This team development model relies on four key elements to move the team through the 4 phases:
Support – By sharing tasks and experiencing success, members form close bonds. This may improve the emotional wellbeing of the team members. When a team has close bonds, they often share the workload and less experienced members are closely coached and trained.
Conflict resolution – During the storming phase, conflict is an expected part of the team forming process. Conflict may arise due to tasks, processes and personal differences. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities, team members being aware of their behaviour, an assertive team leader can help to reduce the risk of conflict.
Team leader assertiveness can also help defuse conflict situations. It is important for team leaders to resolve conflict as and when it arises. A failure to resolve conflict can lead to bad feeling between crew members.
Information exchange – Although we have covered communication in our previous sections of the course, it is important to remember that a team relies on effective communication to thrive. Without effective communication, a team is only a group of individuals.
Coordination of Effort – Coordination is also essential for an effective team. When a team is coordinated, errors are reduced, team members do not duplicate tasks and there is minimal risk of conflict.
The CORE Principles
The four team development elements (Support, Conflict resolution, Information exchange, and Coordination of effort) are essential for a team to work effectively.
For an individual within a team, we both encourage and promote the CORE principle to help address any task. The CORE principle stands for Commitment, Ownership, Responsibility and Excellence.
Commitment
Before starting a task, each team member should be committed to successfully achieving each goal.
Goals must be SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic and
- Time bound.
If they are not, team members will not fully commit to the task.
For example, if team members don’t think they can achieve a task in the given time, they will not fully commit. This may encourage members to neglect processes, negatively affecting the project timeline and delivery schedule.
Having all team members fully committed to successfully completing the task is critical in a dangerous environment such as oil and gas operations.
An uncommitted team member will avoid their duties, not fully follow procedures and may pose a safety risk.
When a team leader recognises this ‘avoiding behaviour’ it is important to address the negative behaviour and reconsider the needs of that individual.
Ownership
For the team to successfully complete a task, the team members must ‘own’ the plan. In other words, individual team members are fully invested in the plan and believe that the chosen course of action is optimum.
Though team members may not have been a part of the planning process, a good toolbox talk combined with effective leadership can help team members to ‘own’ their part of the plan.
Responsibility
Team members must take responsibility for their own part of the plan. When team members believe in the plan, and ‘own’ their part of it, they are more willing to accept this responsibility and be held accountable for the successful delivery of the plan.
Being responsible includes accurately following procedures, even when performing or conducting monotonous or familiar tasks.
Using a debrief or after-action review can allow you to reflect on how well you followed procedures, and will help you to improve the next time you do a similar task.
Excellence
Excellence means a team working together to achieve the very best result. When all team members work to their full potential, the team becomes more than the sum of the individuals within that team.
This means that the team exceeds the expectations of the individual team members. This can only be achieved by setting goals which the team can realistically achieve.
Working together to achieve excellent results can boost team morale, and empower team members in their future work.