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Construction is a collaborative activity; only by pooling the knowledge and experience of many people can buildings meet today's let alone tomorrow's needs. But simply bringing people together does not necessarily ensure they will function effectively as a team. Effective teamwork does not occur automatically. It may be undermined by a variety of problems, such as lack of organisation, misunderstanding, poor communication and inadequate participation. This leaflet sets out some of the key ways in which construction teams can harness the collective energy of all their members to achieve a common purpose.
Teams are groups of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable for its achievement. Ideally, they develop a distinct identity and work together in a co-ordinated and mutually supportive way to fulfil their goal or purpose.
Effective teamwork results from:
Effectiveness is the extent to which a team is successful in achieving its task-related objectives. Successful teams achieve:
In forming and managing a team, it is important to consider not only team members' competence and experience, but also their ability to share information and co-ordinate their actions. Those who are unwilling to discuss assumptions, negotiate options and explain proposals are unlikely to work well as team members. Teams are best formed from participants who are willing to:
Leadership is critical to teamwork: the team leader is responsible for ensuring that members work together to achieve the goal or objective. On occasion, the leader must be able to inspire team members to 'go the extra mile'. Tasks allocated to individual members of the team should be meaningful and challenging ' people work better if the tasks they face are interesting, motivating and enjoyable.
Effective leaders aim to:
In order to work effectively, a team needs to have a clear vision of what it wants to achieve. This must be one that motivates and inspires team members ' a future they feel is worth striving for. If a team is set an unattainable goal, it can have a de-motivating effect.
Teams are more motivated to deliver a vision that they themselves have developed. When team members believe they have made a real contribution to the overall vision they are likely to work hard to achieve it. Shared aims help to create a sense of common purpose and ownership, and promote team identity.
A short paragraph or set of bullet points are useful to summarise and encapsulate the principal elements of the team's vision and provide a mission statement. Team meetings are an opportunity for a periodic reminder of the team's vision. Individual goals underpin the mission statement, and an action plan sets out how each member's goals will be met.
A shared vision, expressed as a mission statement, should be:
Communication is the process of transmitting and understanding information and ideas. Good communication is essential if a team is to collaborate successfully and make best use of its pooled knowledge. Open communication and information sharing:
Team members need to strive for clarity in communication, and to be patient, explaining and expanding where their ideas are unclear. It may be necessary to make underlying assumptions explicit, as options are negotiated and proposals explained.
Open communication requires:
Differing views and opinions among team members are inevitable. Ideally the team welcomes divergence and treats its members' expertise, experience, values and priorities as a source of energy and an opportunity for creative problem solving.
Nevertheless, disagreements can occur among team members. They may arise from different expectations, ambitions, objectives or priorities, and concern the team's directions, goals, procedures or decisions. Identifying and resolving these is an inevitable part of the team process.
In practice, much apparent conflict often arises from simple misunderstanding, or from the assumptions or suppositions made by team members. Through communication, explanation and negotiation, conflict can often be resolved. Finding a middle ground that all parties are reasonably satisfied with, may be necessary.
Less desirably, in the attempt to avoid conflict, some teams deliberately skate over contentious topics or adopt a superficial agreement that results when issues have not been directly addressed. Team members often feel dissatisfied by the inevitable compromises that result from this approach.
Conflict can also arise when people compete for a particular role in the team ' as leader, ideas-person, progress-chaser or critic. An awareness of each others' roles ' and how they can effectively complement rather than compete with one another ' is needed to resolve these kinds of conflicts.
In order to deal with conflict constructively the team should:
Teams often focus exclusively on the task at hand, and only rarely on the 'process' of teamwork. Yet teams which take time out to review processes are likely to be more effective than those which do not. Reviews of the interactions between team members can help to identify deficiencies and address how best to improve future performance. One of the first steps can be for team members to discuss and agree what exactly 'teamwork' means to each of them. Such a discussion might range across:
Teams can also benefit from considering the social climate they create for themselves, and whether it provides adequate levels of mutual support for team members.