Personal and Team Effectiveness

Personal and Team Effectiveness Introduction: In every organization particularly in the Health and Social Care Industry which involves individual employees and the entire workforce to where they are the company’s backbone of its existence it all rely on the importance of personal and team effectiveness to achieve the organization’s mission statement and service to their customers. In the influence of the management and organisational factors on the effectiveness of the people involved in the care particularly through developing their ability to work effectively in teams and developing their knowledge and skills so that they can contribute to the delivery of a quality service. All organizations require their people, at times, to work in groups. The most successful organizations find ways to realize the full potential and capability of groups. They understand the important contribution that groups can make effective groups usually outperform individuals. Organizations are comfortable establishing, empowering and promoting the participation of people in groups, value change and adaptation as key to improving productivity, quality and customer service and are constantly looking for creative ways to use groups to drive performance improvements. In looking at strategies for personal and professional development which refine behaviours, improve capability and give individuals the confidence and competence to excel not only for themselves but as part of the entire Health Care team as shown in high-performing organizations, the most successful groups function as â€Å"teams†. Teams flourish in organizations which create a climate where people want to work together giving their best efforts. Definition: Personal effectiveness is a branch of the self help movement dealing with success, goals, and related concepts. Personal effectiveness integrates some ideas from â€Å"the power of positive thinking† and Positive Psychology but in general it is distinct from the New Thought Movement. Team effectiveness refers to the system of getting people in a company or institution to work together effectively. The idea behind team effectiveness is that a group of people working together can achieve much more than if the individuals of the team were working on their own. Content: According to Carl Jung’s premise that all change and development starts from within and its principle underpins to the approach and it all start with personal effectiveness. The middle and senior managers in Health and Social Care should develop their skills and competencies in leading and managing the team. It is where the management of each organization would find how to enlighten and have each of them to explore and examining the facets that each of the employees are unique and valuable individual in the organization for the better good of the entire workforce. By exploring the preferences of others to understand why they behave as they do particularly and inspire those that are into the team and show them how to adapt and collaborate for improved interactions. The team leader and managers should see through it that the individuals and the entire team should focus on the implications and evaluating the by using management for the people for improving the organizational performance. In every individual, each has their own personality, style and personal interactions for effectively doing the job. By achieving this personal development and individual effectiveness comes with training, career development, staff development plans and the management will implement the development programs by in-house training, using supervision and appraisal, external courses, action-centred learning, lifelong learning, coaching and mentoring, assessing competence. The monitoring performance of individuals through observation, appraisal, periodic review, and achievement of successful outcomes as well as the use of targets, benchmarks, feedback from others is one key factor in measuring personal effectiveness. By Identifying individual training and evelopment needs: monitoring of performance, career development planning, changing personal circumstances. Strategies for promoting continuous development: achieving competence, training versus education, partnerships, staff development plans, compliance with external requirements, dedicated allocation of resources, use of external kite marks for exampl e Investors in People. In assessing the individual effectiveness is by describing different ways in which the performance of individuals working in health and social care may be monitored and by describing how individual training and development needs may be identified. Analyse different strategies for promoting the continuing development of individuals in the health and social care workplace. The effective staff development programme may be implemented and evaluate the effectiveness of a specific staff development programme with which the management is familiar. Team effectiveness is determined by several factors: †¢ The right mix of skills. Team effectiveness depends in part on bringing together people who have different skills that somehow complement each other. This can mean different technical abilities or communication skills. In fact, teaming up people who share the exact same characteristics is often a recipe for disaster. Team effectiveness depends on people taking on different roles in a group setting. If there is no agreement on who does what in the group, it is unlikely that the team will prosper. †¢ The right motivation. Team effectiveness is directly linked to the interest that the group has on the project. If the job is too easy or too difficult, or if the rewards for achieving the end result do not seem worth the effort, the team may end up working half-heartedly in the project. The task should also have a clear outcome. Working towards a specific goal enhances team effectiveness significantly. †¢ The ability to solve conflicts without compromising the quality of the project. Team work