Page 10 - Leadership Basics 3

Teamwork and building effective teams continues to be a huge enterprise in human resource
management. Many texts, theories and consultants specialise in helping organisations improve
teams. Detailed and complex computer programs assess an individual’s preferred style, such as
Myers Briggs Type Indicators and Belbin Team Profiles, and team building adventures take place in
Outward Bound leadership programs on boats, mountains and paint‐gun courses. Books on team
building and leading effective teams can be found in all good airport terminals and 'Googling' team
building will generate more hits than Elvis Presley or even Shane Warne. There is even a free
PowerPoint Presentation Template entitled "Motivating a Team", prepared by Dale Carnegie and
Associates Training® and included in the Microsoft Office Suites on most computers.
Given the plethora of team building literature, for purposes of brevity we will only describe one
model of team development in this ‘Conversation’ – the Team Pyramid Model.

The Team Pyramid Model has five elements. At the top is goal setting or shared purpose and at the
base is professional learning or developmental growth of the team members.

The triangle or pyramid structure has been adopted to illustrate the degree of effort that should be
put into each element. For example, while each element is essential, more time and resources need
to be committed to professional learning than to developing relationships, and so on up the levels.
This model is a little contentious because in practice, most schools tend to reverse this pyramid and
put a lot of their available time and energy into the ‘Goals’ or ‘Roles’ Phases and very little into the
development of the team members. This model argues that for teams to be productive much
groundwork is needed in preparing the team members, both before and during the work of the team.
Similarly, more work and energy should be expended in ‘Relationships’ than in ‘Procedures and
Protocols’ and more time on ‘Roles’ than on ‘Goals’.

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