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How to Put Man On the Moon Effective Team Dynamics
The Project Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Program is a fine example of Team Dynamics, as it shows successful implementation of a vast, highly improbable technological task within a finite period of time, by the teamwork of dedicated people. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” In this simple statement, astronaut Neil Armstrong acknowledged that his feat of stepping on the lunar surface was not an individual achievement. It was a result of the determination and hard work by a team. Though he may have used the statement to express humility and modesty, Neil Armstrong was far from the truth. The lunar landing remains one of the finest examples of team dynamics in the history of mankind.
On 5 May, 161, President John F Kennedy, set a goal for his country. “…. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” According to author Ayn Rand, when he set forth this goal, the President asked the nation’s space agency for “an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality.” How the President pursued and achieved this task is a classic example of Team Dynamics and Peak Learning at their best.
When NASA accepted the challenge, it was evident that no single individual possessed all the skills to achieve the daunting task. The result was the formation of teams comprising members with diverse professional backgrounds, experience, intelligence and skills. These teams had a common purpose, to achieve the task.
According to Leigh Thompson, Eileen Aranda, and Stephen Robins, “A team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to information, resources, and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal.”(). They go on to classify the teams as follows
Work Teams. These perform the day-to-day tasks of the organization. At a lower level, these teams may comprise ‘in house’ members of an office, or at a larger scale, the office itself could be a team of an organization. The group that assembled the national flag to be unfurled on the moon is an example of a work team. These teams typically comprised of up to five people.
Task Teams. These temporary teams are formed when an organization cannot develop an important project or resolve a major problem within a specified period of time. For example, NASA Committee on Symbolic Activities was created to select symbolic activities that would not jeopardize crew safety or interfere with mission objectives.
Management Teams. These teams participate in major decisions and strive for best results by joint effort. The Wiesner Committee Report to the President-Elect of the Ad Hoc Committee on Space recognized the “…urgent need to establish more effective management and coordination of the United States space effort”. It also announced the intention of using the National Aeronautics and Space Council for coordinating government space activities.
NASA is not the only organization to employ the teamwork concept. Since the latter years of the twentieth century, corporate America has been indulging in the teamwork model. Companies form teams to replace an individualistic, competitive management style with a more trusting and cooperative style. Selection and formation of a team is of utmost importance. Without the right people, nothing is possible. Some of the qualities desired in team members are
Mutual trust and cooperation.
Openness and reciprocal support.
Disagreement without conflict.
Elimination of status differences.
No ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitude.
Clear purpose, commitment, and identification with each other.
Structured and divergent, but disciplined.
Mutual care among team members, with a will to do the job well.
Composing a team is a complex task. Two factors which govern the efficacy of a team are size and selection its members.
The size of a team plays a major role in its effectiveness. Experience and research have indicated that for a team to be effective, it should comprise of 4 to 1 members. A team with less than four members may lack the right attitude and it may be unable to tackle a major problem. A team with more than 1 members could lead to organizational and interpersonal relationship challenges. The task of the team also determines its size. Smaller teams produce quicker results, and are more productive than larger teams. However, large groups have advantages if the task is complex and needs different inputs. Research has also established that groups with odd numbers are more effective than even numbers and that five to seven members is an optimum number for performing as a smaller or larger team. (Leigh Thompson et al. 41).
The second important factor determining a team’s effectiveness is the selection of its members. The common errors are selecting members of comparable expertise or members with similar demographics. The net result is lack of new ideas, skills, and members being segregated by their culture and community rather than their value to the team. Strong teams are made of members selected on their merit rather than on superficial factors.
One of the first things NASA realized was that great improvements were required to the management structure and planning to accomplish the great task of putting a man on the moon. NASA’s organization included headquarters, centers, and contractors. It was diverse and competitive. What these elements had in common was a goal; to get to the moon. The team goal or charter is critical to the success of any team because it sets the expectations and promotes accountability. Team members can save time and be set up for success if they put the intellectual effort into the charter at the start, this will help to ensure that all the goals of the team are met. Once a team has been created, the next step is to set a charter for the team. “Chartering is a process by which the team is formed, its mission or task described, its resources allocated, its goal set, its membership committed, and its plans made”. (Leigh Thompson et al. 70). The authors suggest that the team ask the following questions while making the charter
What is the purpose for creating the team?
What kind of team is needed?
Will the team be manager led or self-managed?
What skills are needed to accomplish the goal?
How will members be selected?
What resources will be necessary to achieve the objectives?
What are the boundaries?
What process will the team use to get results?
How will we secure equal commitment?
How will we plan for conflict?
What will we do to get the job done? The project plan.
What will we evaluate our success and learn from the process? (Leigh Thompson et al. 70-71).
Once the team has a solid charter in place, it is critical that they hold productive meetings and work towards achieving team goals. How to conduct team meetings is an issue that has often been discussed among teams in all organizations. According to Leigh Thompson and others, the factors to consider when conducting productive meetings, include
Duration of the meeting.
Location.
Talking points and topics for discussion.
Attendance rules.
Will we have a team leader or Team manager? (Leigh Thompson et al. 86).
These were questions that our learning team had to answer in our first meeting. We established ground rules for future meetings. These helped us to be successful and have helped us to avoid miss-communication and other potential issues that could be unproductive.
The content of each meeting is also very important. Many times the content of the next meeting can be discussed during the end of the previous meeting; this will give each team member an agenda for the next meeting. In our own learning team environment we have communicated in advance through email to set the topic of our next meeting and what role each of us will have.
Learning teams can be even more successful if they choose to follow some of the models for effective meetings. Authors Leigh Thompson and others suggest one models that team members can us is the 4P Meeting Management Model (Whetton & Cameron, 11). This model has four key steps (1) specify the purpose of the meeting, () invite the right people, () carefully plan the meeting content and format, and (4) effectively manage the meeting’s process. Effective meetings can be achieved in the team environment if they follow some basic guidelines such as prepare in advance, set the objectives, plan an agenda and do your homework.
