Team Development Session Two
Lance Howard
[Institutional Affiliation(s)]
Author Note
Team Development Session Two
Introduction
In the growing competition, organizations are constantly working towards building the capacities of their employees to better respond to the challenges. Organizations are focusing on regularly on modification of their work as well as enhancing the capabilities of their employees. However, the most common areas they prefer are encouraging teamwork, communications within the members, networking and shared values. Companies are arranging workshops and sessions to make their employees work collectively to achieve organizational goals. Also, they are recruiting such managers who prefer inclusive decision making and include everyone in the process. It encourages the employees to share their expertise and complete the work more efficiently. However, in many organizations, the employees focus less on communication and interaction that slow down the pace of their work. Poor communication also restricts the easy flow of information from managers to their subordinates. Thus, they require proper training sessions to develop the skills of teamwork and communicate regularly.
Problem Statement
When employees have poor communication skills, it impacts their performance. Every employee focus on his/ her work. They tend to be more concern about their performance rather than organizational performance and goals. When employees have less interaction, they fail to develop a strong connection that affects their productivity and response to their work. Team development sessions are considered an important medium to enhance the expertise of employees. It encourages them to support each other and work in teams for better results. They share values and work collectively to achieve organizational goals.
Module for the 2ndSession
The module of the 2nd sessions has already been developed in the initial phase. It focuses on the team development sessions for the sales department, for whom we have initially arranged another session. We will consider the same group of people consisting of five individuals. The team has been selected based on their position and roles. Managers, as well as associates both, are involved in the team management session to better build connection between the hierarchal roles. The same sales department team is chosen because they are involved in networking on a daily basis. They had to communicate with the suppliers as well as the customers. They had to deal with the vast pool of online customers and to make sure that every customer receives a quick and immediate response. Thus, training is essential for them to cater to internal and external communication challenges. The training will be conducted within two hours in which the participants will be made aware of the effective communication skills. Also, it will identify the potential strategies they can incorporate for timely communication in their teams.
The session will start with a brief introduction of the facilitator that will include his expertise and experiences in the field. Also, the information will be collected from the participants as well that will be kept anonymous. The participant's opinion will be taken on the underlying objective of the session and what outcomes they expect from the session. The participation will be mandatory from the selected individuals and a report will be developed at the end of the session to analyze the success of this session and how much they have benefitted the participants. One person will be incorporated to take the notes of the session and analyze whether the objectives are being met or not. the participants will also be acknowledged about the persisting issue of networking and communication and how they can overcome the consequences of miscommunication.
Table 1
The Schedule and Job Titles of Team Members
Schedule
May 21, 2019
Date
2-4 PM
Team Members
Job Titles
David Thomson
Branch Manager
Richard Paul
Sales Team Leader
Michael Steven
Sales Associate
Emily Mark
Sales Associate
Ava Joseph
Sales Associate
Objectives of the Session
The second session focuses on the communication skills that will provide the employees to better interact with their group members and customers. The basic aim of the session is to make the team responsible for working collectively and overcome the challenges of miscommunication. For this purpose, the session will focus on the following objectives,
The session will help the employees to focus on increasing communication internally and externally. Internal refers to communication within the department and organization whereas external refers to communicating with suppliers as well as customers.
It also includes an understanding of better strategies to overcome the conflicts within the organizations. When the communication increases, it helps the employees to interact more and work on issues collectively.
The session will help the employees to take inclusive decisions and prefer support from all levels. Participatory approaches help to increase productivity because the employees are in a better position to understand the situations.
