Team Development Session One
Lance Howard
[Institutional Affiliation(s)]
Author Note
Team Development Session
Introduction
Teamwork and management are critical to the success of organizations. Companies are preferring those managers who have better team management skills and can work collectively to the success of their organization. However, it requires training to develop the skills of teamwork and making the employees proficient in their specialized work. In many organizations, the employees have poor communication that restricts to transfer important information to one another. The employees lack interaction and thus are unable to work together. This leads to the consequences of individuals focusing on their own targets besides the organizational goals. Team development sessions are conducted in an organization to make their employees work together and share their expertise.Also, organizations are constantly evolving due to increased demand and globalization. It requires the employees to change their strategies towards work with every new task. Thus, team management helps employees to work together for innovation and quickly adopt new techniques. It has also helped in the success of many organizations in which different tools and strategies are applied for team development.
Module for Training Sessions
The initial planning phase involves the preparation of the module for the team development sessions. The first step is to select a team of five individuals from the same department. The five individuals selected belong to the Sales department who are responsible for managing the relations with the suppliers as well as the customers. Thus, it is essential for them to work in a team and cater to all the internal and external issues. The group of five people will be provided with training in two sessionsin which there will be two different team development exercises. The first session will focus on the flexibility of employees to accepting changes that help the organizations to quickly adapt to the customers’ demands and form their strategies accordingly.Whereas the second session will focus on the communication skills that will provide the employees to better interact with their group members and customers. The basic aim of the sessions is to make the team responsible for working collectively towards these challenges and how they can adapt to better strategies to overcome these problems.
The initial requirements include a brief introduction of the facilitator who will be providing the training. Also, it is mandatory to collect participants with information that will be kept confidential. The allocated time frame for each session is 2 hours per session. In the initial description, we will briefly provide an introduction to both of the session and explain its importance to the given context. The participation is mandatory and results will be reported at the end of each session to evaluate the participant's experience with the sessions.
Table 1
The Schedule and Job Titles of Team Members
Schedule
Session 1st
May 20, 2019
Session 2nd
May 21, 2019
Team Members
David Thomson
Branch Manager
Richard Paul
Sales Team Leader
Michael Steven
Sales Associate
Emily Mark
Sales Associate
Ava Joseph
Sales Associate
Change Management Session
Change management refers to ‘the systematic approach that deals with the transformation of organizational processes and structures. The purpose of change management is to bring about a change and helping people adapt to that change. In the current quest for being the leading organization in your production, companies are constantly struggling to bring new technologies and adopt changes that could bring innovation to their services. However, change management also requires the employees to work under the organizational culture and follow the norms and values. It needs to bring rational policies and procedures that accelerate the productivity of employees. However, it is critical to bring the best and relevant change management policies and procedures to the organization. It requires effective evaluation of which policies and tools would work better in a certain situation. In this report, the change management strategies are based on the concepts and tools of Peter Senge’s disciplines. The team members will be facilitated according to the five principals provided by Senge. Two sessions will be arranged to divide the five concepts according to the persisting problem. The concepts of change management will be closely linked to the development process by catering to the underlying problem.
The First Session
In the quest for capturing global consumers, it is necessary to constantly work for change management. The change management in this report is focused on the team development of employees to better respond to innovative technologies. Thus, a team development session is conducted with the employees that are based on the Senge disciplines. In the first session, the team development exercise will focus onthree disciplines that include personal mastery, mental model disciplineand theshared visions discipline.
Personal Mastery
The personal mastery refers to the clear vision of the organizational goals as well as an accurate judgment about reality. However, there is always a gap between the vision ad reality that drives the employees to perform in a certain way. At times employees lack the competencies that they could achieve their goals. Senge argues that when employees lack confidence it holds them back from clearly identifying the vision. Thus, it is necessary to train the subconscious to tackle the issues in reality ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"SgqrlrKS","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Fillion, Koffi, & Ekionea, 2015)","plainCitation":"(Fillion, Koffi, & Ekionea, 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":109,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/ZP6YBPGS"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/ZP6YBPGS"],"itemData":{"id":109,"type":"article-journal","title":"Peter Senge's learning organization: A critical view and the addition of some new concepts to actualize theory and practice","container-title":"Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict","page":"73","volume":"19","issue":"3","author":[{"family":"Fillion","given":"Gérard"},{"family":"Koffi","given":"Vivi"},{"family":"Ekionea","given":"Jean-Pierre Booto"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Fillion, Koffi, & Ekionea, 2015).
Mental Model Discipline
The mental model refers to the actual identification of the organization that what is the business all about. It also involves making the employees understand the working procedures of organizations and how they evolve with time. The employees need to be flexible in terms of adapting to new changes. The most successful companies are those who quickly adapt to changes and perform better than their competitors ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"fmGFIXue","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Chia, 2019)","plainCitation":"(Chia, 2019)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":110,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/C8ERGKNL"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/C8ERGKNL"],"itemData":{"id":110,"type":"article-journal","title":"BECOMING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION: A PROCESS-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE","author":[{"family":"Chia","given":"Robert"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2019"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Chia, 2019).
Shared Visions Discipline
The shared vision discipline refers to the collective vision of an organization. It neglects the individual vision and goals and asks the team members to work collectively to achieve organizational goals. People need to share work as well as a vision to contribute to organizational success. It totally transforms the relationships within the organization and makes the employees learn maximum from each other's visions ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"QesgANJm","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mehta, 2019)","plainCitation":"(Mehta, 2019)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":108,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/9IQ2WE2S"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/9IQ2WE2S"],"itemData":{"id":108,"type":"article-journal","title":"Peter Senge on learning organisations-part 1","container-title":"HR Future","page":"14-15","volume":"2019","issue":"Jan 2019","author":[{"family":"Mehta","given":"Archan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2019"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mehta, 2019).
