BroadVision Marketing Blog

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Team members at work"] [/caption]

The purpose for teams is to combine a group of members to work together to accomplish certain goals that cannot be achieved effectively by an individual. Do you wonder why I keep repeating this? It’s because sometimes teams can get off-track like an elementary school student who starts reading an encyclopedia entry for a class and ends up following a cow path far from the subject because he loses focus.

 

 

 

 

Topics: team decision making, Decision making, Team conflict, Team personal traits, Team training, Team success, Personal development, Team norms, Team roles, Business, Marketing strategy, Leadership, Team, Team leader

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="182" caption="Sense of unity"] [/caption]

Having spent a lot of time talking about That Leader we are now going to turn to the characteristics of teams.

Regardless of the size of the team there are certain characteristics of a team for it to meet the criteria for being a team at all. Any group of people that gets together for a meeting is an example of a group of people together who may not be members of a common team.

Topics: United States, Shared goal, Management, Measure of Leadership, Interpersonal relationship, Goal, Unity, Social group, Business, Marketing strategy, Leadership, Team leader

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Communications"] [/caption]

Poor communications styles are the results of many factors. Here are some of the most common barriers.

• The sender has a poor knowledge of the subject or is inadequately prepared. We all remember the poor substitute teacher who doesn’t know the material she is asked to convey. Often the students would wind up teaching the “teacher”.

• The sender does not believe in the message or support the policy behind it. It is very hard to be enthusiastic about something you don’t believe in. That will be communicated with more clarity than the subject.

Topics: Communication, Mobile phone, Vocabulary, Nonverbal communication, Linguistics, Leadership, Team leader

Conflict occurs when a team member or even the entire team are not getting what they need or want and seek their own self-interest. Often the individual is not aware that he has a need and acts out unconsciously. Other times, however the individual is very aware of his wants and actively works at achieving the goal.

After the team leader has seen the beginnings of the conflict through looking at conflict indicators and has determined if the conflict is destructive or the leader can turn it around into a constructive conflict and has done what he can to resolve the conflict, That Leader might propose a new way of reaching consensus—that of collaboration.

Topics: Leadership, Team leader

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Team members working together"] [/caption]

Have you ever noticed how certain team leaders have effective teams even though there are sometimes conflicts? Sometimes is probably minimizing the problem. Any time you get a group of people together there are going to be conflicts of interest, in ideas of how a project should be done or personality issues, just to name a few.

What does That Leader do to keep the team focused on the project and not on the conflicts?

Topics: Team conflict, Project, Adversarial system, Policy, Meeting, Business, Marketing strategy, Leadership, Team leader, Organizational conflict

[caption id="attachment_2508" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Constructive Conflict Resolution"] [/caption]

Just because conflict happens, doesn’t mean that it is always a bad thing. That Leader will know whether the conflict is destructive or is constructive.

How do you tell when a conflict is destructive?

That Leader will know that a conflict is destructive when the team is supposed to be working on goal setting and instead wind up in the middle of an argument that takes attention away from the purpose of the meeting. If someone is having a problem and decides that the meeting is the place to air it, That Leader needs to take control of the meeting back, offer to meet with the argumentative person later and return to the topic.

Topics: blog, Business, Marketing strategy, Leadership, Teamwork, Team, Team leader, Goal setting, Organizational conflict, Conflict resolution, team member

[caption id="attachment_2491" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Team Conflict"] [/caption]

Conflict happens.

It happens when individuals or groups are not getting what they need or want and are seeking their own interests. Like a child, sometimes a person is not even aware of the need and unconsciously acts out. Then there are the people who are very aware of what they want and actively work at getting it. It is That Leader’s task to get conflict resolved as quickly as possible for the good of the team.

Topics: Decision making, Communication, Controversy, taem members, Business, Leadership, Team leader, Conflict resolution

[caption id="attachment_2499" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Team Member Disrupting a Meeting"] [/caption]

Every project, every team and every team leader on all levels are going to come in contact with conflict. What That Leader needs to learn is how to spot it in others in order to minimize, divert or resolve it as soon as possible.

What are some conflict indicators?

Probably the most obvious indication is body language. If the team member is unhappy about something, his body language will be guarded, turned from the leader, he will have minimal eye contact with the leader and even show micro-expressions of mocking or frowning. A leader in the midst of conflict will show the same either to his up-line team or to his team members.  That Leader will study body language in order to become conscious of the meanings of what he sees, but even an uninformed leader will subconsciously be aware of the signs and know there is a problem, even if he is only aware of it in his gut.

Topics: YouTube, Team conflict, Controversy, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, Leadership, Teamwork, Team, Team leader, Conflict resolution, team member

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In order to be That Leader a person has to be able to comprehend the organizational leadership structure and how it impacts the business culture, its identity and the business norms.  In other words, That Leader needs to understand how the company works.  How does the company want leadership to communicate, enforce policies and provide feedback between it and its employees?  How is the company organized in this regard?

Topics: Management, Facebook, Business, Leadership, Teamwork, Team leader