BSBWOR502 - Lead

and manage team

effectiveness

BSBWOR502 Lead and Manage Team

Effectiveness

Establish team
performance plan
Develop and
facilitate team
cohesion
Facilitate
teamwork
Liaise with
stakeholders

TOPIC 1 ESTABLISH TEAM PERFORMANCE

PLAN
Consult team members to establish a
common understanding of team
purpose, roles, responsibilities and
accountabilities in accordance with
organisational goals, plans and
objectives
A team is commonly defined as a small number of
people with complementary skills who are
committed to:
A common purpose
Specific performance goals which are an
integral part of the purpose

Functional work teams

Functional work teams are based on the
structure of the organisation
The benefits of work teams to organisations are:
Increased commitment when decision
making is pushed down to team
members
Problems are solved by the people who
perform and understand the job
Productivity and flexibility is increased
due to employee empowerment

Stages of team development

Bruce Tuckman (1977) developed a model
to help identify and gauge factors that are
critical for building and developing teams,
and seeks to explain how teams are
formed over time
Teams tend to move informally and without
realisation through the stages of
development

What is consultation?
The opportunity to provide and receive
information and to participate in
meaningful discussion on relevant matters
affecting the way we do or manage things
in the workplace
Involvement by all members of the team
means that any workplace changes will be
more readily accepted and implemented

Setting clear goals to improve

teamwork
A team without a goal is like a house
without a frame - it will simply fall apart
with the slightest nudge
Individual teams must understand what that
goal is, and know their role - both individually
and as a group - in accomplishing it
To accomplish your goal, the team must have
the right tools
Set up a results-oriented structure
that encourages the team to
achieve its goals

Develop performance plans to establish

expected outcomes, outputs, key performance
indicators and goals for work team

Performance planning is developed at the

beginning of a new role or performance cycle
It provides an on-going platform for continuous
improvement, review and performance
evaluation
You can use a team based approach to
performance management by developing a
performance plan for a team rather than an
individual
These plans include:
KPIs
Goals for improvement
Team building goals

Support team members in meeting

expected performance outcomes
Teams are the backbone that drives most
organisations
Hostility, conflicting goals, and unclear
expectations within your team are
symptoms of an unhealthy team
Supporting your team through good
team coaching can help to take
your team to the next level

Supporting team members

It is important to provide support to team
members to ensure that team goals are met
Supporting team members involves:
Advising on policies, procedures,
instructions etc.
Assisting team members as required
Solving problems
Providing encouragement
Providing feedback
Undertaking extra tasks if necessary

TOPIC 2 - DEVELOP AND FACILITATE TEAM

COHESION
Develop strategies to ensure team
members have input into planning,
decision making and operational
aspects of work team
Your people are your most important
resource
Talking an issue through can help diffuse a
negative situation before it gets out of hand
Business relationships are built through
being open, honest, co-operative and
productive

Develop policies and procedures to

ensure team members take
responsibility for own work and assist
others to undertake required roles and
responsibilities
There are many
policies and procedures
that are written specifically for team
members
These may include:
Organisational guidelines and
systems that govern operational
functions
Procedures that detail the activities
that must be carried out for the
completion of actions and tasks
Standard operating procedures

Provide feedback to team members to

encourage, value and reward individual and
team efforts and contributions

Performance feedback has a high

correlation with job satisfaction and
employees are generally not satisfied
when feedback in the workplace is not
being effectively conducted
Feedback can be:
General or be very specific
Positive or negative

Providing effective feedback

Listen actively and be willing to let them
navigate a way to the root cause
Feedback is a vital learning tool that enables
the identification of areas for improvement and
the ongoing support of learning activities
People are usually happy to give and
receive positive feedback but often
feel uncomfortable when it comes to
addressing areas for improvement
Focus on specific behaviours
Consider the timing of feedback

Reinforcing excellence in performance

Recognition is a communication tool that
reinforces and rewards the most important
outcomes
An effective recognition system is simple,
immediate, and powerfully reinforcing
Recognition should be:
Sincere
Meaningful
Adaptable
Relevant
Timely

Develop processes to ensure that issues,

concerns and problems identified by team
members are recognised and addressed

You will often come across issues,

concerns and problems in the workplace;
this is just a fact of life
The solution is to have a process that you
follow when you need to make a change or
solve a problem
A popular tool for doing just this is the PlanDo-Check-Act Cycle

TOPIC 3 - FACILITATE TEAMWORK

Encourage team members and individuals
to participate in and to take responsibility
for team activities, including
communication processes
In this workplace context, delegation has two
meanings:
It can mean the allocating to team members tasks
and responsibilities that are part of their normal
duties
It can also mean allocating some of your
own supervisory/managerial duties (tasks
and responsibilities) to team members
who are willing to take these on

How to delegate
Delegation is a great way to train team
members
BUT, delegation has to be done properly or it can
be one of the most disastrous and
counterproductive things you ever do
Make sure you are clear about the task
to be done, and the responsibility to be
delegated
Provide whatever instructions are
necessary
Give them positive feedback to make
them positive and confident

Implement staff communication and

motivation programs
There are numerous ways to communicate
with staff
They include:
Individual, one-on-one talks
Formal, group meetings
Non-verbal communication - never
underestimate the value of body
language throughout the working
day
Written communications

