Willcutts Nurseries Case Study - The Garden Centre

objectives. As a manager/leader your role is to plan, motivate, organise and control the team and at the same time be understanding to the needs of the individual members with out losing

sight of your responsibility to the organisation.

Team Formation

Forming is the initial stage that teams must go through as it develops. It is the time when initial assessments about the job and other team members are formed.

Individuals are finding their place in the group in the group dynamic. This is the time when the group leader will take note of who seems sure of their place and those who seem to be struggling to fit in. As a leader, it may be beneficial to adopt a parental style of leadership to guide them to their place and become part of the team, but also to curb any activity of the more extroverted members that may be detrimental to the team.

The leader must also guide the team into the correct work method. The leader must keep the POMC theory in mind when deciding what is best for the team.

Storming, the second stage, is the phase once the initial dynamics are established, work objectives laid out and leadership styles made known that some members of the team may take issues on how the team function. They may, in their, try to orchestrate a failure in order to complain about team ineffectiveness to those higher up the management scale.

Members of the team may also begin to re-evaluate their attitudes and behaviour to others.

The leader may have to become autocratic at this point in order to lay down the law to those members of the team who are out of line and get them working toward the team objectives. However it is important to allow criticisms to come out into the open and aim to resolve them.

Norming is the stage where the team moves on and starts functioning as a unit; realising that co-operation is the key to success. An improved atmosphere also leads to better intra-team attitudes. Standards and norms become established and the team moves on.

At the performing stage the team becomes very effective at what it does and begins achieving a high standard. Each member of the team contributes fully to the success of the team. At this stage little leadership may be required as the team is its own leader. However there will always be individual's needs that the leader must address.

The dorming stage is the final stage which is when the team looses interest or its way. This usually happens once a main objective has been completed and a sense of purpose begins to wane. Another possibility is that intra-team bickering is too great and the team consistently fails to achieve. A leader must decide if it is time to disband the team or reconstruct.

Team Working and Motivation

Motivation of the team is essential for the objectives to be completed, in the case of Shoots garden centre, become successful.

A successfully working team is a good motivation in itself as individuals tend to encourage and support each other within the team, which leads to higher self esteem and greater self confidence. If every member of the team feels good about their abilities and place in the team then the end result will see the team achieve more together than as individuals.

Team and individual rewards such as bonuses are often linked to performance. If targets are achieved or reached a financial reward is issued, possibly to a team or to individuals. However if a team reach a target and a reward is issued with the team carrying a member may lead to resentment. Also when individual bonuses are issued in team situations resentment may follow.

Empowerment and involvement in the decision making process allows members of the team to feel as if they are contributing something extra that simply completing given tasks. Then team making its own decisions leads to job satisfaction as setting and achieving personally goals is far more gratifying.

Job rotation is important when repetition of tasks leads to jobs becoming mundane and individuals becoming disillusioned. Rotating tasks between different members of staff allows everyone to do the more enjoyable jobs without landing someone with the bad ones constantly. A favourite saying of customers in the store where I worked previously was: "A change is as good as a rest."

In Shoots, which is a retail outlet, job rotation will allow every member of staff to participate in all aspects of the day to day running of the store and should alleviate excessive repetition. However their may be individual members of staff who are more suited to particular tasks than others and as a manger it is my responsibility to ensure tasks are given to the most able to carry them out, especially on Health and Safety grounds. With the wide range of different tasks that need carried out on a daily basis there should be plenty of variety.

Team and Organisations Culture

"The culture of the team outlives the members of the team"

How a team relates to itself and the organisation it belongs to can influence how decisions are made and task completed. The greater the maturity of a team the more cohesive they are and also greater the loyalty shown to the rest of the team. This leads to greater intra-team support and for the team's objectives. Well established teams can keep members inline and aid the integration

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