Sector financiero no bancario e interconexiones sistémicas

Plant. Advances new ideas and strategies with special attention to major

issues, and tries to initiate breakthroughs in the team’s approach to the problems with which it is confronted. Traits: dominant, intelligent, introvert.

Monitor-evaluator. Analyses problems and evaluates ideas and suggestions

so that the team is better placed to take balanced decisions. Traits: intelligent, stable, introvert.

Specialist. Provides team with scarce knowledge and skills. Traits: single-

minded, self-starting, dedicated.

The two most crucial roles are probably those of co-ordinator and plant, and the incumbents need to relate to one another well: if they don’t, the plant’s ideas never bear any fruit. The essence of skilfully employing a plant (a role which some people prefer to think of as that of creative catalyst) lies in recognizing the member’s potential, giving him or her scope and not allowing him or her to pursue unrewarding lines of thought. Successful co-ordinators do not have to be brainy: their characteristics are commonplace, but they are put together in an uncommon way, which earns the respect of everyone in the team. Often they are good shapers as well.

Different people are good at different team roles; although they may have one dominant role, they may still be reasonably competent in another one. In teams smaller than eight in number, people may have to play more than one role. By contrast, two dominant shapers, two plants or too many monitor- evaluators are apt to cause problems. Bowring-Carr and West-Burnham (1994) have noted that members of school management teams score low on both the monitor-evaluator and the completer roles: so beware of gaps as well as duplication.

Associated with these team roles are personality characteristics such as intelligence, dominance, introversion/extroversion and anxiety/stability. Stable extroverts, who often excel in jobs that place a high premium on liaison work and where co-operation is sought from others, are generally good team members. Anxious introverts, on the other hand, usually lack cohesion in a group, yet as individuals they are often very creative; they distinguish themselves in jobs (such as teaching?) which call for self-direction and self- sustaining persistence.

Anxious extroverts are commonly found in places where people need to work at a high pace and exert pressure on others: they form good teams in rapidly changing situations. Stable introverts plan well, are strong in organization, but are slow-moving and tend to be blind to new factors in a situation. They excel in bureaucratic occupations.

While co-operative stable extroverts form the most effective homogeneous teams (i.e. in which all team members are of the same personality type), they are excelled by heterogeneous teams (composed of different personality types) because stable extroverts on their own are prone to complacency and

euphoria. The best teams also have a mix of mental abilities, usually with the highest belonging to the plant, then the co-ordinator. The advantage of having people of relatively low mental ability appears to lie in the fact that these members tend to be willing to adopt the less ‘dynamic’ team roles.

Another type of successful team is one dominated by a co-ordinator who has unrivalled superiority in intellectual or creative ability over his or her colleagues, and whose office and natural talents reinforce each other in establishing ascendancy. It is not a recommended formula because of the gulf left when the co-ordinator leaves the team.

Whatever the composition of the team, all its members must learn ‘teamspeopleship’. This goes beyond fitness for any particular team role. Good ‘teamspeople’ time their interventions, vary their role, limit their contributions (often difficult for teachers), create roles for others and do some of the jobs that others deliberately avoid. Most of these behaviours can be learned through training.

One of the problems in a hierarchical organization is that it is not always easy to bring the most suitable people into teams. The wise manager avoids building teams solely on the basis of ex-officio membership. Meetings of heads of department, for instance, often lead to disappointing results. It is often better to set up project or study teams of a mixed composition of people at different levels in the hierarchy; what such a team may lack in structural authority, it may gain in effectiveness, if the team roles have been well chosen. To give it authority, let it report to a project steering group, e.g. heads of department, which meets occasionally to advise on guidelines and objectives; or let both report to the head independently.

Finally, you can rate your own preferred team role on-line by visiting www.belbin.com, or by investing in e-Interplace, a programme that is widely used in fitting people to jobs.

Knowledge of one’s colleagues’ preferred team roles, and of the roles that have to be played in effective teams, assists the manager both in composing teams and in helping them to work more effectively once they are formed. For instance, if it is noticed that the team is missing its deadlines, it could look to its completer to inject a greater sense of urgency.

TEAM-BUILDING

Team-building is the most widely used approach to the development of individuals and organizations (Everard, 1995a). One widely used approach is Coverdale training in ‘the practice of teamwork’ (Babington Smith and Sharp, 1990); as at 1996 over a quarter of a million delegates had undergone this training and more than thirty LEAs had been clients. For the last thirty years, one of the authors (Morris) has been training teams in both business and educational contexts.

Teamwork depends on effective meetings, effective decision-taking, effective communication, the identification of team roles and effective

delegation. Members of a team must be able to trust each other. The most important work of a team will be done by individuals between meetings. It is therefore vital to be clear on the three ‘W’s – Who must do What by When. Team-building programmes will therefore enable participants to practise and discuss their skills together before embarking on one or more major exercises, success in which will depend on using these skills.

