Team Work - Developing Team Players

Developing team players:

A team consists of different individuals who come from different environments and whose tastes, personalities, thinking, beliefs, skills and attitudes are different. In order to develop effective teams it is extremely important to overcome all these individual differences and develop them in to team players.

Developing team players is extremely challenging in organizations that have always valued individual achievement and have employees with a highly individualistic national culture. On the other hand, organizations that have been built around teams and have employees with collectivist values find it much easier to develop teams. Managers need to pay close attention to the following elements while trying individuals in to team players:

1. Selection: Care should be taken while hiring team members. The manager must ensure that the members have the interpersonal skills and satisfy the technical requirements to carry out the job. They should be able to fulfill their team roles.

2. Training: Even if an employee does not have the required skills to be effective team players, he can be trained for the same. Trainers are called to conduct workshops to help employees acquire and improve various skills such as problem solving, communication, negotiation, conflict management and other practical skills required to work in teams. Experts create situations that allow the employees to experience the satisfaction that results from teamwork.

However, it must be remembered that some employees resist being team players and may not be trainable. Such people should not be selected in the first place and if already present should be transferred elsewhere in the organization.

3. Rewards: The reward system should be redesigned to encourage employees to work as team players. Rewards must encourage cooperative rather than competitive behavior. However individual