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What have you found to be effective in motivating teams toward self-management?

Understanding team dynamics is one crucial element that will help effectively motivate our team toward self-management. It is important for the team to discuss strategies that will give us a foundation for success. One important foundational element Lencioni discussed that would be productive in motivating the team toward self-management is Lencioni's video the five dysfunctions of a team (Lencioni, 2014). According to Lencioni, the five foundational elements for team cohesion and success are trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. Lencioni believes that vulnerability-based trust is one of the most powerful things you can have on a team (Lencioni, 2014). Lencioni also says the only way leaders will inspire their team is to be open and honest with one another. Another vital element Lencioni says is essential to motivate our team toward trust is the fear of conflict (Lencioni, 2014). Lencioni says that conflict in teams is a good thing. Lencioni says excellent relationships are built on the ability to disagree. When you disagree, you are trying to solve a problem; conflict is necessary (Lencioni, 2014). Lencioni believes people must weigh in on decisions; it promotes team commitment, collaboration, and buy-in, which means you are engaged in the discussion and decisions. Lencioni believes peer-to-peer accountability on a team is the best way to hold team members accountable for their actions (Lencioni, 2014).

References

Lencioni. (2004). Lencoini Five dysfunctions of a team [Video]. http://mgmtcourse.com/patrick-lencoini-the five-dysfunctions-of-a-team

Another element I believe would be helpful in effectively motivating our team toward self-management is John Maxwell's article A Leaders' Greatest Challenge (Maxwell, 2012) says a leader's greatest challenge and most difficult task is self-management. If you lead yourself correctly, others will line up to follow you. If you lead yourself poorly, you'll eventually push away the people you need the most (Maxwell, 2012). Maxwell focuses on three self-management areas: emotions, Thoughts, and Energy. Maxwell says Emotions are like anyone else; leaders experience powerful emotions however, good leaders know when to display emotions and when to delay them. In managing your emotions, put others first, not yourself (Maxwell, 2012). Maxwell says Thoughts, the greatest enemy of good thought is busyness. If the pace of your job does not allow you to stop and think during the workday, then develop the habit of jotting down three of four items that deserve your full attention later (Maxwell, 2012).. Energy is the only activity where you cannot afford to give anything less than your best.  

Maxwell, J. (2012). A Leader’s Greatest Challenge. http://johnmaxwell.com/

Another important strategy we are using to motivate our team is to offer the team incentives, and we work better when we know there is something to look forward to. One incentive the team looks forward to is breakfast once a month.

Have you evaluated team/group dynamics in the past? If so, what tools or metrics did you use? If not, why would this be a good exercise for a team?

I have not evaluated a team/group. I will use an evaluation metric focusing on team dynamics for my health action plan to help generate open, honest discussions among my team members. The metric we will use for team evaluation is a team assessment tool from bing.com.images I believe the evaluation metric will be important to evaluate ourselves and each other because it will help build relationships and improve team communication.

What does the research say about motivating teams toward self-management?

The research article Overcoming Barriers to Self-Management in Software Teams (2009). The article compared self-managed teams with command-and-control management teams (Moe, et al.,2009). The article said that self-management teams manage and monitor their own progress, execute tasks, and share decisions jointly (Moe, et al., 2009). The article further states that self-management teams can be challenging to implement and risk failure when used in inappropriate situations or without sufficient leadership or support (Moe, et al., 2009). However, the authors suggested a few recommendations, which are collocating the team in the same room, which makes people discuss the tasks they are working on and discuss problems more frequently, it will force people who are not used to talking to each other to talk (Moe, et al., 2009). Another suggestion was to build trust and commitment in the organization, and management should avoid any control that would impair creativity and spontaneity (Moe, et al., 2009). 

The research article Daily self-management and employee work engagement (2013) states that self-management means that employees manage and monitor their own behavior and are responsible for their decisions. It also means that employees, in the absence of any external control, make decisions that are less attractive but more desirable (Breevaart, et al., 2013). Breevaart states that self-managing individuals have the authority and control to make decisions which is a requisite for employees to change the work environment (Breevaart, et al., 2013).

My research on motivating teams toward self-management has continued to refer to teams focusing on the concept of individuals collaborating to achieve goals, team commitment, and team effectiveness and building strong relationships. Regardless of who may provide team leadership, teams and leaders must inspire trust and respect for team members. Motivating toward self-management also includes emphasizing two-way communication, which allows team leaders to invite input and listen to team members. 

What does the research say about evaluating team dynamics? 

The research article Evaluating Team Dynamics for Collaborative Communication Alignment Tasks (2019) states that effective communication within a team setting is vital and is an essential backbone in tasks requiring collaboration (Jones, et al., 2019). The research article also states that in a world where communication is moving rapidly towards electronic mediums, it is important to understand the dynamics that produce the most effective method of communication to maximize the efficiency and performance of collaborative tasks (Jones, et al., 2019. The goal of the research article was to compare the work of a novice (new) team member with an experience expert member. It is hypothesized that there is a positive correlation between the number of experts within the team composition and the task performance and a negative correlation between the number of experts and the completion time (Jones, et al., 2019). The results showed a decline in task performance and increased task completion time with fewer experts on a team (Jones, et al., 2019). The novice expert composition performed better and had a lower average trial completion time than the novice-novice (new) team, implying that a novice's performance improves overall when paired/collaborating with an expert instead of working alone (Jones, et al., 2019). 

Patrick Lencioni has an evaluation tool for team dynamics I believe will help evaluate team dynamics. The evaluation tool is a Team Effectiveness Exercise taken from Lencioni's book, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni, 2002). The exercise aims to give team members a forum for providing one another with focused, direct, and actionable feedback about how their individual behavior can improve the team's performance (Lencioni, 2002).

How will you incorporate these final pieces into your Team Health Action Plan?

The final pieces I will incorporate into my Team Health Action Plan will focus on working together to build team trust and improve communication using Lencioni's 3 Virtues of The Ideal Leader and John Maxwell's Lead Up, Lead Across, and Lead Down principles. Using Lencioni's Team Effectiveness exercise evaluation metric will help generate an open, honest discussion addressing the team's dynamics.