level of team playership among people, LinkedIn is conducting a survey sponsored by Nokia. I had an opportunity of participating in the survey and the consolidated results as on November 20, 2008 are as follows:

 

Statistics - Level of Team Spirit

As the above graph shows, 97% people believe that working as a Team is a good way to work.

 

Responses By Seniority

The above graph indicates that senior associates believe more in team work than the others.

 

By Company Size

The above graph points out that more or less, all companies believe in the power of team work and collaboration.

 

Responses By Job Function

As expected, the product team works best as a team.

 

Responses By Gender

Women, known as having better inter-personal skills then men, are more in favour of working as a team.

 

Responses By Age

Older people, being more matured, realized the benefits of team work and are found to be in favour of team work more than their young counterparts.

 

It is rightly said…”The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”