I used to be an effective follower, it means that I never neglect the task, I always do as the best as I can. However I have a doubt when I enter poor group which only me to perform hahahah it seems so frustrated right!. So today I will recap what I learned from Dr Jamilah’s lecturer about Self-Managed Team.

A self-managed team, self-regulating team, self-maintaining team or self-directed team is a group of individuals who work together to achieve a common goal with minimal supervision from a leader. A poor self-managed team is task-oriented that  only focused on waiting for the order, has low initiative to perform the task, and usually keeps on silent to the task or any problem occurs. In other word, this kind of group is poor functioning due to lack of trust, low expectations, low exchange, and different motivations.

In contrast, SMT groups are responsible for every task completion cycle like planning, executing, and evaluating. They are also empowered to make decisions and solve problems on their own without always relying on the leaders. They are typically high initiative group, cross-functional and have a high degree of autonomy, which allows team members to use their skills and expertise to contribute to the team’s success. Thus, the success of a self-managed team relies heavily on effective communication, collaboration, and trust among team members.

What is the benefit of SMT? Of course, there are plenty of the benefits can be obtained if we had SMT. For example:

1. increased commitment and collaboration among team members
2. improved quality and innovation
3. higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover and absenteeism,
4. faster new-product development,
5. greater flexibility in managing personnel shortages, and reduced operational costs due to streamlined management.

Are you in the SMT? Lets find out in the characteristic of the SMT below:

1. they have clear mission and high performance standards
2. They establish distinct goals and set high-performance standards
3. They evaluate the resources required, such as equipment and training facilities.
4. They spend a certain time for planning and organizing about how to use the available resources and assess the technical abilities of their members.
5. They maintain excellent levels of communication.

Among all the characteristics, I would say that maintaining communication is challenging since people are coming from different motivations and quite tough to know their expectation at the first time. Thus, setting the standard, delegating the task and given the distinct goals can be used to track the progress of the team.