Team Building and Analysis

High Performing Teams Analysis Report

The report provides an analysis of the findings of the research article titled "A critical analysis of high performing teams: A case study based on the British Telecommunication (BT) PLC" (Quader, & Quader, 2009 p 172). The authors analyze the motivation and composition of the team in BT (British Telecom) by interviewing BT experienced employees as well as analyzing the company document to provide an insight into the benefit of the team composition. The authors also examine the application of the MBTI and Belbin's Theory in a real business world. Quader, & Quader, (2009) define a team as a group of people compose of between 8 and 15 members with a common goal of producing a well-defined output by rotating allocation of a given task. Put in other words, a team is a set of two or more group of people interacting interdependently, dynamically and adaptively to achieve a common goal. In a formal organization, a team consists of individuals with a shared leadership, complementary skills, and mutual accountability. While the team building is beneficial to organizations, however, a high-performing team can be challenging, and may be difficult to build, and expensive to maintain. Nevertheless, the end results of high functional teams are rewarding because they assist in enhancing the organizational performances. Thus, a good understanding of the tools to motivate, develop and build teams are very critical for organization success.

The objective of the report is to carry out the analysis of the findings of the case study and provide recommendations, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses.

Analysis of the Findings of the BT Case Study

Quader, & Quader, (2009) use the British Telecom as the case study revealing the benefits and challenges that the BT enjoys from the team building. Quader, et al. (2009) describe BT as the leading telecommunication company in the UK with operations all over Europe, America, and Asia-Pacific. The BT is the leader in the telecommunication services serving more than 20 million residential and corporate customers across the UK. A high performing team building is one of the strategies that the organization employs to achieve the superior market performances. Quader, et al. (2009) argue that the BT team building strategy is by pulling people from different departments and group them together to perform a given task. The BT team composition is generally less than 20 members, however, the company uses five different form of team building strategy depending on the type of problems to be solved. The organization starts by pulling the team together to define a given problem. The second group focuses on the causes of the problem and set up the budget that will be used to solve the problem. The next stage is to pull the team together from different departments to solve the problem.

Quader, & Quader, (2009) argue that BT uses a team to solve the problem associated with complex tasks. By pulling a mixture of people with specialized skills, BT has been able to overcome the business challenges that an employee may not be able to overcome. In the article, the authors discuss benefits and challenges that British Telecom derives from a team selection and building process. A recent technology development has increased competitions among firms, thus, a firm needs a highly specialized knowledge to achieve competitive market advantages. Thus, combining a high performing team together assists in pooling knowledge resources to make the team member becoming a high performer to achieve organization performances.

Despite the benefits that the British Telecom derives from the team building, the biggest challenges that the company faces in a team building process is the enormous costs associated with forming a high performing team. (Nelson, 2010).

Another challenges that the organization faces in building a performing team is a lengthy process of providing a training program for the team members. Moreover, it will take a lot of time to provide the team with materials and information to perform a good job. Sometimes, a selection process of a team member is not necessary to guarantee a success from a high performing team. (Guttman, 2011).

Quader, & Quader, (2009) also reveal the benefits and shortcoming of the application of "Belbin's Nine Team Roles Theory and the MBTI" (p 192). The authors argue that the BT managers follow the MBTI theoretical perspective for the team building process. The theory ascertains that the first task in the team building process is to develop a problem that needs to be solved. The next step is to form a team who will brainstorm to get a clear understanding of the tasks and problems that the team will overcome, which will determine the capabilities, personalities, and competencies of the team members. According to the MBTI approach, the strategy assists BT to identify the number of people that will compose of a team and resources to be allocated to the team. The MBTI offers different benefits for the British Telecom in a team building process. First, the MBTI offers an easy and quick application of the questionnaires. Moreover, its statistical analysis is accurate, which has been proven with an effective mathematical formula. The shortcoming of Belbin's theory is its lack of accuracy because it draws a conclusion from a small set of data.

Quader, & Quader, (2009) also provide findings on how British Telecom improves team performances through motivation and rewards. In the contemporary business environment, it is not enough to build a team alone, however, an organization is required to develop an incentive through motivation and rewards to influence the team behaviors. While financial rewards are very common in the UK business environment, the British Telecom uses the reward scheme to recognize a team and individual achievement. Moreover, the company uses the promotion to reward a high-performing individual.

"An example is the BT Retail's My Customer Challenge Cup where teams compete in finding ideas to resolve local issues and to improve customer service. The winner's performance is also recognized via the internal press, like an article in the company's monthly newspaper 'BT Today's or notice on the intranet." (Quader, & Quader, 2009 p 197).

Analysis of the article reveals that BT lays emphasis on financial rewards to motivate employees. While money has been identified as a strong motivator for organizational performances, nevertheless, motivating employees through financial rewards can only achieve a short-term success within an organization. (Hamstra, 2015). An increasing number of employees are emphasizing on job satisfaction, and job security, thus, it will be critical for an organization to design a job environment that will be favorable for employee and team building process. (Brueller, & Carmeli, 2011).