Free expression among team members, and each member is valued and heard.
Members must trust each other. In discussions they openly disagree without fear of reprisal.
When leadership billets become available many members volunteer for the position.
Team members are flexible in terms of work processes and problem .
Although the characteristics described above are listed in our textbook, upon further review of the effective characteristics, when compared to a company such as Cisco Systems, they are right in line. Let us see how management at Cisco Systems views effective team characteristics.
Management view of effective teams, and characteristics of effective teams at Cisco Systems (Interview with Mr. Keith Early and Bob Hoerauf of Cisco Systems): .
Quality Team - Cisco strives to recruit and retain top quality personnel on its teams. We can see this by the caliber of the fellow Engineers on our teams. .
Stretch Goals/Continuous Improvement - While assigned to a team, if members were asked to do something 10% better, they would work a little harder. If they were asked to do something 50% better, they would have to do it differently. Cisco sets stretch goals that strive to make members do things differently, and get 10 times the results. The belief in stretch goals is founded on a belief that to be the very best, members must continually strive to work smarter and achieve increasing levels of efficiency and productivity. This is most evident in having stretch goals for our Customer Satisfaction average.
Teamwork - Cisco attempts to bring skills and people together in a manner that will raise the bar for success. On the Multiservice Team, having groups of engineers working together to resolve one customer issue is a normal occurrence. Cisco has fellow Engineers, Team Leads, Escalation Engineers, and even the Business Unit and Development Engineers who work together to ensure Customer Success.