has one major downfall. Sometimes groups end up making decisions they know are not in the best interest of the project, just so they can keep the process moving. Conflict is innate to any work done in groups, and should be taken as part of the challenge rather than as something to be avoided by compromising. Team effectiveness should be increased, not compromised, through conflict. The model of team development as developed by Bruce Tuckman that teams evolve through four main stages. †¢ Forming is when the members are first brought together. It is a period of exploration, testing and orientation. †¢ Storming is a difficult but inevitable stage, where members may compete and conflict. †¢ Norming is the stage where the team starts to pull together, and noticeable progress begins to be made. †¢ Performing is characterized by a high level of task focus, and the team producing consistent and excellent results. Discussion: It is important as well for a team leader to create a climate in which people can develop and contribute to their full potential. The climate must be one of cooperation, commitment, and team focus. A good leader must also be a good coach. Different members are used as resource leaders because of their knowledge or experience. The focus is on how to get the job done, not on who controls the team. Team members are empowered to do the job they must do. Everyone is involved in the functioning of the team. In light of the discussion, the following points summarize the conditions required to create an effective team environment, each of these factors is important, and they are also highly interdependent. All of these factors are critical to achieving an effective and high performing team. Leaders can help create these conditions through the following behaviours. 1. Trust, Respect and Support †¢ Encourage and protect team member diversity in views, backgrounds, and experiences. †¢ Inspire teamwork and mutual support through example. Keep your commitments and expect the same from all team members. 2. Commitment to the Team †¢ Support and positively represent the team to senior management, peers and other employees. †¢ Ensure that individual member and team accomplishments are recognized and celebrated appropriately 3. Shared Vision †¢ Clarify the tasks to be accomplished. †¢ Establish and communicate a vision about what the members can achieve as a team. â₠¬ ¢ Encourage team members to participate in creating their vision of what the team can accomplish. 4. Open and Honest Communications Communicate fully and openly; welcome questions; avoid the â€Å"need to know† limitations. †¢ When seeking solutions, encourage members to suspend assumptions, reflect on their own thoughts and feelings, clearly voice these, inquire about and listen to opinions of others, and be less reactive. 5. Empowerment and Involvement of all Members †¢ Encourage members to participate. †¢ Make it easy for others to see opportunities to work together. †¢ Clarify that problem-solving is a responsibility of all team members. †¢ Mediate conflicts before they become destructive. 6. A Learning Environment †¢ Guide team members to determine where they actually are relative to their goals, and to clarify why the gaps exist and how to bridge them. †¢ Surface and treat conflicts as learning situations. Peter Senge, in his book â€Å"The Fifth Discipline† says, â€Å"One of the most reliable indicators of a team that is continually learning is the visible conflict of ideas. In great teams, conflict becomes productive. Conclusion: In every Health and Social Care organization they must be People Investors to which people or the staffs are a company’s most valuable resource. Human beings have unlimited potential to grow, develop and learn and in that sense constant training and improvement of personal and team development is needed for the organization to be successful and create a greater impact to the service user and the people involved in the care and service. The leader’s role is to help each team member achieve his or her potential and they act as coach which provide more structure, guidance and direction as well as to clarify tasks, goals, management’s expectations, and the way their performance and contributions will be measured. Teams need to be constantly developed for creating an effective approach on how things should be done for the better service to the clients. Members of the team generally have a broader range and depth of skills and experiences. With encouragement and support from the leader and other team members, individual members can enhance their technical, functional, problem-solving, decision-making, interpersonal and teamwork skills by taking some risks and facing some new challenges. Everyone is capable of making decisions that affect them, provided they are given the appropriate information and training. People do not resist changes they have been involved in making for the benefit of the entire team and the effectively managing the entire conflict which will be turned in to an advantage in solving the problem. Gaining true employee involvement is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort it always develop each personal and team effectiveness, If a change is affecting the team, the leader must be a role model of the â€Å"new† way. The leader must be able to â€Å"let go† in order to empower people. The leader must train and coach people first so they will be ready and able to succeed. The leader realizes mistakes are unavoidable, and helps people learn from them. A key factor which differentiates teams from work groups involves the interdependence of people. As Stephen Covey points out in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, â€Å"Interdependence opens up worlds of possibilities for deep, rich, meaningful associations, for geometrically increased productivity, for serving, for contributing, for learning, for growing. Reference: Tuckman, Bruce W. â€Å"Developmental Sequence In Small Groups†. 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