Team Structure and Effects on Success
In a previous post, I have described some details about a student organization I am a part of, Illinois Sports Business Conference (ISBC). Today, I will delve further into the organization to examine the structure of an individual committee and how that structure affects the success of the committee. I think the structure and team environment will relate to some of Bolman and Deal's team configurations and I will also discuss characteristics of individuals within the team that affect success.
The structure of the Operations committee of ISBC is fairly straightforward, and would fall under the description of the "One Boss" arrangement discussed by B&D. As the Vice President of Operations, I am at the head of this organizational structure, with 3 individuals underneath me in the hierarchy. I was elected and chosen for this position by the executive board, which helps elicit respect for authority from my subordinates. I think that being elected and placed in my position is important because if there wasn't a reason for being at the top of the hierarchy, it may be more difficult to earn the respect of subordinates and delegate tasks to them. Furthermore, I have given each of the 3 individuals in my committee specific titles which I believe helps them feel important and valued in the team and to the organization as a whole. For instance, the Operations committee consists of myself (the Vice-President), the Director of Internal Relations, the Director of Alumni Relations, and the Director of Campus Communication. Each of these roles has specific tasks and responsibilities.
Within the team, information flows from the top down to the other individuals. As B&D point out, this structure is efficient and works well in normal situations. However, they also point out that in unusual situations, the head of the team can become overloaded, leading to poor dissemination of information and tasks and frustrated subordinates. I wouldn't say that I have fully experienced this while managing my team, but there have been times where tasks that I needed to accomplish outside of the committee had to take precedence over committee tasks and I went a few days without communicating with the team. I don't think that anyone became frustrated, but it is easy to see how that could happen if similar delays in communication were more frequent.
Now to discuss the performance of the team. I think that the size of the committee is crucial to our success. With only 4 members total, it is easy to hold everyone accountable for their responsibilities. Similarly, I am fortunate to have team members that hold themselves collectively responsible for the success of the team. Katzenbach and Smith list this collectivism as one of the characteristics of high-quality teams. I also think that our success stems from the development of goals for the committee. We have both short-term (semester) and long-term (year or multiple year) goals for both the committee and the organization as a whole from our perspective. These goals help us have something to work towards and guide us when needed.
Through managing this committee, I have also gained an understanding on what makes great team members. One of the best qualities of good team members would be their willingness to communicate. In committee meetings, much more can be accomplished when team members are willing to speak their minds, both with positive feedback and negative feedback. It is also crucial that teammates be efficient in their communication, especially in college where everyone has different busy schedules. The willingness to respond to an email or message quickly is an underrated quality of a good teammate. In addition, commitment to organizational goals is very important. If a member of the team feels personally responsible, and interested in, the goals of the organization, it is more likely that they will be highly committed to their responsibilities.
Taking into account my experiences within ISBC, I think I have a strong understanding on the structure that makes a team successful, and the characteristics of individuals within the team that are important success factors. I would hope that all teams I work as a part of in the future exhibit some of the ideas presented by Bolman and Deal.
The structure of the Operations committee of ISBC is fairly straightforward, and would fall under the description of the "One Boss" arrangement discussed by B&D. As the Vice President of Operations, I am at the head of this organizational structure, with 3 individuals underneath me in the hierarchy. I was elected and chosen for this position by the executive board, which helps elicit respect for authority from my subordinates. I think that being elected and placed in my position is important because if there wasn't a reason for being at the top of the hierarchy, it may be more difficult to earn the respect of subordinates and delegate tasks to them. Furthermore, I have given each of the 3 individuals in my committee specific titles which I believe helps them feel important and valued in the team and to the organization as a whole. For instance, the Operations committee consists of myself (the Vice-President), the Director of Internal Relations, the Director of Alumni Relations, and the Director of Campus Communication. Each of these roles has specific tasks and responsibilities.
Within the team, information flows from the top down to the other individuals. As B&D point out, this structure is efficient and works well in normal situations. However, they also point out that in unusual situations, the head of the team can become overloaded, leading to poor dissemination of information and tasks and frustrated subordinates. I wouldn't say that I have fully experienced this while managing my team, but there have been times where tasks that I needed to accomplish outside of the committee had to take precedence over committee tasks and I went a few days without communicating with the team. I don't think that anyone became frustrated, but it is easy to see how that could happen if similar delays in communication were more frequent.
Now to discuss the performance of the team. I think that the size of the committee is crucial to our success. With only 4 members total, it is easy to hold everyone accountable for their responsibilities. Similarly, I am fortunate to have team members that hold themselves collectively responsible for the success of the team. Katzenbach and Smith list this collectivism as one of the characteristics of high-quality teams. I also think that our success stems from the development of goals for the committee. We have both short-term (semester) and long-term (year or multiple year) goals for both the committee and the organization as a whole from our perspective. These goals help us have something to work towards and guide us when needed.
Through managing this committee, I have also gained an understanding on what makes great team members. One of the best qualities of good team members would be their willingness to communicate. In committee meetings, much more can be accomplished when team members are willing to speak their minds, both with positive feedback and negative feedback. It is also crucial that teammates be efficient in their communication, especially in college where everyone has different busy schedules. The willingness to respond to an email or message quickly is an underrated quality of a good teammate. In addition, commitment to organizational goals is very important. If a member of the team feels personally responsible, and interested in, the goals of the organization, it is more likely that they will be highly committed to their responsibilities.
Taking into account my experiences within ISBC, I think I have a strong understanding on the structure that makes a team successful, and the characteristics of individuals within the team that are important success factors. I would hope that all teams I work as a part of in the future exhibit some of the ideas presented by Bolman and Deal.
One of the things I find a little odd about student teams/groups is that everyone seems to have a title - director or vice president or something like that. When I held the director title, I was the boss, not the subordinate. And later my title was Assistant CIO, which clearly meant I was subordinate to the CIO, even though I had the ed tech operation of the campus under me.
ReplyDeleteI mention this at the outset because you only talked about your operations group, but didn't talk about how it related to the larger ISBC. If you were a vice president, then you must have been part of some other group of vice presidents, or am I mistaken in that? My experience is of an overlapping committee structure, within the larger organization, not just one group that acts independently. So I wonder why you didn't talk about that.
True, it might be harder to fit into the framework in B&D chapter 5. But if you force things too much, you also miss some things.
Then, some other features of your committee might have been mentioned as well. How frequently did you meet? How long were the meetings? Did you ever have disagreements and, if so, how were those resolved. Did you ever have a teammate get sick or have some personal issue where the person had to miss out on some teamwork? If so, what happened then.
Maybe you had none of that. If so, congratulations on your good luck. But do note you won't always have good luck, so having a sense of how to proceed in other circumstances is really necessary.
It's true that the operations committee fits into the larger ISBC. As VP of the committee, I am one of 7 VP's, each of whom manage their own committee. I think that in our organization, each committee is different enough that makes the responsibilities of each distinct, and we avoid a lot of potential overlap. That does make it slightly more difficult to fit into the B&D frameworks, but I still think for the most part we fit into the "One Boss" framework. However, if the president of the organization needs something from one of my committee members urgently, he may usurp me and go directly to that person, which would make us seem to have a dual authority structure. This doesn't happen very often though.
DeleteIn managing my committee, I have had pretty decent luck thus far. 3 people are fairly easy to manage, and everyone is committed to organizational goals. We meet every other week or so for about an hour. We discuss our progress on our goals and debate other issues within the organization. When a member of the committee is unable to attend our meetings, I reach out to that person separately and have a one on one meeting at some other time to catch up. If even that isn't possible, we will have a back and forth email exchange or phone call to keep up to date on our goals and progress.