Building High-Performing Teams: A Report on Teamwork Principles

This report provides an analysis of teamwork concepts derived from the books "The Wisdom of Teams" and "Team Power." The report explores the critical elements of building high-performing teams, including collaborative leadership, mutual trust, decision-making, consensus building, and conflict management. It highlights the role of leaders in fostering team performance and emphasizes the importance of team beginnings and endings. The report references Tuckman's stages of team development and discusses how setting high standards and limited time can enhance team effectiveness. The student reflects on how the knowledge gained can be applied to future leadership roles, emphasizing the importance of collaborative leadership in building and maintaining powerful teams. The report also emphasizes the importance of mutual trust, consensus building, conflict management, and problem-solving in team for the purpose of development of a powerful team.

Running head: TEAM WORK
TEAM WORK
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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From the two books on wisdom of teams and team power, the concept of team building
and all other concepts related to the same have been understood by me. In the book building
team power, I have understood about team power, collaborative leadership, collaborative
partnership, and the way team power is built through mutual trust, decision making, consensus
building, conflict management, delegation effectiveness and with the help of problem solving in
teams. Moreover from the book the role of a collaborative leader in building team power has also
been understood. It has become important for organization to build a culture of collaboration and
trust and also try to maintaining the same for the purpose of improving team performance.
Moreover such a team can only be built with the help of a new generation of leaders.
Organizations in the present world cam become successful in the long run only with the help of a
competitive advantage and this advantage can be earned by an organization through the
formation of high performing teams. A collaborative leader has got a very important role to play
in formation of a high performing team. A collaborative leader is one who can help an
organization in getting both efficient and effective results across both external and internal
boundaries of the organization. He is one who believes in investing his time for the purpose of
building better relationship with the employees, handling conflicts in a constructive manner and
also believes in sharing control. They share their vision with the employees and try to build
better relationship with the employees (Katzenbach & Smith, 2015/1993). Moreover it has also
been understood that a collaborative leader understands the importance of mutual trust,
consensus building, conflict management, problem solving in team for the purpose of
development of a powerful team. Mutual trust can be built by the leader through open
communication and transparency in their operations and activities. Consensus building refers to
enabling the team to reach a common agreement by overcoming all conflicts and by aligning the

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goals of all the team members with that of the leaders by sharing common gaols. Conflict
management through a collaborative approach includes- a win-win strategy such that both the
parties get satisfied by the final decision. One of things that I found the most relevant is the fact
that the team performance depends completely upon the leaders. I have been a part of teams
where we had been able to successfully complete our projects because of our supportive and
cooperative leader. However, one of the concepts that I found to be the most puzzling or vague is
the fact that the power of a team can be built based on 7 basic factors.
On the other hand, from the book the wisdom of teams, I have understood about the
concept of high performing teams, team achievement, team success, the importance of team
work, and the way the great teams become successful while the lesser ones become unsuccessful.
The main reason why teams are important is often not known even by the management
themselves. Sometimes the management feels that there is a need for good teams due to
increased challenges and continuous changes taking place in the environment. However team
work may be needed irrespective of these situations. Therefore for a group of individuals to
actually work as a team it becomes necessary to provide them a performance demanding
challenges or in other words, sometimes teams are formed due to a difficult challenge being
faced by the team. Therefore if a company can set higher standards of performance, team will be
high performing.
Therefore from the different chapters, I have understood about the concept of team, the
team performance curve, converting a group of people into team, the role of team leaders,
overcoming obstacles, and teams and change. The success of a team depends majorly upon the
commitment of the team and sharing of purpose between the team members. Moreover team
work helps in improving both the performance and learning. Further it has also been understood

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that team beginnings and team endings are equally important. For the purpose of understanding
the same, it is necessary to understand the 5 stages of team performance development by
Tuckman which includes- forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. The final
stage of the team development model as given by Tuckman is the adjourning stage. In this stage,
the main aim of the team is to wrap up the tasks and document the results and efforts. By this
stage, the team has achieved most of its objectives. In this stage the team is dissolved after all the
team members are assigned to other teams. Therefore the final stage is as important as the first
stage of the team development model. One of the concepts that I found to be the most relevant is
that the beginning and the ending of a team is equally important (Kayser, 2011). This is so
because it is the forming stage, where the people get to know each other in a better way and in
the ending stage the team will be dissolved after completing all their responsibilities and after all
the team members are reassigned into new teams. However one of the concepts which I was
unaware of includes the concept that teams can become high performing ones when they have
limited time available with themselves and the standards that is set for them is higher.
I feel that whatever knowledge has been gained by me by undertaking my course of
building powerful teams and wisdom of teams, can be used by me in my future also. This is so
because when I will join an organization, I may become a team leader and in that situation I will
try to become a collaborative one because then I will be able to develop and maintain high
performing teams. I will be able to build good relationship with the team members while also
being able to get the best out of them in terms of performance. Further I will also be able to
create powerful teams by building the same upon 7 major elements- decision making, consensus
building, conflict management and others.

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References
Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (2015/1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high
performance organization. NY: McKinsey & Company.
Kayser, T.A. (2011). Team power: How to unleash the collaborative genius of teams for
increased engagement, productivity and results. New York: McGraw Hill Education.