As the new president of the company it implies that I am in charge of every aspect that regards the company’s goals and objectives, the greatest impact that I could have on the company is creating a culture that allows everyone to work toward the same direction, this may include encouraging common practices and beliefs that the team members can share, providing a disproportionate effect on how it feels to team members, developing a climate and culture that has an impact on how much the employee will engage, directly impact amount of effort they apply and their inclination to remain in the company. The culture and the climate of the organization has impact the organization’s bottom line in terms of creativity, productivity, and profits, as well employee retention (Plambeck & Zenios, 2000).
As a leader taking on a new job it is most likely that I will rapidly become aware of the demand arising from this new situation. There are several ways that I can expect this to happen. The job description may have defined essential features. As I explain what is required of the team members, it is expected that new colleagues may have opinions they would like to share. The scenario in itself will make demands which are both implicit and explicit; I will be required to understand the demands so that I can be aware of the effects.
Skills required to build to recruit and build a new team
Team building requires the leader to take a keen understanding on the people he is leading, the strengths of the team members and what motivates them to corporate with others, team building calls for the leader to manage egos and the constant demand for recognition and attention, recognizing that this responsibility is an art and a science at the same time.
Some skills necessary for building effective teams include;
Being Aware of how I work
As the president of the company, I must be very aware of my leadership styles and techniques, and be factual about how effective they are, if they are well accepted by the team members, doing self-evaluation and being critical of what improvements can be done.
Know the team members
In as much as being the president of the company and there is need to hold myself accountable for my actions for optimal results and performance. I must make time to get to know the members of the teams. I intend to encourage camaraderie; the aspect of understanding the member’s needs, caring, and know how to manage their differences, in this instance, gathering intelligence implies an understanding of what defines the capabilities and strengths of the team. A good leader will know exactly what buttons to push and when to push them, being an expert at activating talent that is in the team members, a good leader should also be equally effective at matching the competencies and expertise with unique areas of subject matter for problem solving and implementation of new solutions. A leader who fully knows his team means that he has invested time in understanding the peoples’ thought process and what will fuel their success beyond what is expected of them.
Inputs involve who is included in the team, their respective individual or collective strengths and limitations. As the president of the company I should have a dispassionate approach to using tools such as the primary Color Model being by which the team’s members are measured against. Using such tools then is it possible to evaluate what the optimal levels of proficiency are showed by the team members and what are the least levels of efficiency shown by team players, hence what action can be taken to improve insufficiency, either by developing individual’s capability or recruiting a more capable person into a team.
Process: How efficiently will the teams work together, some teams work together effortlessly while others bring out the worst in each other. As the president of the company I should be able to carry out psychometric profiling to obtain hypotheses, I should also be observative to establish when, where and how the team sets direction, builds relationships, and creates alignment and the like.
Outputs: Analysis of what are impacts of those reporting to its members
Outcomes: How are the teams impacting the company, this can be measured in terms of financial parameters e.g. profit, turnover, return on investment e.t.c
As the president of the company I should be able to measure these various aspects and be able implement teams that function effectively.
Strategies for encouraging Team work
In order for teams to work together there needs to be selflessness, no issues of ego and a willingness to subdue individual needs to a common good, studies by Michael west et al describes, input, processes and outputs leading to effective teams, demonstrating that effective teamwork is the as a result of factors such as:
Inputs: Having team tasks that are clear, with clear and distinct team roles while pursuing tasks, having diversified team and making sure that team size are manageable( not too big).
Process: Have and pursue clear objectives, wide involvement in the team work, putting emphasis on quality, championing innovation, and quality time while reflecting and applying effective leadership.
The inputs and processes above have been proven to be effective, they are ideal for the mental and the physical health of members in the teams, associated with huge increments in productivity and innovation and there is greater commitment for members to remain in their teams and the organization at large.
An important approach when building a team, is to not only focus on effective teams, but also to find out how to build teams that can lead, creating complementary teams of individuals that can provide leadership or function as a unit much more effectively, this is by realizing the strength of each team player and composing teams of members who complement each other. In these teams there is one who is thought of as the Boss, but as the president of the company encouraging leadership that is not perceived as the “Boss” type. Instead of using dominance, develop conducive conditions in which the team working around him/her (DeFillippi, 2002).
Performance rewards program
For rewards programs several aspects have to be considered, such as unit of accountability, performance measurements and incentive eligibility.
Incentive eligibility
This refers to two different performance-based characteristics reward program. The first one refers to the scope of employees that compensation covers, for instance will all members of the team be eligible to receive the rewards. As with determining accountability unit, deciding which team members are eligible for program incentives in most cases depends on local culture the general goals of the program. Structuring and implementation of a performance-based scheme that will achieve optimal effect in member performance and retention is a complex process. The program should be structured in a way that is ideal for the local context and preferred goals are important for an effective design (Farazmand, 2002).
Group awards provide all the team members awards based on the overall performance of their respective tasks. Individual awards recognize team members based solely on what productivity has taken place in their specific functionalities, however incentive for individual performance that will improve the team member knowledge and skills can be included within the individual awards. For instance professional development sessions, mentoring, and evaluations from observation of team members are potential measures for individual awards.
There are hybrid performance award program, which provide awards based on more than one instance of accountability, this structure provides rewards for all team members based team wide achievement and supplemented by individual member based on the team’s performance. Many reward programs take the shape of hybrid reward programs so as to balance out the weakness of each structure (Song et al, 2005).
References
Plambeck, E. L., & Zenios, S. A. (2000). Performance-based incentives in a dynamic principal-agent model. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2(3), 240-263.
Song, G., Zhao, J., Zhou, X., & De Abreu-García, J. A. (2005). Tracking control of a piezoceramic actuator with hysteresis compensation using inverse Preisach model. IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics, 10(2), 198-209.
Foster-Fishman, P. G., Berkowitz, S. L., Lounsbury, D. W., Jacobson, S., & Allen, N. A. (2001). Building collaborative capacity in community coalitions: A review and integrative framework. American journal of community psychology, 29(2), 241-261.
DeFillippi, R. J. (2002). Organizational models for collaboration in the new economy. People and Strategy, 25(4), 7.
Farazmand, A. (2004). Innovation in strategic human resource management: building capacity in the age of globalization. Public Organization Review, 4(1), 3-24.
