Work Engagement in Agile Teams: The Missing Link Between Team Autonomy, Trust, and Performance?

To have engaged and high-performing agile teams are what most organizations strive for. At the same time, there is little research on the drivers of team work engagement in the software context. Team autonomy and trust are crucial for agile teams and are suggested as potential boosters of team work engagement and performance. In this study, we apply the Job Demands-Resources model to examine the role of autonomy and trust and their impact on work engagement and team performance in agile teams. We analyze quantitative survey data from 236 team members in 43 agile teams to examine how team autonomy and trust relate to team work engagement and how engagement mediates the relationship between these factors and performance. Our results show that while both autonomy and trust are positively related to team work engagement, team trust plays a more critical role than team autonomy. Teams with high team trust showed higher engagement, which enhanced team performance. Our results highlight the importance of social factors such as trust in creating conditions for high performance in agile teams through its effect on team work engagement.publishedVersio

Communication Network Design: Balancing Modularity and Mixing via Optimal Graph Spectra

By leveraging information technologies, organizations now have the ability to design their communication networks and crowdsourcing platforms to pursue various performance goals, but existing research on network design does not account for the specific features of social networks, such as the notion of teams. We fill this gap by demonstrating how desirable aspects of organizational structure can be mapped parsimoniously onto the spectrum of the graph Laplacian allowing the specification of structural objectives and build on recent advances in non-convex programming to optimize them. This design framework is general, but we focus here on the problem of creating graphs that balance high modularity and low mixing time, and show how "liaisons" rather than brokers maximize this objective

Designing high performance teams for projects : a study of 49 project teams in the UK construction industry

Teams have been presented as a panacea to complex and turbulent business environments, but there are few examples of genuinely high-performing teams. This study considers the utility of work design as a means of improving the performance of project teams and thereby resolving this paradox. Grounded in quantitative methodology, and supported by relevant qualitative data, this study has used a single case experiment to examine the effects of multiple work design variables on the climate and performance of 49 construction project management teams. The single case environment provided an opportunity to study a large number of real work groups, executing broadly similar tasks, while controlling for the effects of organisational culture on social and work behaviour. The results indicated that three levels of intervention - transformational leadership, team organisation and team performance orientation - were influential in either (a) directly influencing project team performance or (b) creating a team climate which was itself predictive of desired outcomes, specifically the moderation of project complexity and higher levels of productivity. In particular, the results showed that the `inspiring a shared vision' leader practice was influential in explaining the perceived satisfaction of customers with project team performance. This provides empirical evidence that visionary leadership is an important determinant of high performance in complex, fluid and uncertain work environments, such as construction project management. Although task orientation and shared vision emerged as reasonably strong performance norms in the sample, it is generally difficult isolating the referent group norm(s) which explain(s) the variation in the performance of project teams working in myriad social, temporal and task conditions. Rather than attempting to manage group behaviour in realtime, therefore, the results of this study suggest that a coherent and integrated package of work design interventions can leverage exceptional value from project teams by helping each team to develop unique performance and behavioural strategies

A critical evaluation of the factors influencing team performance in a financial institution’s working capital team.

Masters Degree . University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.In the age of significant transformation, it is becoming increasingly important for the Financial Services Industry to fulfil customer needs speedily and to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It is vital that Financial Institutions (FIs) continuously look for ways to achieve greater efficiencies and be more effective in their operations. To assist FIs in achieving its goals, these organisations are structured as segments and further divided into business units, which operate as teams. Effective teamwork is viewed as a competitive advantage that can assist an organisation in improving its market share, enhancing employee engagement and providing the base for continuous improvement and innovation. These teams, deemed to be high performance teams, can potentially overcome problems more effectively than employees working independently. However, a team takes time to develop and mature and creating a high performing team may not be easy to achieve. A FI Working Capital (WC) business unit is heavily reliant on team-based structures to achieve goals. There are three teams i.e. Audit, Sales and Operations in the WC team. Researching the critical components and characteristics of a high performance team was therefore necessary. The study was pragmatic and took the form of an exploratory study, using a FI’s WC team as a case study. A mixed methods study was performed and considered seven factors that influence team performance. The team’s performance in relation to these factors i.e. purpose and vision; leadership; results focus; relationships and communication; flexibility; shared responsibility; and team processes, as well as common challenges faced by the team, which include lack of communication and ineffective and inflexible processes, was identified through 37 completed questionnaires and three interviews, performed in the first quarter of the FIs financial year. The results were analysed as a whole as well broken-down into team specific feedback, which reflected that the Operations team fared worse than both the Sales and Audit team under all factors. The results also reflected improvement was required for all teams. Further, insight was obtained on how teams can achieve a high performing status, resulting in recommendations such as developing a team charter and providing open, honest and constructive feedback being made to the WC team on how to become a high performance team

