Rabu, 12 Agustus 2009

Leading Teams

Course Number 2020

Career Focus

This course is intended for students who will be responsible for leading and managing a group of people and who wish to increase their competence in working across a wide variety of group settings

Educational Objectives

The objectives of this course are 1) to sharpen your understanding of both the disruptive forces that can derail teams and the conditions that increase team effectiveness; 2) to develop your ability to diagnose complex team dynamics and take action to improve team functioning, particularly in teams that bridge geographical and cultural differences; and 3) to build the combination of analytic and interpersonal skills you need to effectively lead teams.

Course Content and Organization

Soon after graduation, many students take responsibility for leading a small group of people. If you are in charge of such a group, your own success will depend on your ability to 1) enhance the performance of each individual group member, and 2) foster the appropriate amount and type of coordination among all members. Effective group leaders leverage the skills, talents, and insights of group members, guiding the group to accomplish far more than members could achieve by working independently. Unfortunately, many dysfunctional groups do the opposite, wasting or even undercutting members' contributions. This course will help you identify the common problems that groups encounter along with the actions that group leaders (or members) can take to avoid or remedy these problems. In doing so, the course will sort through the widespread myths and misconceptions about teams that often stand in the way of effective teamwork, even as teams become a way of life in many organizations. The course consists of three modules.

Module I. Team Design: Creating the Conditions for Optimal Team Functioning
The goal of this module is to develop an understanding of the enabling conditions that maximize a team's chances of success. The module will focus on how leaders can assemble and launch effective teams by putting into place appropriate contextual conditions, structures, members, and task assignments.

Module II. Team Processes: Diagnosing and Remedying Team Dynamics
The first goal of this module is to provide conceptual guidelines for diagnosing team dynamics and determining one's strategic options as a manager for intervening to improve these dynamics. We will identify the problems that most frequently disrupt team members' interactions, and the underlying sources of these problems. The second goal is to impart practical interpersonal skills for implementing effective interventions in group situations.

Module III. Bridging Differences in Teams
This module gives special consideration to the challenges and opportunities of leading teams that are culturally diverse, with a special emphasis on differences among team members in race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, and other dimensions of social identity that are marked by a history of intergroup prejudice, discrimination, or misunderstanding. These differences give rise to different life experiences, knowledge, and insights that teams can leverage to spur high performance. Yet they also breed conflict, mistrust, and misunderstanding. This module explores the forces within society and individuals that hinder the effective functioning of culturally diverse teams and examines how team leaders can foster conditions that make cultural diversity an asset rather than a liability.

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