Understanding Team Dynamics

Organize individuals into highly effective, productive, dynamic teams. Create positive results and maintain competitive advantages through strong team performance.

Description

If organizations are to remain productive and maintain a competitive advantage in this fast-paced, constantly changing, global economy, it is essential that they understand how to create and utilize effective work teams at all levels of the organization. When well managed, teams improve productivity, innovation, and the likelihood of success. Ineffective teams lead to frustration and the loss of time and productivity.

In this course, participants will explore the dimensions and inherent benefits of a well-organized, synchronized team and how to develop a systematic and concrete approach to organizing individuals into a highly effective, productive, and cohesive work force.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is critical for all levels of managers, supervisors, and team leaders who need to organize their employees into productive, innovative teams.

Course Format

eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and builds each course around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

This course contains the following modules:

• Teams and Team Goals
  • Benefits of working in teams over working independently
  • Establishing clear team goals
  • Characteristics of effective goals
  • Participatory goal setting
• Team Member Behavior, Norms, and Group Interaction
  • Task functions and relationship functions
  • Behaviors that encourage or harm member relations
  • Developing healthy, productive group norms
  • Strategies to deal with social loafing
  • Factors affecting cohesion/cohesiveness
  • Bales Interaction Analysis
  • Five basic group structures and how they influence communication flow
  • Characteristics of a well-functioning team
  • The role of the participant observer

Benefits to the Learner

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the principles of group dynamics and development
• Describe the dimensions of team member behavior
• Assess how effectively a team functions

Authoring Faculty

Florence Berger, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

Judi Brownell, Ph.D., Professor

Sponsoring School

Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration

Total Learning Time

Approximately five to six hours over a period of two weeks.

Certificate Information

This course can be applied toward the following certificate:

• Leading Management Teams

ACE CREDIT Recommendation

This course contributes to an eCornell Certificate Program that has been recommended for college credit by the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (CREDIT). Please refer to the Certificate information page for additional details.

HRCI Recertification

This course been approved for six (6) recertification credit hours toward PHR, SPHR, and GPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute. Please contact the Human Resource Certificate Institute (HRCI) for further information about certification or recertification.