How to be an Effective Team 

Are you an Effective Team?
Are you an Ineffective Team?
Does your team need Maintenance?

Research has shown that effective teams have the following traits:

• Members are skilled in all the various leadership and membership roles and functions
• The team has developed a well established, relaxed working relationship
• There is loyalty among members
• Values and goals are in harmony
• All problem solving, decision making etc. occurs in a supportive, trusting atmosphere
• All the material contributed to the team is treated as 'ours'
• Constructive use is made of criticism - members do not take disagreements personally or confuse rejection of ideas as rejection of the individual.
• The team is eager to help each member develop to his/her full potential
• There is strong motivation from each member to communicate fully and frankly to the team all the information which is relevant and of value to the teams activities.

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Research has shown that ineffective teams have the following traits:

• Failure to listen to what other members are saying
• Constantly reiterating arguments
• Constantly interrupting
• Trying to put others down
• Failure to participate
• Silent members not drawn in
• Dominant members allowed to control proceedings
• Everyone pushing own views, not clarifying, developing, encouraging
• Unwillingness to accommodate others' views or needs
• Raising irrelevant or unhelpful points
• Not recognising how members are feeling about the discussion
• Concentrating on making impressions rather than getting the task completed
• Failure to be aware of the effect of one's contributions on other members
• Disturbing the overall process with private conversations
• Failure to clarify the task or objective
• Failure to follow agreed directions and procedures

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Does your team need maintenance? The following checklist will help you to decide:

1. Is each individual still clear about the team's principal aims? Are personal goals or objectives related to that purpose?
2. To whom are questions usually addressed - the team as a whole, or particular members?
3. Do the members who don't talk but appear to be interested and listening alertly (nonverbal participation), or do they seemed bored and apathetic?
4. Do other members in the team practice gate-keeping skill by opening the door for members to talk?
5. What subgroups or 'lone wolves' are there and how do they affect the team?
6. Do members speak of 'the team' or 'our team'?
7. Despite reverses is the level of confidence high? Is there still a strong sense of purpose and resolve?
8. Is team spirit in evidence? Do members mutually support and encourage each other as well as working well together in a technical sense?
9. Would you describe your primary work team as warm or cool, friendly or hostile, relaxed or tense, informal or formal, free or restrained?
10. Can opposing views or negative feelings be expressed without fear of retribution?
11. Is morale in the team low? Is there an 'atmosphere of doubt, of looking back'?
12. Can you identify any unwritten standards in the team?
13. Which of the team's standards seem to help, and which seem to hinder the team's progress?
14. What is the invisible structure: who really controls, who defers to others?
15. Is the structure understood and accepted by the members?
16. Is the structure appropriate to the team's purpose and tasks?

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Last updated 1st January, 2000; ©The University of Queensland , 1997-2000