Post-Session Summary
The three discipline shows different ways of team development. However, accordingly, to the underlying problem of adapting to new technologies, the session was focused towards mental model discipline in which the participants were made able to quickly identify the new techniques and find ways to incorporate them in the organization. The team members were able to analyze the market and quickly respond to the changing dynamics of products. The mental model helps the employees to be flexible towards the changing procedures and adopting new techniques. It also focuses on how the teams will better identify the underlying opportunities. In the end, the employees were able to identify the potential opportunities within the external environment better. The identify that flexibility is necessary for their growth as well as organizational enhancement. They determine that when employees are open to adopting new technologies, the response is much greater. Adopting new techniques will enhance the employee's skills as well as additional benefits to organizational success.
The Second Session
In the second session, the team development session will be focused on developing the communication skills of individuals. Interaction between organizational employees is quite essential. Organizations, where employees work under a proper network and effectively communicate are more successful. Thus, is necessary for team development to focus on communication and networking. Thus, the second session will focus on the team learning discipline and the systems thinking discipline.
Team Learning Discipline
Team learning is the primary factor in organizational success. It is the discipline where personal mastery and shared values are also incorporated to make the teams better perform their job. The team learning discipline involves individuals to openly communicate with their team members. The members introduce themselves and prefer an open networking environment in their organization. It also involves the managers to communicate directly with lower level employees and disseminate timely information. The managers are required to provide a safe working environment for the employees. This discipline involves to value the expertise and help improve the performance of each other by constant support ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6pLMgrEc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Schuyler, 2017)","plainCitation":"(Schuyler, 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":106,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/PNJIZUNU"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/PNJIZUNU"],"itemData":{"id":106,"type":"article-journal","title":"Peter Senge:“Everything That We Do Is About Shifting the Capability for Collective Action…”","container-title":"The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers","page":"1-17","author":[{"family":"Schuyler","given":"Kathryn Goldman"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Schuyler, 2017).
System Thinking Discipline
The system thinking discipline refers to focus on the entire system rather than prioritizing individual issues. Managers need to understand that every action is related to organizational success or failure. When an individual focus on a single aspect or actions, they neglect the big picture that results in negative consequences. Individuals need to figure out the consequences of neglecting the organizational goals that result in failure. Besides increasing the targets of individual sales, the department is required to focus on an overall increase in organizational sales. The discipline enhances the thinking of team members to observe organizational success and evaluate what can improve the performance of organizations ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"eSWBAmH3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Eisler, 2015)","plainCitation":"(Eisler, 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":107,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/LYAEIL85"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/LYAEIL85"],"itemData":{"id":107,"type":"article-journal","title":"A conversation with Peter Senge: Transforming organizational cultures","container-title":"Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies","volume":"2","issue":"1","author":[{"family":"Eisler","given":"Riane"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Eisler, 2015). There is a strong correlation between the action of an individual and its consequences on the overall organization. Thus, it is very important for individuals to focus on organizational vision and goals.
Post-Session Summary
The second session was focused on building networking between the organizational employees. For the sales department, it was very crucial to communicate effectively with the suppliers as well as the customers. Thus, teamwork is necessary to perform the job effectively. The team members work collectively to achieve goals. They divide the tasks within their department and work to quickly respond to the customer's demands. With the increasing demand for online products, companies are quickly moving towards online businesses that require high efficiency from the employees. Thus, the session was focused on how to build strong networks within the organization and also between the different functional employees to achieve high success in the competitive world. At the end of the session the employees were able to identify their areas of expertise and how they can share their experiences and skills with others to perform collective work. it also helps the employees to improve their networks and communicate as much as they can within and outside their departments. This will increase the service delivery and ultimately the productivity of employees.
Recommendations
The sessions proved to be greater success in terms of growing knowledge about the participants of the sessions as well as the organization. As in the session, we have discussed how managers and employees can share their knowledge and expertise to increase their communication. Thus, the employees will share their experience with other colleagues that will help us to reach to maximum employees easily. The competitive world today focuses on increasing technologies that would better respond to customer demands. Organizations are constantly improving their system to maintain their market share. However, it not only requires the systems to be improved but it requires the employees to quickly adapt to these changes. Thus, with the help of this session, the employees were made aware to improve their acceptability towards innovative technologies and also increase their skills and expertise by constant development. In the sales department, it is evident that online businesses are increasing and companies are selling their products with a single click. Organizations have websites that perform their work through online portals. However, it requires the sales department to become efficient in the online processes and quickly respond to queries.
References
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Chia, R. (2019). BECOMING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION: A PROCESS-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE.
Eisler, R. (2015). A conversation with Peter Senge: Transforming organizational cultures. Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, 2(1).
Fillion, G., Koffi, V., & Ekionea, J.-P. B. (2015). Peter Senge’s learning organization: A critical view and the addition of some new concepts to actualize theory and practice. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications, and Conflict, 19(3), 73.
Mehta, A. (2019). Peter Senge on learning organizations-part 1. HR Future, 2019(Jan 2019), 14–15.
Schuyler, K. G. (2017). Peter Senge: "Everything That We Do Is About Shifting the Capability for Collective Action….” The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, 1–17.