Because so much of the work of teachers is done alone with children in the classroom, there may appear to be fewer opportunities for practising team- work than is usual among professionals in industry. Moreover, there is less of a tradition of using consultants or short courses for developing effective teamwork. However, teamwork should not be confused with group therapy. Its test is whether the individual members follow agreed team objectives when they are apart! Teams are an essential part of healthy organizations, especially those undergoing rapid change, and heads would do well to encourage the formation of more teams such as task groups and working parties to get new things done. Such teams must learn to ‘gel’ quickly. Most large schools operate with a top management team, which is an obvious place to start trying to improve effectiveness.

Newly formed teams have been observed to pass through five stages of development as they gain experience of working together (Tuckman, 1965). These are depicted in Figure 10.3. Awareness by the team members of these natural stages of team development helps to depersonalize conduct sometimes misdiagnosed as members’ personality defects. Teams and their members should bear in mind that

(1) progress is not continuous – a team that is ‘norming’ or ‘reforming’ can easily fall back into ‘storming’ on a particular issue;

(2) if there is a change in team membership there will invariably be some regression – otherwise a new member may be excluded; and

(3) most importantly, senior management should not change a team that is storming’ in the mistaken belief that this group will ‘never manage to work together’.

Like all models, this one is no more than an approximation to the truth, but it does set a direction for development.

Teams are trained by encouraging them to follow a systematic approach to getting things done. Individuals who have the talent and skill to solve problems intuitively may feel that they do not need to follow a systematic approach. Intuitive thinkers tend to solve a problem by devising solutions and testing them until they are satisfied with the quality of their decisions. Most individuals, however, are more effective when their thought processes and actions are systematic; even intuitive thinkers meet situations when they need a systematic approach.

It is when people are working in groups that a commonly understood systematic approach becomes essential, since an intuitive approach cannot be followed and understood by other members of the group. A simple

EFFECTIVE

SCHOOL

MANAGEMENT

Review team & individual performance

Team’s needs emerge

systematic approach provides a foundation for teamwork, and a basis from which to develop ways of meeting the needs of the team when tackling problems.

Such an approach consists of a logical series of steps that are followed in order to achieve a given task or deal with a particular problem. We met an example of this when considering decision-taking in Chapter 4. The main steps in problem-solving and team-building are similar:

(1) Define what we are seeking to achieve in the specific situation to solve the problem, including the criteria by which we shall judge success.

(2) Identify why we are seeking to achieve this. (3) Generate alternative means of achieving this. (4) Decide which means to adopt.

(5) Act on the decision.

(6) Review successes and failures in order to improve performance. The acronym TOSIPAR helps to fix these stages in the memory: Tuning in to the problem;

Objective-setting; Success criteria; Information and ideas; Plan;

Action; Review.

Time spent on the ‘TOS’ stages is time saved later on. Everyone needs to know exactly what the team’s product is for and how it will be used.

The last stage is also very important in team-building. Teams should set some time aside before the end of each meeting so that they can review the way in which they work together to accomplish tasks. Such a ‘process review’ provides an opportunity for members to make observations about the behaviour of a group (e.g. uneven frequency of members’ contributions), from which it can deduce reasons for successes and difficulties. When important points emerge, they should be processed into group decisions, e.g. on how to remedy the situation or to consolidate good practice. Then a plan is needed to implement each decision, i.e. a specific statement of who does what, when.

All systematic approaches lay stress on the importance of the team defining and agreeing its objectives (what has to be achieved), for no team can work effectively unless everyone in it knows where it is going. This may sound trite, but the authors have repeatedly found that teachers are not good at defining what has to be done and formulating sound objectives, either for themselves or for groups or organizations in which they work. Others too have observed that few heads are systematic at problem-solving (Leithwood and Montgomery, 1986).

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. They tend to be quantitative rather than qualitative, results-centred rather than activity- centred, and realistic rather than pessimistic. A small degree of over-reach helps to motivate those who respond to challenge; a minimum objective, likely to be met anyway, provides little stimulus.

Objectives can be broadened by asking the question ‘In order to achieve what?’ and can be narrowed down by asking ‘What has to be achieved to attain this?’ Objectives that appear vague and woolly should be narrowed down.

Another device for increasing specificity is the definition of ‘success criteria’: these define the situation that will exist when the objective has been attained.

An example of an objective that is too broad to lead to effective action is ‘To maintain sound communication in the school’. A soundly framed objective, dealing with the same problem, would be: ‘To have introduced a two-page weekly staff bulletin, which all staff use and read, by half-term, edited by Miss X’. The success criterion for this objective might be: ‘During the second half of the term, no more than five staff will complain to the head that something has been done without their being told’.

These techniques need to be assiduously practised before it becomes second nature for teams to use them. Exercise 11 at the end of this chapter, for use by teams, will help to improve objective-setting skills.