The Session
In the second session, the team development session will be based on the strategies provided by Peter Senge’s discipline. The team members will be encouraged to incorporate the two strategies provided by Senge that is team learning discipline and system thinking discipline. However, the session will provide an introduction about both the disciplines but its main focus will be on team learning discipline. The discipline is largely linked with the organization problem of miscommunication that leads to several concerns and problems. Thus, with providing training on this session the participants will be able to learn about communication skills that are necessary for interaction between the employees and their customers ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"bMJN87i9","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Serrat, 2017)","plainCitation":"(Serrat, 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":136,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/L3YMJT3T"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/L3YMJT3T"],"itemData":{"id":136,"type":"chapter","title":"A primer on organizational learning","container-title":"Knowledge Solutions","publisher":"Springer","page":"359-365","author":[{"family":"Serrat","given":"Olivier"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Serrat, 2017).
Team Learning Discipline
Team learning discipline is the initial factor in maintaining the connection between the employees. It is the discipline where the other disciplines of Senge are also merged to get better results. The team learning focuses on building relationships of the employees. It encourages the employees to openly communicate with one another within the organization to better disseminate the necessary information ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"AzWkbt2D","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Jackson, 2017)","plainCitation":"(Jackson, 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":134,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/H84PPCUE"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/H84PPCUE"],"itemData":{"id":134,"type":"chapter","title":"A Fanatasy Theme Analysis of Peter Senge’s Learning Organization","container-title":"The Aesthetic Turn in Management","publisher":"Routledge","page":"139-155","author":[{"family":"Jackson","given":"Bradley G."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Jackson, 2017). The session provided with a presentation about effective communication techniques as well as performed group work on the participants. They specify the mechanism for information that comes to the manager. it explains how it is transferred to the lower level and how decisions are taken collectively is the main focus of this session. The managers are also required to provide compensation and bonuses to those employees who work effort fully for the combined success of the organization. The session provides instructions about improving one's skills and then how to share expertise with other employees. The team learning discipline efficiently works in building a strong communication network between the employees ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"GOfZVXVC","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mehta, 2019)","plainCitation":"(Mehta, 2019)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":135,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/3QZAGABT"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/3QZAGABT"],"itemData":{"id":135,"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).
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 focuses on a single aspect or actions, they neglect the big picture that results in negative consequences ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"k5eDdQNq","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Arnold & Wade, 2015)","plainCitation":"(Arnold & Wade, 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":137,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/F95GLYT8"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/5651625/items/F95GLYT8"],"itemData":{"id":137,"type":"article-journal","title":"A definition of systems thinking: a systems approach","container-title":"Procedia Computer Science","page":"669-678","volume":"44","author":[{"family":"Arnold","given":"Ross D."},{"family":"Wade","given":"Jon P."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Arnold & Wade, 2015). Individuals need to figure out the consequences of neglecting the organizational goals that fail. 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":"t48gJ2PC/8jePpSxv","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. Also, it encourages interaction between the different functional employees to achieve high success in the competitive world. The successful aspects of the session provide the employees to efficiently identify their areas of expertise and how they can share their experiences and skills with others to perform collective work. It also helped the employees to improve their network and communication inside and outside their departments. This will increase the service delivery and ultimately the productivity of employees. The unsuccessful aspect of the session was that due to a lack of resources, the session was given to minimum participants. Such sessions needed to be provided to all the employees.
Lessons Learned For Team Facilitation
The sessions proved to be a greater success in terms of providing knowledge to the members. 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. Thus, with the help of this session, the employees were made aware to improve their connectivity with other members as well as outside sources. 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 Arnold, R. D., & Wade, J. P. (2015). A definition of systems thinking: a systems approach. Procedia Computer Science, 44, 669–678.
Eisler, R. (2015). A conversation with Peter Senge: Transforming organizational cultures. Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, 2(1).
Jackson, B. G. (2017). A Fantasy Theme Analysis of Peter Senge's Learning Organization. The Aesthetic Turn in Management (pp. 139–155). Routledge.
Mehta, A. (2019). Peter Senge on learning organizations-part 1. HR Future, 2019(Jan 2019), 14–15.
Serrat, O. (2017). A primer on organizational learning. In Knowledge Solutions (pp. 359–365). Springer.
