Explain the features of effective team performance
The main objectives to consider when looking at a team is the key word “team” as my understanding is that a team is a number of individuals working together as one to achieve a common goal. It was identified by Larson and LaFasto in 1989 in their book “what must go right/what can go wrong” a team must have 8 pre-requisites to an effective team which are;
1 – A Clear Goal
The best way to describe this is by using my experience at St Marys Convent in which my team and I were tasked to look after the residents under the CQC requirements (Person centred care, dignity and respect, safety, consent, safeguarding from abuse, food and drink, premises and equipment, complaints etc). The ways we achieve our goal is by making sure all staff competent and have the required qualification in NVQ level 2 or 3 in Care, delegation of duties and supervising of duties.
2 – A result driven structure
With the Goal being the focus, the team would need a winning way to achieve that goal, so creating a structured plan with the end result being the goal is the best way forward. This is achieved by having input from all members of the team to productively create that winning structure, I do this at St Marys Convent by using Handover reports and checking which staff I have on site and who i need to delegate to which areas.
3 – Competent Team Members
A team is only as strong as its weakest member, understanding individual’s strengths and flaws can create an organised, productive team. It is possible for a productive team to be let down or dragged down by a weak individual but upon understanding this we can assign correct training for where it is needed. Part of my job in St Marys is assigning duties, I understand there may be less experienced staff, so I would team them with a more experienced staff so not only could learn more but I know they are correctly supervised.
4 – Unified Commitment
As we understand about a team, the Goal is the end result, but for a team to achieve this, all members of that team must agree, hence “unified.” If a team of 10 need to climb up a mountain but 1 member out of the 10 chooses to stay at halfway at the mountain, it would the rest of the team would struggle and would become under pressure. So I would say unified commitment is more important than the goal. In my day to day work after I assigned staff members their duties, I double check to make sure those duties are done, if they have not or have been done incorrectly the responsibility would then fall on me to make it is done and that the staff members has knowledge of what is happening, the problem with this is that it takes me away from other duties needed to be done and slows down the daily schedule for other tasks during the day.
5 – A collaborative Climate
Collaborative climate is one of the major factors influencing effectiveness of work, Collaborative climate tends to improve with age, education and managerial role. It could also be understood as the team working within a happy, stress free environment, if this is possible work rate becomes better and more efficient.
