If a manager is to successfully carry out the process of team development, the active participation of the whole team is
required. The process must be public, and the manager must not impose any conditions upon the group.
The group must examine their primary function as a team, the tasks that are expected of them, and whether these accord with the formal organization structure.
As a result of team development, it is expected that the overall effectiveness of the team will improve in a number of ways:
- The team members will come to
identify with the team, and to accept their individual responsibilities.
- The distribution of work responsibilities within the team will be flexibile enough to allow changes along with a changing situation.
- The group will feel they have greater control over their immediate environment.
- The feedback provided by the members of the group should enable each member to test his or her perceptions against the norm, and to modify his future behavior if required.
- Sincere feedback is the foundation upon which mutual trust can be built. Once there is mutual trust between the various team members, it will strengthen open communication between them. Difficulties arising out of the group’s operations can thus be corrected as a matter of routine.
- Genuine feedback helps to identify the problem areas. Once identified, the problems can be tackled and solved.
- The whole team shares in the sense of achievement when a task is completed.
Analytical thinking is also an integral part of the process of team development. As their past experiences will help the group to identify other problems, and to deal with them effectively. Their
learning may be related to specific problems, or process related. The group will learn to generalize their learning, and apply it to other situations as and when they arise.