Team Leader
Team building in the world of nursing today is essential. There are many expectations of nursing that have a wide range of knowledge, other than clinical care. One of those is evidence-based medicine. Research and implementation, but especially implementation take a team to complete in a quality way.
The team leader has a major responsibility in seeing that the team leaders understand the mission of the team and the strengths of having each other on the team. She facilitates the process by coaching throughout the team building. (Hawke, 2010).
Every team must have a mission or share a common goal. Open and honest communication must occur around that goal. Remember that the elephant in the room is anything capable of stomping on the ability to create direction so you want to be sure to help everyone understand early (Sroczynski, 2002).
Communication
The mission is only the beginning, once everyone understands this, they as a team need to plan to determine how they will get this job done.
To know how they are going to get the job done, they must know what the outcomes that are expected of the team are.
Never leave anyone on the team behind. Be sure that the whole team stays together in understanding.
Effective Team Work
This is a team that has learned to appreciate each other and the expertise that is involved.
The combination of the team members produces higher quality than any of them alone
They like what they are working on and are committed to the work and therefore the morale is high
They are flexible because they are less dependent on an individual and flex between the team members based on the total needs of the project (Umiker, 2002)
Group Dynamics
The team must go through all of these dynamics to come up with group norms.
In the forming stage, they come together as individuals.
In the storming stage, they end up agreeing to disagree and using that in favor of the team which leads to norming.
Performing occurs once they can work together productively and adjourning happens when this team ends.
Stages in Dynamics
The confusion is created by the transition of a group of individuals to a team. Team members are still wondering what is expected of them.
Dissatisfaction comes when some members display negativity for the first time which may cause hostility or bickering. During this period they are usually not very productive.
Group norms will emerge from all of this and a sense of cohesiveness will develop
By the time the team has matured, they have learned to work well together and are generally very productive.
Team Types
There are many different kinds of teams in a hospital or other medical group.
The top management team usually consists of those in the C-suite and may include Senior Directors
The Research and Development Team may include many but in the nursing sector most often includes the throughput team and possibly the EBP team
Command groups are usually groups of managers and task forces are usually assigned by a larger team to accomplish a task
Self-managed teams work together without leadership and are becoming more popular in nursing especially in Magnet hospitals
Virtual teams are becoming more important as organizations become larger and teams have to meet on the internet.
Factors Leading to Cohesiveness
When group cohesiveness is high, one finds it interesting to work in the group and everything usually goes pretty well. One must be careful not to allow groupthink to happen however which will begin to cause a lack of outcomes.
Unfortunately, there are also times when group cohesiveness is low and this is when the leader must lead them back to the task. This sometimes happens when a team member is lost or a new member is added.
Leaders, according to research should work to have a moderate amount of cohesiveness (Jones & George, 2007).
Summary
Teams can be top-management teams, research and development teams, command groups, task forces, self-managed work teams, and virtual teams.
Key elements of group dynamics include size, roles, leadership, norms, cohesiveness, and development.
The five stages of development are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
Group cohesiveness is the attractiveness of the group or team to its members.
Managing teams for high performance includes all of these things plus reducing social loafing and achieving organizational goals.
References
Hawke M.,(2010). Team building. Nursing Spectrum. Web.
Jones, G, & George, J. (2007). Essentials of Contemporary Management. 2nd ed. McGraw Hill: Boston.
Umiker, W. (2002) Management Skills for the New Health Care Supervisor 3rd ed. Aspen: Maryland.