SIMON ALLEMAN
ILM LEVEL 3 FIRST LINE MANAGEMENT
(M3.11)-BUILDING THE TEAM.

Developing and maintaining trust in the workplace.
Developing trust in my workplace is a two-way-duty, responsibility of the management, as well as the employees. Trust begets trust. If I am not capable of keeping my team members trust, then I have no right to expect them to trust me, and even more so within my work place. Workplace ethics at Sirus Automotive demands that I be absolutely honest in my dealings within the company and to my team members.

Earning Trust- When I had to start building and maintaining trust with my team members I needed to understand that by me making tall claims about having transparent administration, was not enough. My team members were hired at Sirus because of their skill set and educational qualifications, I had to remember that they were not born yesterday. They are all intelligent enough to understand if something is not quite right. So I had to give them credit and not insult their intelligence. I had to keep the functioning of the section running as smooth and efficient as I told them it would be and to keep them as stress free as possible as to making their job easier through efficiency. If this would not have been the case they would have felt exploited and the feeling of mistrust and discontent would have begun to set in.
Confidentiality- Of paramount importance to me in the building of trust within my team and all other employees. With the company aside it is also down to me to treat all information within my work place with care and caution. As the Team Leader I should never disclose any information confided in me whether it be sensitive or confidential to any third party, unless I had permission from the person regarding. This would be the biggest betrayal of trust which I firmly believe would never rectify itself. As for our company as a whole any personal or professional details of our employees will be kept under wraps because if they are misused, it can lead to discrimination in the workplace. Only our H/R department who would require information for certain purposes would be given access to personal files of employees.
Maintaining Trust- After gaining the trust of my team members I also need to take appropriate measures to see that that trust is not broken. Communication is of great importance. How will my team members trust me if I don’t talk to them? I know that I have to maintain a level of professionalism within my team, but it does not mean that I need to have no human emotion. While I have to take a firm stand on many issues I also realize that if I want to build trust then I have to get rid of the ‘ too-professional-tag’ that I may have. I need to ask them about their grievances, commend them on their achievements, and when it comes to reprimanding them, do it in a subtle way, and only resort to extreme measures when all other options fail. This will show them that I do care about their well-being and will definitively I think assert their trust in me.

Building the team
Being at the start at Sirus Automotive it would be fair to say that we were just building disability vehicles with no real sense of direction, of cause the company was making a healthy profit at the start, we had small premises and a small group of people who worked for the company. As expansion came and employee numbers grew, so did overhead costs which in turn led to more financial employees coming on board to look after the company’s finances. This is where we had to work smarter; we had to become a Team. I worked very closely with a lean consultant to make our line as efficient as it is today by doing months of time and studies of all team members roles, so looking back we were definitely a group of workers, yes we were building our product but to achieve our goals we were all working independently of each other. After working with the lean consultant it became clear to me that the process would be of great benefit to our work, I knew that my team members had different skills so getting everyone to collaborate together we would achieve our goals much more efficiently, we started to recognize the expertise of others, after all two heads are better than one and I think this is where Tuckman’s stages of group development was of great benefit.
The FORMING-STORMING-NORMING-PERFORMING model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work and deliver the results.
FORMING.
In the first stage of building my team, the forming took place. Individual’s behaviour is driven by a desire to be accepted by others, and avoid controversy or conflict. Issues and feelings were avoided, and the people focused on being busy with their routines, such as who was doing what. But we were also gathering information and impressions about each other, and about the scope of the task and how to approach it. During this phase I needed to take a directive approach. The team soon started to learn about opportunities and challenges, and then start to agree on goals and began to tackle the tasks, but were still working quite independently of each other. They were always on their best behaviour but very focused on themselves. By sharing the knowledge of the concept of Tuckman’s model it was extremely helpful to the team.
STORMING.
Storming was to be the next stage that my team went through, Ideas started to come forward, Issues were addressed and they started to open up to each other and confront each other’s ideas and perspectives. Because we were all driven by being motivated to be the best at what we did I think this stage for us was over quite quickly as we were all mature enough not to focus on small problems but to tackle the real issues that arose, also team members were patient and tolerant of each other, If that was not to be then this stage would have become destructive to the team and would have lowered motivation if allowed to get out of control. As the team leader I remained directive in their guidance and of decision-making and professional behaviour, my team members therefore resolved their differences and were able to participate with each other more comfortably and therefore share their opinions and views.
NORMING.
At this stage I had to have one goal and that was to come up with a mutual plan for my team, but I did not have to give up on my ideas for my team to function, we all had to take responsibility and have the ambition to work for the success of the team’s goals.
PERFORMING.
We did make this stage! We are now high performing and function as a unit; we find ways to get jobs done smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external supervision. We are motivated and very knowledgeable. My team members are now competent and able to handle some decision making without supervision and I find myself now in a more participating role, but that doesn’t go to say that we never revert back to earlier stages in certain circumstances, If I were not there and a different style of leadership were used then the team would be back to Storming as the existing norms could be challenged.

Knowing my team members preferred roles I am going to refer to Dr Meredith Belbin who conducted extensive studies involving successful and unsuccessful teams competing in business games at Henley Management Centre. Managers taking part in the exercise were tested on a range of psychometric instruments and placed into teams made up in a variety of ways. Nine different clusters of behaviour, or “Team Roles”, were identified as underlying the success of teams.
ACTION - Oriented Roles: Shaper / Implementer / Complete Finisher
PEOPLE – Oriented Roles: Team Worker / Coordinator / Resource Investigator
CEREBAL ROLES: Plant / Specialist / Monitor Evaluator
Belbin’s research showed that a balanced team – one with the greatest chance to develop fully effective working arrangements would contain a balance of these Team Roles. Belbin’s model allowed me to analyse collective strengths and weaknesses of my teams roles and to capitalise on those strengths to minimise the negative impact of its weaknesses. I have six members in my team and my personal opinion of them is as follows.
1 x Plant – Creative, Imaginative, Unorthodox, solves difficult problems, Allowable Weaknesses are ignores incidentals as could be too preoccupied to communicate effectively.
1 x Implementers – Disciplined, Reliable, Conservative and efficient. Turns ideas into practical actions, Allowable Weaknesses are somewhat inflexible and slow to respond to new possibilities.
1 x Resource Investigator – Extrovert, Enthusiastic, Communicative. Explores opportunities.
Allowable Weaknesses are over optimistic. Loses interest once initial enthusiasm has passes.
1 x Complete Finisher – Painstaking, Conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time. Allowable Weaknesses are inclined to worry unduly. Reluctant to delegate.
2 x Team workers - Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction. Allowable Weaknesses are indecisive in crunch situations.
Myself – Co-ordinator – Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals, promotes decision making, delegates well. Allowable Weaknesses are – can be seen as manipulative and offloads personal work.
I can now use this information as a Self-Awareness tool “it is only by knowing ourselves that we have any chance of improving and achieving our full potential”
Team roles as a tool for Effective Teams
People working within a group or team bring to the group two key things. The first is their competency – specialist knowledge, qualifications, experience, etc. Secondly is the way we work and contribute, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the Team?