How to create productive teams?

Essay by faruk83University, Bachelor's July 2007

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Today's leaders have many challenges to overcome before the team can fulfill its purpose and thereby become a productive and high morale group. There are many elements that create and are essential to be an effective leader that has the power to motivate a team and drive success.

The first opportunity for building a productive team is to start with having a clear goal for the group. "Clarity implies that there is a specific performance objective, phrased in such concrete language that is possible to tell, unequivocally, whether or not that performance objective has been attained (Katzenbach & Smith)." The main idea here is that team members understand what is being asked of them. It is leader's job to find out the goals of each team member. Team members want to be productive and will experience higher morale if they feel like their goals are being recognized.

The second important thing that manager can do to create a productive team is to have roles and responsibilities clearly specified in order for people to be accountable for accomplishing their part of the team's tasks.

The leader must set the tone for the group and familiarize team members with their tasks.

The third goal that ties in with the two above is the level of difficulty of the assigned goals. Having clear goals and roles is not sufficient to create high morale groups, but to have challenging goals. Level of difficulty of the goal is very important element. Friedley and Manchester describe ways in which goals can be elevating such as personal challenges and the importance of the result. When groups are challenged, they are often more productive by giving more effort. This can become a big motivating factor for the team. Moreover, leaders ought to establish organizational goals that help each...