Creating Connection Between Individuals And Teams: Understanding Human Biology And Psychology For High Performance

This capstone is a result of four questions formulated around a central theme focused on understanding what it is that makes teams and environments high performing today, and additionally, how leaders connect with others in order to set high performing environments. In the first question (Chapter 2), exploration of our human biology shows our genetics are wired for connection and collaboration although this may be in contradiction with many aspects of American society today. The second question (Chapter 3) explored human motivation. Instead of understanding the individual, we have to look further to understand how the cues from the environment are impacting motivations. With focus on creating better environments—those rooted in purpose and fulfilling human needs—performance improves. Question 3 (Chapter 4) examined examples of leaders who create high quality motivational environments and how it impacts people and teams. In the final chapter (Chapter 5), Question 4 there are some applied ideas for leaders to begin to understand how to better build teams. Through this Capstone, it becomes clear that in order to perform at a high level, leaders have to create environments where individuals are connected to both a strong purpose and the people around them. In order for this connection to occur individuals must be willing to accept vulnerabilities and take risk. Psychologically safe environments (created by leaders) encourage individuals to show up authentically as themselves and perform to their potential

Team to Market (T2M): Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age

1. Teams are the essential means of product or service delivery and the fundamental building blocks of modern organisations. An effective team can produce results far outperforming a collection of even the most talented individuals when team members coalesce and jell into a single, well-functioning, fully-aligned organism. This report advances the notion of “Team to Market” (T2M) to help business leaders and knowledge workers understand, create and lead high performance teams in the digital age

Driving and sustaining culture change in Olympic sport performance teams: A first exploration and grounded theory

Stimulated by growing interest in the organizational and performance leadership components of Olympic success, sport psychology researchers have identified Performance Director-led culture change as a process of particular theoretical and applied significance. To build on initial work in this area, and develop practically meaningful understanding, a pragmatic research philosophy and grounded theory methodology were engaged to uncover culture change best practice from the perspective of newly appointed Performance Directors. Delivered in complex and contested settings, results revealed that the optimal change process consisted of an initial evaluation, planning, and impact phase adjoined to the immediate and enduring management of a multi-directional, perception- and power-based social system. As the first inquiry of its kind, these findings provide a foundation for the continued theoretical development of culture change in Olympic sport performance teams and a first model on which applied practice can be based

Self-Actualized Leaders’ Relationships With Dynamic Teams

A recent study of 831 companies around the world found that employees on average tend to spend 54% of their time working within teams (Frey et al., 2013). Today, this number is estimated to be an additional four to six percent higher (Gallup, 2020). Despite the upward trend of increased reliance on team-based structures in effort to improve productivity and boost morale, research reveals approximately two-thirds of U.S. employees are not engaged in their workplace (Gallup, 2020). More than half (51%) of workers merely go through the motions of their job, barely meeting minimum position responsibilities. However, leadership is essential to creating and sustaining high-performing teams (Perkins, 2017; Sparks, 2019; Sparks & Repede, 2016). A manager or a team leader appears to have the potential to influence a productive group culture and ultimately greater team success. The researcher carried out a correlational study that focused on team leaders’ self-actualization (Maslow, 1943) and the culture of their teams (Bion, 1961). The main purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between self-actualized leaders and high-performing (Dynamic) team cultures. The study also looked to see if specific leadership motivation drives related to specific team cultures (Power-Dependent; Achievement-Detached and Affiliation-Dramatic) An analysis of the data revealed a significant positive correlation between the leaders’ self-actualization and the leaders’ dynamic group cultures, r = .202, p \u3c .05. Positive correlations were also found between the leaders’ motivation drives of achievement and the corresponding Detached culture, r = .347, p \u3c .01, as well as power motivational drives and their teams’ Dependent cultures, r = .489, p \u3c .01. The study also found a significant negative correlation between the leaders’ affirmation motivational drive and the teams’ Dramatic culture, r = -.186, p \u3c .05. Together, these correlations provide evidence that the leaders’ self-actualization and primary motivations are related to their teams’ group culture. The current study results add to the extant literature on how leadership behavior may influence team performance

Progress Being Made in Getting a Quality Leader in Every School

Reviews the progress made by the SREB states in improving their school leadership through redesigning the process of preparation and development of school principals. Describes promising practices being implemented, and offers practical guidance