Building and Supervising a Team
Cultivating Positive Relationships and Environments
This content will describe the top three characteristics of an effective team. You’ll learn strategies for managing and communicating with your team, and how to cultivate positive relationships and environments. We will provide examples of an orientation checklist and frameworks for feedback which you can actively adapt to your style as a supervisor.
Course Module Introduction
Learning Objectives
- Describe the top three characteristics of an effective team;
- Characterize effective strategies for communicating with your team and promoting positive relationships;
- Reflect on and practice strategies a supervisor could use to develop and manage an effective team.
Activities
- Building a Team
open activity
Strategies for Recruiting, Welcoming, and Integrating New Members in Your Team
Self-Reflection Prompts
- Describe how you might include characteristics of being an effective team member into a person’s performance expectations for a position you are supervising. What might this look like?
- In reflecting on the types of teams you’ve been associated with and the type of team you may need in a future (or current) position, please describe one primary characteristic you’d look for in a team member and evidence that they have this characteristic (i.e., whether in their written materials and/or during an interview).
Recruiting New Members of Your Team
Activity
- Setting Expectations
open activity
Aligning Expectations and Exploring Communication Styles
The Fresh Outdoors: Strategically Setting Expectations
Self-Reflection Prompts
- What are your observations about the conversation in “The Fresh Outdoors” video?
- What were the unilateral expectations?
- Which expectations could have been set jointly?
- How likely is the outcome influenced by the power differential?
Creating an Onboarding/Orientation Checklist
Activity
- Follow the instructions in this table to create your own onboarding/orientation checklist. What do you wish you would have known when starting a new position?
- Having Productive Conversations
open activity
Interest-Based Approach for Collaboratively Setting Expectations
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
open activity
Frameworks for Giving Feedback
When does feedback happy successfully for you?
Self-Reflection Prompts
- Giving feedback happens naturally when…
- Giving feedback is hard, but it still happens anyway when…
- I avoid giving feedback when…
Activity
Download a table of these questions to complete and keep.
Reading: The Feedback Fallacy by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in Harvard Business Review.
Frameworks for Receiving Feedback
- Putting it All Together
open activity
Practice Setting Expectations
Activity: Rewind the Tape
Using the instructions and table provided, think about a conversation with your supervisor that resulted in a conflictual outcome. How would you have approached the situation if you were the supervisor?
Wrap-Up
Course Module References
- Batista, E. (2013, December 24). Building a Feedback Rick Culture. Harvard Business Review.
- Brown, B. (2018). The Engaged Feedback Checklist. Brene Brown, LLC.
- Buckingham, M. & Goodall, A. (2019). The Feedback Fallacy. Harvard Business Review.
- Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Feedback. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
- Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., and Smith, K.A. (1991). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Interaction Book Company.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
- Kaundart, C. (2019, February 18). 5 Ways to Process Feedback at Work without Triggering a Stress Response. Trello.
- Kreitner, R. & Kinick, A. (2013). Organizational Behavior (10th edition). McGraw-Hill.
- Pfund C. et al. (2016), Defining Attributes and Metrics of Effective Research Mentoring Relationships, AIDS and Behavior, Suppl 2: 238-48;
- McGee, R.M. et al. (2016), Biomedical Workforce Diversity: The Context for Mentoring to Develop Talents and Foster Success Within the ‘Pipeline’, AIDS and Behavior, Suppl 2:231-237.
- Smith, K.A. (2005). Teamwork and Project Management. McGraw-Hill.
- Thinkway Strategies. (n.d.). The Iceberg of Ignorance Revisited. Thinkway Strategies.
- Van Alphen, M.F. (2016). Observational Listening – The (Missing) Link between Emotion and Communication. Bloomington: Authorhouse UK.
- Yoshida, 1989 2nd International Quality Symposium in Mexico, entitled, “Quality Improvement and TQC Management at Calsonic in Japan and Overseas”.
Additional Resources
Recruiting & Managing a Team
- How to Build a Successful Team (NY Times)
- Steps to Building a Successful Team (UC Berkeley)
- 8 Steps to Building a Successful Team (Indeed)
- 8 Tips for Managing your Team Effectively (Undercover Recruiter)
- Guidelines on Interview and Employment Application Questions (SHRM)
Communication Styles
Feedback
- Receiving and Giving Effective Feedback (University of Waterloo)
- Giving the Receiving Feedback: Definitions and Examples (Indeed)
- The Engaged Feedback Checklist (Brene Brown)
- The Feedback Fallacy (HBR)