Lesson-7(Chapter-14:Leading Effective Teams+Chapter-15: Implementing Situational Leadership)

DQ No.1: What are Dumaine’s four guidelines for the most effective use of teams?

DQ No. 1: Answer:
A team comprises a group of people who work together to attain a specific goal. For instance, a football team, a team of advisers, and problem solving team are some of the examples of teams. A team can be much more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy to generate performance greater than the sum of the individuals' performance. A team can be very beneficial for achieving organizational goals when it works as a competitive strategy in such a way so that organizational productivity and efficiency increases, and employees' absenteeism and turnover decreases.

According to Dumaine, there are 5 species in the kingdom of teams.  They are problem-solving teams, Management teams, Work teams, virtual teams, and Quality circle teams. Likewise, he has provided four guidelines for the most effective use of teams as shown below:

1.      Use the right team for the job:  A team should be formed to fit the job requirement for improving the team effectiveness. For instance, when a problem occurs, a problem-solving team should be formed and then it should be disband.

2.      Create a hierarchy of teams: A hierarchy must be made to back up coordination and communication. Creating a hierarchy helps to make the organizational structure so that team effectiveness can be achieved.

3.       Build trust: Team spirit can be helpful in order to increase performance readiness of people. It is important to build trust among team members for its effectiveness.

4.       Address "people” issues: People are very important assets so that their issues must be taken seriously to maintain and build team more effective and efficient.

In a nutshell, it is concluded that Dumaine has given us very important guidelines for the effective use of teams. They need to be applied as per the situation so that team can play a pivotal role for achieving its specific goals and organizational goals.

References:

-          P. Hersey, Kenneth H.Blanchard, Dewey E. Johnson. (2008). Management Of Organization Behavior: Leading Human Resources. New Jersey: Pearson prentice Hall.

DQ No. 2: Explain the three steps to implementing performance management

DQ No.2: Answer:

Performance management is the process of integrating the situational leadership concept and the ACHIEVE model. In other words, performance management includes managerial activities which ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. It focuses on the performance of the organization, a department unit, employee, and many other areas. Literally, there are three major steps for implementing the performance management. They are described as follows:

1.      Performance Planning:  First of all, managers or leaders need to define an effective Performance Planning in implementing the performance management. Making a performance planning by setting objectives and directions is useful way for followers to develop plans in order to achieve those objectives.

2.      Performance Coaching: Secondly, in order to develop employees’ performance, they need to be provided coaching session on a routine basis.  Performance coaching is done for day-to-day feedback and development activities designed for tracking the performance plans. Managers give the positive feedback to employees who deserve recognition for spectacular performance. This is helpful for identifying performance problems, diagnose the cause of problems, and reach agreement with other followers on steps to be taken to solve these issues.

3.      Performance Review: Last but not least is Performance review in which overall evaluation performance is done for the specific planning period. It can be done between managers and employees by meeting periodically to update ad ensure alignment of the employee’s major roles and responsibilities. It should contain no surprises for the participant provided for the entire process has been faithfully followed.

In Summary, the situational leadership approach to performance management could be helpful for leaders or managers to individualize these three basic steps by selecting managerial techniques that fit the different situation confronted by each of their followers. Thus, it is necessary for any leaders or managers to have basic ideas about performance management and its major steps so that an effective performance can be easily achieved in the organization.

References:

-          P. Hersey, Kenneth H.Blanchard, Dewey E. Johnson. (2008). Management Of Organization Behavior: Leading Human Resources. New Jersey: Pearson prentice Hall.

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