Critical Issue: Building a Committed Team

ISSUE: Making schools successful takes more than just individual effort - it takes teamwork. Schools are using teams to accomplish many tasks. Teams may work on site-based decisionmaking, curricular reform, implementing new programs, or restructuring. For teamwork to be successful, teams and individual team members need to have clear, shared goals; a sense of commitment; the ability to work together; mutual accountability; access to needed resources and skills; and other elements of effective teams.

While successful teamwork can be rewarding in itself, teamwork should focus on meeting the academic and social needs of all students in the school. Just as the school vision and mission should focus on student learning, team building, team planning, and team developing should be directed toward improving student outcomes.

OVERVIEW: In many schools, teachers work in isolation, administrators try to accomplish tasks alone, and the responsibility of implementating new ideas falls to individuals. Working together in teams often is a more effective way to accomplish important tasks. Teams have many advantages over individuals working in isolation. Teams tend to be better at solving problems, have a higher level of commitment, and include more people who can help implement an idea or plan. Moreover, teams are able to generate energy and interest in new projects.

Both research and practice demonstrate the advantages that teams bring to accomplishing goals. But effective teams do not develop by accident. Teams take time, skills, and knowledge to be successful.

Kent Peterson, professor of educational administration, University of Wisconsin-Madison, challenges administrators to support team-building and collaboration by providing time and resources, in order to reap the benefits effective teams can bring to schools (audio comment, 313k). Excerpted from a presentation given at NCREL's Urban School Leadership Mini-Conference in July 1993. A text transcript is available.

Transformational leadership skills can help in developing such high-performing teams. Leaders of school transformation must be able to inspire, motivate, and support teams. Engaged and high-performing teams thrive in a "learning organization," where colleagues support each other in learning, risk-taking, innovation, and change (Senge, 1990).

GOALS: School leaders (including administrators, teachers, and parents) should help nurture and build highly committed teams for accomplishing school activities and goals, which may include school improvement planning, site-based management, budget and personnel decisions, and implementing programs or plans.

Diana Langolis Former kindergarten teacher from Joyce Elementary School in Detroit, Diana Langlois, talks about how her principal supports team building and learning at the school and the benefits that have resulted (QuickTime slide show, 487k). Excerpted from NCREL's urban school leadership case studies (1992). A text transcript is available.

Effective team functioning requires finding time, selecting team members, empowering team members, providing training in relevant skills and knowledge, developing shared goals, and facilitating team functioning - particularly in the early stages of the team's work.

ACTION OPTIONS:

Obtain support, training, and information on shared decisionmaking, perhaps by contacting organizations that work with schools in developing teams.
Learn about the importance of teams in the success of organizations by reading about how teams are more effective than individuals.
Discuss how the team is functioning and learn about the functions of teams in schools by reading about programs that work (Maeroff, 1993).
Teams can become more efficient, with less conflict and more successful decisionmaking, by participating in training for effective team building.
To overcome individuals' resistance to working together, team members should learn from other successful teams, perhaps by viewing videotapes on effective teamwork or reading about another team's accomplishments.
Learn how collaboration and a shared culture can support teamwork.
Teams also can become more self-aware and successful by learning about the stages of team development, the positive and negative roles that can exist in teams, team problem finding and problem solving (Yukl, 1989), and methods for avoiding and resolving conflict.

IMPLEMENTATION PITFALLS:

The school staff and administration may not have the skills, knowledge, and capacities for effective teamwork.

Kent Peterson, professor of educational administration, University of Wisconsin-Madison, discusses the challenges of collaboration and the need for coaching (audio comment, 210k). Excerpted from a presentation at NCREL's Urban School Leadership Mini-Conference in July 1993. A text transcript is available.

The team may not share clear goals or purposes, and therefore defining specific goals will be important.
Hargreaves, Fullan, and others (cited in Fullan, 1993) note that teams often face issues that can decrease the effectiveness of the team and specifically its ability to make decisions: (1) the time trade-offs in decisionmaking (team decisionmaking can take time away from working directly on classroom planning, curriculum, and instructional activities), (2) problems of "groupthink" and pressure to conform, and (3) the potential for increased conflict over decisionmaking.
Without adequate team training and preparation, it is unlikely that team(s) will work effectively to develop and realize a shared vision.
Katzenbach and Smith (1993) list the following requirements for building effective teams:

Teams must be small enough in the number of members.
Members must have adequate levels of complementary skills.
The team must have a truly meaningful purpose.
The team must have a specific goal or goals.
The team and its members must establish a clear approach to the team's work.
Members must have a sense of mutual accountability.

Without team leadership (as opposed to traditional top-down leadership), teams will be unproductive.
Another potential barrier is individual resistance to working in teams.

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW: Few people would deny that teams can be highly effective. But some believe that teams must face enormous obstacles before they can become effective in schools. Some teachers have never worked on teams and actually became teachers so that they could work independently. In other cases, staff and administrators have not been trained to cope with the special challenges of working in teams and practicing shared decisionmaking.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES:

Piccolo Elementary School, Chicago, Illinois

Joyce Elementary School, Detroit, Michigan

Hollibrook Elementary School, Houston, Texas

Audubon Elementary School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

CONTACTS:

The Accelerated Schools Project, CERAS 109, School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-3084, 415-725-1676 Contact: Beth Keller, assistant director of communications, e-mail: bkeller@leland.stanford.edu

California School Leadership Academy, 313 W. Winton Ave., Hayward, CA 94544-1198, 510-670-4569, Contact: Laraine Roberts, e-mail: lroberts@csla.org

Center for Leadership in School Reform, 950 Breckenridge Lane, Suite 200, Louisville, Kentucky 40207, 502-895-1942 Contact: Marty Vowels, e-mail: clsr@aol.com

Coalition for Essential Schools, Dr. Ted Sizer, Director, Box 1938, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, 401- 863-2847

CMI, 711 South Blvd., Suite 9, Oak Park, IL 60302, 708-383-7970, FAX 708-383-0819, Contact: Bruce Hodes, e-mail: bhodes@aol.com

School Development Program, Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Rd., Box 3333, New Haven, CT 06510, 203-785-2548 Contact: Cynthia Savo, WWW: http://info.med.yale.edu/comer

Program for School Improvement, College of Education, 124 Aderhold Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, 706-542-2516, Contact: Lew Allen, director of outreach, e-mail: lewallen@uga.cc.uga.edu

References

This Critical Issue summary was researched and written by Kent Peterson, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Date posted: 1995