Running Head: Challenges Of Online Team Communication

Temme and Katzel (1995) stress that the effective team-building requires the combination of clear team goals, empowerment, atmosphere of trust within the team, authentic participation of every member of team, innovative approach to work and ability to manage risks, proper leadership and ability to make the constructive changes.

Introduction

Temme and Katzel (1995) in their article indicate that a team working together has more and better input than individuals working alone. This results in better ideas and decisions and higher quality output. They state that team-building and team dynamics issues should be of particular importance to organizational behaviour specialists.

The article by Temme and Katzel (1995) provides a model of the characteristics that exist within most successful teams. The article is very easy in understanding and communication. The main body of the article is divided on several blocks dedicated to the concepts, the combination of which is necessary for effective team dynamics. The main of them are goals and objectives, empowerment, and trust, they are extremely important to effective team-building.

Main ideas of the article

Temme and Katzel (1995) indicate that the team-building and effective team dynamics are based on the concepts as follows.

Clearly defined goals and objectives are essential so that everyone understands the purpose and vision of the team. A team leader might be surprised at how many people do not know the reason they are doing the tasks that make up their jobs, much less what their team is doing. Everyone must be pulling in the same direction and be aware of the end goals (Temme and Katzel, 1995).

Empowerment in terms of team building is clear definition of roles and especially of leader’s role and functions. Clearly defined roles help team members understand why they are on a team. When the members experience conflict, it may be related to their roles. Team members often can manage this conflict by identifying, clarifying, and agreeing on their individual responsibilities so that they all gain a clear understanding of how they will accomplish the team’s goals.

Another issue emphasised by Temme and Katzel (1995) is the authentic participation. If communication is the most important team characteristic, participation is the second most important. Without participation, there is no team; there is just group of bodies.

Authentic participation ensures that everyone on the team is fully involved. It does not mean that if leader can have five people each is speaking 20 percent of the time. Talking is not necessarily a measure of participation. We all know people who talk a lot and say nothing. It does mean that each individual is contributing when it’s appropriate. The more a team involves all of its members in its activities, the more likely that team is to experience a high level of commitment and synergy (Temme and Katzel, 1995).

The participative leadership block is not at the top of the model because it is the most important. It is at the top because it is the only block that can be removed without disturbing the rest. Participative leadership means that leaders share the responsibility and the glory, are supportive and fair, create a climate of trust and openness, and are good coaches and teachers.

Participation is everyone’s responsibility. As a team moves from a forming stage to more mature stages of group development, team members must make certain that everyone is an active participant. If a leader has team members who did not participate early in the formation of the team, they will withdraw even more as the going becomes more difficult (Temme and Katzel, 1995).

Temme and Katzel (1995) underline the importance of open and clear communication within the team. This is probably the most important characteristic for high performance teams. Most problems of all kinds can be traced back to poor communication or lack of communication skills, such as listening well or providing constructive feedback.

The ability to deal constructively with changes is also envisaged by Temme and Katzel (1995) as crucial for team dynamics. They indicate that sometimes these changes are perceived by individuals as wrong. The high performing team member sees these changes as imperative for the success of the team and respects the diverse points of view brought by others. It is more difficult to manage a highly diverse team, but the benefits will show up in the end. It takes work and a very special group of people to encourage the differences that each brings to the team, so flexibility and sensitivity are key. Change is essential to a team’s creativity and productivity. Because most people dislike changes, they often assume that effective teams do not have it. In fact, both effective and ineffective teams experience changes. The difference is that effective teams manage it constructively (Temme and Katzel, 1995). In fact, effective teams see conflict as positive. Managed change ensures that problems are not swept under the rug. It means that the team has discussed members’ points of view about an issue and has come to see well-managed conflict as a healthy way to bring out new ideas and to solve whatever seems to be unsolvable (Temme and Katzel, 1995).

In order to be effective, a team should have a clear leadership. Though being mainstreamed in other concepts, the notion of leadership needs the specific explanation. A leader’s behavior comes as much from attitude as from anything. Leaders who are effective in obtaining participation see their role as being a coach and mentor, not the expert in the situation. Leaders will get more participation from team members if they can admit to needing help, not power. Leaders should also specify the kind of participation they want right from the start. Leaders need to reward risk taking. As Temme and Katzel (1995) point out, those “half-baked” partial ideas that people bring up may be just what gets the team moving toward a solution, idea, or new opportunity. Leaders must always protect the minority views. Anyone can think like everyone else. It takes courage to think and speak differently.

In order to better understand the article, there is a need to paraphrase one concept from it, so the concept of trust, one of the key notions of the article, will be paraphrased and discussed in more details.

As Temme and Katzel (1995) indicate, to truly be successful, a team must have a climate of trust and openness, that is, a positive atmosphere. A positive atmosphere indicates that members of the team are committed and involved. It means that people are comfortable enough with one another to be creative, take risks, and make mistakes. It also concerns the relationships between a team-member and a leader of this team.

In words of Temme and Katzel (1995) it also means that person may hear plenty of laughter, and research shows that people who are enjoying themselves are more productive than those who dislike what they are doing. Trust is by far the most important ingredient of a positive atmosphere. If we interpret this notion more basically, we may find out that trust and credibility can be described behaviorally. They can be seen in a more logical way than one might think. Temme and Katzel (1995) suggest that it is important to keep in mind that what one person sees as trustworthy is not necessarily what another sees. So when a leader wants to build trust and credibility with others, it’s as important to know what those individuals value as it is to know what is already his/her “strong suit.”

Atmosphere of trust influences also other concepts that are touched by Temme and Katzel (1995) in their article. Building trust on a team will be one of the greatest challenges. If a team has done a good job of building trust, the other aspects of a positive atmosphere will come more easily. Those aspects include: individuals who are committed to the team’s goals; an atmosphere that encourages creativity and risk taking; people who are not devastated if they make mistakes; and team members who genuinely enjoy being on the team. A positive atmosphere is one of the characteristics of a mature team.

As Temme and Katzel (1995) state, “When the whole company – managers and workers, alike – embraces the traits of a real team and changes its behavior accordingly, it will truly be on its way to success. And success translates to a happier, more productive workforce and better products, services, and procedures.”
They clearly demonstrate the effect of synergy that is a result of effective teamwork and teambuilding, as we may see in this quotation. These phrases are the conclusions of the article, so with them Temme and Katzel (1995) summarize and conclude their idea about the necessity of combination of clear team goals defined, empowerment of the team and its leadership as well as the atmosphere of trust within the team for the team to be effective and able to deliver better products, services and demonstrate higher performance with more quality.

Conclusions

So, clear team goals, empowerment and atmosphere of trust within the team are the essential prerequisites for positive team dynamics and effective team building, as Temme and Katzel (1995) point out. The authentic participation of every member of team, innovative approach to work and ability to manage risks, proper leadership and ability to make the constructive changes are also crucial for team work. Temme and Katzel (1995) affirm that a manager should use all these tools to make the work of the company’s team effective, proactive and dynamic.