In an effort to make effective team guidelines a natural part of every team development, I would like your team to document your team process. Review the list of guidelines in Table 6.1 (below) and document your team's plan to address the detail of each guideline.

Characteristics of Effective Teams

The table below (Table 6.1) highlights the research for effective teams and the guidelines that teams follow. Effective teams possess many common characteristics. They develop a common purpose and goals with a clearly defined mission. Effective teams develop clarity about roles and responsibilities and define detailed communication mechanisms. Ineffective teams have poorly defined communication mechanisms. This can result in missed communications. One team told its members to check email daily, only to find some members checking at 6 a.m. while others didn't check their email late in the evening, resulting in missed communications.

The size of the team can be essential to a team's success. The optimal size is between six and ten members who have a breadth of both specialty and people skills. Open relationships and trust are critical in the development of cooperative behaviors, including:

• understanding what is needed from one another,

• defining the interrelated activities necessary to complete the project,

• volunteering to assist each other in doing what's needed, and

• completing assigned tasks competently, on time, accurately, and with high quality.

Effective team members understand for what (and to what degree) they and others are held accountable, and are rewarded for team accomplishments as well as individual recognition. Finally, effective teams realize that if they are not functioning properly, they may choose to disband. Teaming is not a natural behavior for individuals raised in an individualistic society. To be successful, team members have to work not only toward achieving goals, but also ensuring a positive working relationship.

Table 6.1. Guidelines for Effective Groups (Johnson and Johnson)

2. Be focused. Establish clear, operational, relevant group goals that create positive interdependence and evoke a high level of commitment from every member. Focus on both process and content.

3. Establish effective two-way communication within which group members communicate their ideas and feelings accurately and clearly. Ensure communication is open and positive.

4. Ensure that leadership and participation are distributed among all group members.

5. Ensure that the use of power is distributed among group members, and that patterns of influence vary according to the needs of the group as members strive to achieve their mutual goals.

6. Match the method of decision making with the availability of time and resources, size and seriousness of the decision, and amount of member commitment needed to implement the decision.

7. Encourage structured controversies in which members advocate their views, disagree, and challenge each other's conclusions and reasoning in order to create high-quality, creative decisions.

8. Ensure that members face their conflicts of interests and use integrative negotiations and mediation to resolve them constructively.

Provide information and document your team's plan to address the detail of each guideline:

1. Be focused. Establish clear, operational, relevant group goals that create positive interdependence and evoke a high level of commitment from every member. Focus on both process and content.

2. Encourage structured controversies in which members advocate their views, disagree, and challenge each other's conclusions and reasoning in order to create high-quality, creative decisions.