Internal communication
It is essential that new staff be informed of
the protocols that apply to communicating
within the store
The chain of command is simply the hierarchy
that exists in the store and the organisational
lines that connect the different positions/job
roles
In some cases, team members will be
expected to communicate with
numerous people, while in other
settings all the communications go
through just one person

Internal documentation
Not all communication is verbal and most
stores have a series of documents that
function as communications
Make sure you inform staff of what
documentation they need to complete, what
needs to be included, when they must be used,
how many copies there must be, and where
the document goes once filled in
It can be useful to give all new team
members a completed sample
document they can use as a reference

Motivation
A pivotal aspect of leading a team is to create
an environment in which team members are
motivated to achieve high standards of
performance
This is important for you and your career; you
need to realise that the way your staff perform is
a direct reflection of your abilities
Motivation is a way of improving staff
morale, gaining the cooperation of
others, maintaining or positively
changing the culture of the business
and raising team cohesion

Empowerment
Empowerment is the handing down of
power to employees in an organisation
Power increases motivation because people
are able to improve their own effectiveness
by choosing how to do a task using their
own creativity, ideas and methods
Empowering employees means giving them
the ability to act more freely and
independently in their jobs through
providing them with:
Information
Knowledge

Support the team in identifying and

resolving work performance problems
Conduct performance management in
accordance with organisational protocols and
timelines
Most organisations will have set times when
appraisals are conducted
In Australia this is usually in June and sometimes
a second one in December, aligning with the
Australian financial year
It is important to observe other
protocols that exist with appraisals.
These will be unique to each
organisation

Monitoring performance on a
continuous basis
It is important to remember that performance
needs to be continually monitored
There is no value in leaving difficult issues to
appraisal time when the employee has no
chance to rectify them, and undesirable
behaviour or habits have become ingrained
Performance, particularly
underperformance, needs to be
monitored regularly. This can be done
with mini deadlines for part of the task
to get completed

Identifying and addressing poor

performance
When tasks have not been completed to
the managers satisfaction, remedial action
must be taken to address the situation
Poor work results can be caused by a
number of factors and combinations of
factors. This includes consideration of the
following:
Poor task allocation
Poor communication of the task
requirements

Addressing poor performance

Most people don't have a problem
receiving positive feedback but it is often
hard to address areas where performance
has not met expectations
Poor performance may be addressed by
direct interview to diagnose the
'problems/issues' or a coaching session
Serious breaches or repeat poor
performance can lead to more
formal grievance procedures and
even dismissal

Ensure own contribution to work team serves as

a role model for others and enhances the
organisation's image for all stakeholders

Leaders and managers should be involved

in the growth and development of teams
and in their own personal selfdevelopment
There is a need to assess your current
situation and identify appropriate courses of
action to address your own needs and future
goals

What to assess?
When assessing your performance there
are three areas worthy of consideration:
Personal attitude
Your skills
Your knowledge
A commitment to lifelong learning
and continuous improvement is a
key in following through and
actually addressing identified selfdevelopment needs

The training gap

A common approach to assessing personal
abilities is to establish the extent of the
"training gap"
The training gap in this instance is the difference
between what the store requires you to do (or
what it is you want to achieve), and what you
can actually do
Identifying the training gap is useful because it
means that the subsequent actions will be
addressing an identified need
Training in some form is a common way
of addressing your training gaps

TOPIC 4 - LIAISE WITH STAKEHOLDERS

Establish and maintain open
communication processes with all
stakeholders
You should try to establish a work
environment in which you can freely
communicate with team members and
stakeholders regularly
When you solicit feedback from stakeholders
you can learn about issues and resolve
problems before things escalate

Communicate information from line

manager/management to the team
Managers have many communication
requirements
Management may refer to chief executive
officer, direct superior or other management
representatives
There is a great deal of information that
needs to be communicated from the
Managers to the team
You will need to ensure the
communication is clear and concise
and is passed on in a timely manner

Communicate unresolved issues, concerns

and problems raised by team members and
follow-up with line manager/management and
other relevant stakeholders

Communication in relation to issues and

problems is vital if you are to provide your
team with effective leadership
This means there will be times when you
need to communicate with line managers
and management to effect a solution for
identified issues
There are many skills you need to
have to effectively communicate
with anyone in your organisation

Approaches to communicating with

others
Effective communication is achieved when
ideas and information are exchanged so
that meaning is shared
In most situations assertive behaviours are
usually the most appropriate
You will need to ensure you communicate all
issues and unresolved problems to your
supervisors or line managers in order to solve
the problems
Problems and issues left unresolved
cause major conflict in the workplace

Evaluate and take necessary corrective action

regarding unresolved issues, concerns and problems
raised by internal or external stakeholders

All employees are required to meet certain

standards and behave to these standards
in the workplace
Corrective action is another word for
correcting behaviour that is unacceptable in
the workplace
The goal of corrective action is to
guide the employee to behave in a
manner that is acceptable in the
workplace, not to punish the
employee

SUMMARY
Now that you have completed this unit you
should have the skills and knowledge
required to lead teams in the workplace
and to actively engage with the
management of the organisation.