QQ. What does it take to flourish in a team?
ANS: A bridge.
In this case a bridge with some flexibility. This is a swing bridge over the River Ouse, East Sussex, at Southease.
Flourishing in teams
West M,A., Sacramento, C.A, In ‘Creative Management and Development. Henry, J (2011) pp25-44
Or ‘how to develop team innovative teams’
New ways of doing things.
SEE FULL QUOTE (West and Farr, 1990)
Initial creativity leads to innovation.
Innovation is dependent on: (Oldham and Cummings 1980)
- Team task
- Group composition
- Organisational context
- Team processes
- Skill variety
- Challenge Task identity
Task feedback & Autonomy (Hackman and Oldman, 1980)
Innovative people are:
- Creative Implementors
- Think in novel ways
- Think globally (they see the wood for the trees)
- Intellectual and see things in different ways
- Analytic abilities
- Practical contextual abilities to persuade others
- And show openness (Barrick et al., 1998) + they have confidence in their abilities.
- Self-disciplined
- High degree of drive and motivation
- Concerned with achieving excellence
(Mumford and Gustafson, 1998)
Innovative people have a high need for freedom, control and discretion in the workplace and appear to find bureaucratic limitations or the exercise of control by managers frustrating. (Barron and Harrington, 1981; West, 1987; West and Rushton, 1989)
THEREFORE:
- Ensure the team task is intrinsically motivating.
- Ensure a high level of extrinsic demands as the task develops, so hands off to start but pressure mounting towards the end.
- Select a team of innovative people.
- Select people with diverse skills and backgrounds.
- Provide organisational rewards for innovation.
- Create a learning and development climate in the organisation.
- Develop a climate for innovation in the organisation.
- Establish team norms for innovation.
- Encourage reflexivity in teams.
- Ensure there is clarity of leadership in the team and that the leadership style is appropriate for encouraging innovation.
- Manage conflict constructively and encourage minorities to dissent within teams.
- Don’t just bond – bridge!
CONCLUSIONS
The ‘whole’ task, its entirety.
Brainstorm away from the everyday
Later pressures help.
Fully integrated team working
REFERENCE
Barrack, M,R; Stewart, G,L; Neubert,M,J; Mount,M,K (1998) relating member ability and personality to work-team processes and team effectiveness. journal of applied psychology 83 , 377-91
Barron, F.B and Harrington, D.M (1981) Creativity, Intelligence and Personality in M.R. Rosenweig and L.W.Porter (eds) Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 439-76.
Hackman, J, R and Oldman G,R (1980) Work Redesign. Reading, MA. Mumford M,D and Gustafson, S,B (1998) Creativity Syndrome: Integration, application and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 27-43
Oldman, G, R and Cummings, A (1996) Employee Creativity: personal and contextual factors at work. academy of management journal, 39 (3), 607-34
West, M.A (1987) Role Innovation in the World of Work. British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 305-15.
West, M,A and Farr, J,L (1990) Innovation at work. In M.A.West and J.L.Farr (eds) innovation and creativity at work: Psychological and Organisational Strategies, Chichester, England.
West, M.A and Rushton, R. (1989) Mismatches in work role transitions. journal of occupational Psychology, 62 271-86
Mind Bursts 