Apart from unclear objectives and other manifestations of failure to define the problem, teams sometimes waste time by not listening actively to what is being said, with the result that one contribution does not build on another. One way of following the process of discussion is to use a form down the vertical axis of which are listed various categories of contribution, and along the top are listed the names of the team members (see Rackham et al., 1971). Categories of contribution can include the following:

Seeking suggestions. This label is used when someone invites others to contribute their ideas, suggestions or proposals.

Suggesting. Can take a number of forms, e.g. ‘I suggest we do so and so’,

‘Let’s do the following’, ‘Shall we do X, Y and Z?’, ‘Can I take your idea a stage further?’

Agreeing. Covers all types of supporting or backing what has just been said;

this includes nodding.

Disagreeing. Covers all ways of opposing or withholding support for what

has just been said: i.e. not only an outright disagreement (‘No, I can’t go along with that!’) but also stating a difficulty, whether valid or not: ‘The snag with that is…‘ or ‘We are running short of time again.’

Seeking clarification. Whenever anyone asks for a recap or checks that he or

she has understood what was intended: e.g. ‘Do you mean’, ‘What happens if A and B coincide?’

Clarifying. Responses to requests for explanations; also spontaneous summaries of a discussion.

Interrupting. Whenever someone breaks in to stop a member from finishing

his or her contribution; or when everyone seems to be speaking at once.

Miscellaneous. In practice, it is difficult to assess all contributions quickly

enough to categorize them, so any unspecified contribution can be put in this category rather than go unrecorded.

In order to analyse the discussion in this way it is necessary to detach from the group an observer, who does not take part in the discussion, but is given the task of leading a process review later, to help the team discover how effectively it is operating. With a bit of practice, observers not only get quicker at recognizing categories of contribution but can also study sequences of contributions from which they can deduce what types help and hinder the team in particular situations. They can observe, for example, how ideas get lost when the next contributor after a suggestion is made completely ignores the contribution; or the effect of timing of a proposal, and the style or tone in which it is made; or the different ways in which different individuals habitually contribute, e.g. by making positive proposals, asking relevant questions, encouraging action, controlling use of time.

Other aspects of teamwork can also be brought out: the degree of openness and trust in the team; the quality of leadership; the use of resources; the clarity of tasks and decisions; non-verbal communication; the extent to which values are explicit and shared; the degree of commitment; and whether action follows discussion.

Teams (including school management teams) sometimes invite an outsider to be a consultant to the group, and to coach it in improving effectiveness. A consultant, such as an industrial trainer or college lecturer, experienced in group processes, can bring a useful amount of objectivity and detachment into the proceedings, and get the team to confront issues that, left to itself, it would probably suppress.

The main object of these techniques is to heighten the team’s awareness of the process by which it tackles its task, then to make use of the insights in order to improve. It certainly entails some members changing their behaviour, which can feel threatening, but the only way a team can improve is by individuals continually adapting their behaviour to meet the needs of the team.

MANAGING TEAM PERFORMANCE

The effective management of team performance is central to school improvement. There has to be a clear and consistent focus on achieving results, both short- and long-term. Short-term results help success to breed success; long-term results are important in creating an enduring school culture of continuous improvement. The two are connected: Schmoker (1999, p. 67) points

out that ‘current organizational habits that avoid focusing on short-term, measurable gains are the major obstacles impeding not only isolated improvements but also system-wide transformation. Palpable gains are the key to leveraging change in the system…’

Actions agreed at each team meeting must be followed up at the next, to find out what worked and what didn’t. Belbin ‘implementers’ help here, while ‘teamworkers’ help to sustain zest and ‘shapers’ relentlessly keep the team’s eye on the ball (task orientation). Teams sometimes become engrossed in ‘process’ issues in their attempts to develop, but managing process is but a means to an end. The most important end for a school is student achievement, not just team or departmental performance, so there needs to be a logical link to some measure of this.

Team performance can also be impaired by biting off more than the team can chew. Especially if members are already experiencing a sense of overload. it pays to prioritize objectives and avoid working on too many at a time. By concentrating effort, teams can get relatively quick results, which is motivational. However, there can be a downside to tying a team down, because this weakens a potential excuse for subsequent non-achievement (‘there was just too much to do’) and it can feel threatening to have no bolt- hole.

Heads have a special role in managing the performance of teams in their schools: to recognize, celebrate and reward achievement. Teams, be they departmental or organization-wide, which can demonstrate that they have achieved an objective unmistakably related to improving students’ learning deserve a public pat on the back. Praise should be tied to specific successes – not just general performance. The more that the whole school community knows about the many incremental improvements that are occurring all over the place, the more the culture of continuous development and improvement will be reinforced. Heads may have something to learn from the way that military commanders foster esprit de corps by consistently celebrating success. It’s all part of leadership.

PERSONAL APPLICATION

Next time you attend a meeting of a task group to which you belong, try to focus for some of the time on the process by which the group tackles its task. Does it start with clear, agreed objectives? Is use of time properly planned? Do some