Team Dynamics 

Another problem to overcome is our perception of what a team is. Many believe that a team is engineering, another would be sales, another would be manufacturing. These are not teams but a setup for civil war. Teams are cross functional and each individual becomes a part of the whole. Think of your company is the likeness of a baseball team. Are you that cohesive at working together? In baseball if a sharp line drive is hit to the second baseman and he/she bobbles the ball the shortstop is almost always behind them to attempt a recovery. If we looked at this in the analogous sense at your company and engineering was playing second base and they bobbled a ball (a major project) and manufacturing was playing shortstop what would they do: Probably laugh at them and make sure everyone else in the company knew that a mistake was made. It is the leader's responsibility to overcome this problem.

The best way to handle this is through clear definition of objectives that require multi-player efforts. Ensure that all assignments involve more than one department and that results can be clearly defined. Therefore, performance measures will be one of the first things established after the direction is set. People, when working together, can accomplish much more. They learn to respect one another and depend on each other, knowing that they probably cannot succeed at a task if they are doing it alone. There is something inside all of us that feels very good when we help someone else. Let's play on this fact.

All teams should measure themselves at least once a week for how effectively they are working together. This will force them to converse openly with each other about the areas that they need to work on. There are 6 critical measurement areas for the team. These measures are not against the project but against the team itself:

It is best to use a scale of 0 to 5 in measuring each category. Anything below a 4 at any one meeting must be discussed by the group as a whole.

l)o we know what our objectives are? Are we all working if i the same direction or have we somehow gotten off course. L ack of understanding objectives is a quick way to lose team commitment and direction. Ironically, oftentimes, th<e team does not even know that they have lost sight of wh ere they were originally going and get sidetracked. This happens easily so this is one area where the self imposed weekly measurement process has a tendency to really pay off. If the team has to perpetually ensure that their

objectives are understood by all then they will not be to eager to take on other issues that are unrelated to their real job at hand. Wish lists can often cause this. Stay away from them.

Trust is an essential ingredient for a team to succeed. There is an exercise that teams perform to get the feeling of true trust for each other. It involves each member of the team (one at a time) climbing to the top a 12 foot ladder while blindfolded. They then fall backwards knowing in their hearts that their team is down below and will catch them safely (Think of it: Would you trust your team at work to catch you?). "If I can't trust you how can I work with you?" People do not naturally trust each other and for the leader to gain this trust among members takes a lot of time. Start by teaming people that naturally trust another person and then slowly put in other individuals are added one at a time where the trust is not yet there. Most often a lack of trust is simply caused by not knowing the other person. If this is the case time will probably prove victorious. If there is a natural dislike for another person this will take a lot of care and feeding. Forcing these people to work together and count on each other normally goes the distance and bringing it out.