Three Idiots Crossing The Valley - Team Work

   "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress.Working together is success."

- Henry Ford

Before starting illustration of teamwork and it's importance in achieving goal, lets understand the terminologies involved.

What is a Team?

           A team is defined as two or more people who interact and influence each other toward a common purpose.

What are the types of team?

Formal Team

            These are the teams or groups deliberately created by managers and charged with carrying out specific tasks to help the organization achieve its goals.

Examples of Formal Team

•  Committee - generally lasts a long time and deals with recurrent problems and decisions.
•  Command team - includes a manager and all employees who report to that manager.
•  Task forces/ Project teams - these are created to deal with a specific problem and are usually disbanded when the task is completed or the problem is solved.

Informal Team 

• They maintain and strengthen the norms (expected behavior) and values their members hold in common.
• They give members feelings of social satisfaction,status and security.
• They help their members communicate.
• They help in solving the problems.
• They may act as reference groups.

High performance teams / Super-teams 

         Groups of 3 to 30 workers drawn from different areas of a corporation who get together to solve the problems that workers deal with daily.

Self - Managed Teams

• Teams that manage themselves without any formal supervision.
• The team has responsibility for a "relatively whole task."
• Team members each possess a variety of task - related skills.
• The team has the power to determine such things as work methods,scheduling and assignment of members to different tasks.
• The performance of the group as a whole is the basis for compensation and feedback.

Characteristics of Teams :

Leadership Roles

• The formal leader of the team is usually appointed or elected.
• Informal leaders tend to emerge gradually as group members interact.
• Speaks up more than others.
• Offers more and better suggestions.
• Gives direction to the group's activities.

Stages of Team Development
The adjacent figure illustrates the five stages of team development given by Mr. B.W. Tuckman.

Team Norms

These are the expectations about how team members will behave.                                                                              

Team Cohesiveness

          The solidarity, or cohesiveness, of a team is an important indicator of how much influence the group has over its individual members.

          Four ways to improve cohesiveness.

1. Introduce competition
2. Increase interpersonal attraction
3. Increase interaction
4. Create common goals and common fates

Three Idiots Crossing The Valley - An Illustration.

Observations from the class demonstrations

	Member One	Member Two	Member Three	Total
Fully Safe	6	6	6	18
Half Safe	2	2	2	6
Fully Unsafe	1	1	1	3
Total	9	9	9	27

Learning

1. Mutual trust is necessary among the team members.
2. All the team members have equal distribution of different kinds of situation
3. All the team members have the same role in terms of effort and risk. Nobody was overloaded or relaxed.
4. Communication and feedback is essential while working as a team.Every member is important in completing the task.
5. There were equal instances when one needed each other.

S.M.A.R.T Goals

              Generally we have come across smart as an adjective, a verb or a noun. But in 1981, this word was given a whole different meaning by George T. Doran. As per this new dimension, SMART is an abbreviation. This abbreviation was framed in connection with goal setting. Now, before exploring each letter of SMART lets define the meaning of GOAL.

              A goal is a general statement about a desired outcome with one or more specific objectives that define in precise terms what is to be accomplished within a designated time frame. A goal may be performance-related, developmental, a special project, or some combination.Now, the next question is what actually goals are? Goals are an essential pillars in continuous improvement as they guide the day-to-day work of staff within an organization.

             Now,lets combine both the words i.e SMART GOALS. What are SMART Goals?

1. SPECIFIC
   This term stresses the need for a specific goal rather than a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous.To make goals specific, following five W's need to be answered.
   
   1. Who : Who is involved in this process of achieving the goal?
   2. What : What do I want to achieve?
   3. When : By when to achieve the goal?
   4. Where : Where to achieve? This is more like location but sometimes it is not stressed upon so much.
   5. Why :Why the goal has to be achieved?
2. MEASURABLE
   This term is associated with quantifying the goal. The reason behind this is the persons involved should be able to understand by how much the goal is achieved and how much more to be achieved.For example, the finish line in 100mt sprint. Here, the goal is quantified by 100mts.
3. ATTAINABLE
   This term stresses upon the goal being realistic. A goal has to be realistic and attainable as this will help in keeping the team motivated and bring in the positive attitude. On the other hand an unrealistic goal would be meaningless this in turn may bring down the morale of team. For example : I would like to get ABC certification within next two years.
4. RELEVANT
   Goals should be instrumental to the mission of the department (and ultimately, the institution). Why is the goal important? How will the goal help the department achieve its objectives? Develop goals that relate to the staff member’s key accountability or link with departmental goals that align with the institutional strategic goals. For Example: I would like to get ABC certification to join XYZ project.
5. TIME-BOUND
   A goal should have a time-frame for when the specific action will be taken and when it is
   anticipated the goal will be accomplished. Setting a time-frame is vital for it helps manager and also team to keep their actions aligned to the goal. Setting smaller deadlines throughout the time-frame (benchmarks or milestones) is a good idea to measure team's progress toward the goal.
   
   Other possible terms for SMART goals.
   
   

   S	Significant, stretching, simple
   M	Motivational, manageable, meaningful
   A	Appropriate, achievable, agreed, assignable, actionable, adjustable, ambitious, aligned,  aspirational, acceptable, action-focused
   R	Result-based, results-oriented, resourced, resonant, realistic
   T	Time-oriented, time framed, timed, time-based, time-specific,  timetabled, time limited, traceable, tangible, timely