In order to control the different areas and issues that can arise in a team project, you need a project manager. A project manager is someone who has the most important role in a team. They have to make sure the project is delivered in the proper time, budget, quality, and any other parameters set forth during the project team creation. The project manager needs to control every part of the project team and has to determine many different criteria, such as the deliverables and milestones that will enable successful completion of the team’s tasks. He/she has to prepare themselves and the team for unexpected variations in the normal flow of the project. Maintaining the individuals on the team and knowing their strengths and weaknesses is a very important part of the team management responsibility. Project managers have to keep their team on task and know how to balance their different skills to best achieve optimum results on the project. The ability to communicate effectively and to manage their team’s expectations can help the project manager let their team know the best way to proceed and when they know they have achieved their goals. The team will need to know what they can expect out of the end result and knowing when they are successful will help them best judge when the outcome is successful. The project manager needs to be able to handle conflicts and any anger that shows itself in the team, especially when things don’t go as planned. The team needs to know the project manager has the ability to calm any situation and take control of any areas that just get out of hand. Meetings are another area that the project manager role is very important. The project manager needs to be an excellent facilitator. There are various types of roles in the meeting that need to be understood by the project manager. These include the task roles, the maintenance roles, and the individual centered roles. These refer to different ways that team members interact in a meeting and can be constructive like the task role or can actually hinder a decision like the individual centered role. In the end, managing a project requires many areas of expertise to get the best results out of the team and having a dedicated program manager can help achieve the most possible.
Teams are formed primarily for decision-making and problem solving by thinking together. To think effectively, teams must reveal the following thinking qualities
Sound thinking. Sound thinking is based on evidence and its inference. A team may have information or evidence regarding an issue or a problem. However, it is equally crucial that the team has the ability to draw inference out of the knowledge. Evidence and inference are the elements for the ideas that are developed by sound thinking.
Systematic thinking. Team thinking will be most effective if it is systematic. There are various procedures proposed by researchers for systematic decision-making. Dutch economist, Jan Tinbergen proposed the ‘rational’ approach whereas, David Braybrooke and Charles Lindbloom advocate the ‘incrementalist’ approach.
The rational approach to problem solving is an orderly procedure, has sequential development, and is comprehensive. The approach requires the team to work on three steps
Set your values and have long range goals agreed upon initially.
A comprehensive search for alternative plans must be pursued.
Potential consequences of alternative courses of action should be considered.
The incrementalist approach asks the team to remain problem orientated rather than become goal oriented. It suggests that the team move away from the problem with a course of action only slightly (a small step) different from the status quo. It holds that if the team takes only a small step, the risk is limited and the team can usually return to the existing system if the new approach fails. Incrementalist approach is orderly, exploratory and conservative.
The easiest method for decision-making, during a meeting would comprise of individuals put up their ideas and thoughts to the forum for discussion. This would invariably fall victim to personal aspirations of other members, politics and other factors not related to effective decision-making. For it to be effective, decision-making must have a laid down and accepted procedure.
Among all of the technical difficulties that the Lunar team had to tackle, one of the most daunting was the method of communicating with Apollo 11 as it traveled to the moon. Communication was key, to address problems, correct errors, verify course, and literally link the “team” to the traveling astronauts. Today that still holds true, in fact, more than ever. The business environment has truly become a global entity where different segments can be a half a world away and are expected to work cohesively. Furthermore the need to be ‘efficient’, generally with fewer players in the team, has made the use of technology essential to proper functioning of the team dynamics.
The team’s dynamics is constantly evolving and changing in its internal methodologies. In the last ten years with the development of the internet many of the boundaries that prevented effective Team dynamics in a global market have been redefined and new rules established.
Nevertheless there are many Pro’s and cons for this technology and to many learning curves that needs to be completed.
PROS CONS
Real time information Still lacking spur of the moment feedback
4 / 7 communication Not always available / inconvenient
Less dominating team members rise Lack of Body english / non verbal comm
Place time model of social interaction has been reestablished by L. Thompson 18 in the Book “ The mind and heart of the negotiator” Its is as follows
Same place Different Place
Same time Face to face Telephone / Video Con
Different Time Single text editing Email Voice mail
Shift work
Same place / same time. Face to face tend to be still be the most favored of the methods. Here is where the most amount of cooperation, building of ideas, innovation, problem solving can take place with all of the interpersonal languages in place ( Kinetic, Visual, non verbal, verbal). However some of the personality traits can work against the progress of such events.
Same time / different place. Telephone and video conferencing email can be used to addresses this gap. This is an indispensable method of communicating, as we cannot always be in the same place at the same time. More so today in a global market. Productivity is greatly enhanced using these methods of communication and continues to grow in demand. This can be correlated to the explosive growth of cellular phones. This allows continuity to occur in team projects as the efforts and progress can be monitored while performing a secondary function which may be some distance from the office, of course this applied across a series of tasks multiplies the productivity of a team member or a team as a whole. Of course this does not come without some faults. There is a loss of Informal communication, Separation of feedback, Loss of informal Modeling and can leave some employees out of the loop.
Different time / same place. This is a situation where team members interact asynchronously. That is share the same facility, tools perhaps work on the same project at the same place but at different times.
In conclusion, “Teamwork” has been the new mantra for corporate America during the recent years. However, not every company has been successful in the new venture. Teamwork is a complex task involving building of a team by choosing the right people, having a common achievable goal and consensus plan to execute the task. The secret to team success lies in team members being competent, mutually accountable and working towards a commonly accepted achievable goal.
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