Team building and small business - Essay Example

? The concept of team building al affiliation The concept of team building Team building and self directed workers within the business industry have penetrated over the years. Many businesses around the world are incorporating the issue of team building their business development. The philosophy behind team work suggests that business managers mash workers into groups that work cohesively in order to achieve business objectives. If team members are not to be cohesive they will fail to work and lessen business activities, and a non productive team fails to bring benefits to the organization and can easily lead to the collapse of business. It is for that reason; that managers are accountable for all factors that ensure that the teams are well managed for effective business production (Barringer, 2004). Successful business managers know that building a team spirit is the core for small business development (Simmons, 2002). Team building is based on the daily routines that occur within the small business. Good business team just does not occur on their own they are built by business managers. The notion of building and growing a well structured team is critical to the ongoing survival of a small business. This means that the process of coming up with a strong team that can work positively towards achieving the business objectives, leads to development of small business. For the business managers, to develop a good team they have to consider performance of each individual as they work to achieve business objectives. A typical performance does help business managers to maintain or change patterns in an organization (Simmons, 2000). This performance measurement does assist in the provision of feedback to managers towards attainment of business objectives and goals which in turn leads to building of a strong team. A business measurement assists in monitoring and controlling of business. It drives improvement in performance within the business, and it provides a detailed alignment of business objectives. It assists business managers in providing rewards and giving of punishments. Simmons (2000) argues that, business performance measurements act as a tool used to build five major tensions within the business firm. The first is balancing profit growth and control. Secondly balancing short term results against long term capabilities, and growth opportunities, third balance performance expectations, and lastly balancing the motives of human behavior. Small business Sustaining business development means adopting business strategies and activities than the need to meet the attainments of the business, and all its stake holders which lead to sustaining and enhancing the resources that will be needed in the future. Research studies show that successful business managers do share certain character traits (Stokes, 2006). These character traits do help them take control of their small business, and to ensure that these businesses flourish with a lot of success. These small business managers apply different marketing strategies to ensure that they get the target market for their goods. For them to achieve a better marketing strategy they need to plan and set target goals after which they implement the planned strategy (Fuller, 2006). For these to take place successfully the small business thus requires a well built growing team that is critical to the ongoing process of the small business, therefore, this paper evaluates the statements that building and growing a well structured team is critical to the ongoing survival of a small business Small business face numerous challenges due to in effective management making the business not to fit in the difficult challenging markets and cope with the growth patterns in the market. These challenges are normally influenced by the following challenges (Wickhalm 2006). Inadequate accounting systems Poor location Lack of marketing skills Lack of a capital budget Inadequate provision for contingencies Lack of management skills Excessive inventory Incompetence Lack of experience Neglect Fraud Disaster Poor record keeping Reckless money management Lack of formal planning Insufficient marketing talents Indifferent employees Inability to cope with growth. The following features influence the development of small business; credibility, money, premises, people, customers, suppliers, small business transactions and business relationship network. These influences are all-round and they keep on influencing the business from different points. As indicated in Mark and Spencer case study the business failed due to the emerging external factors; these factors were mainly influence by internal factors within the small business firm where the managers distant themselves from reality of the business. The case study recommends that the business has to come up with a performance measurement approach that can be used in measuring the business performance in the mind of its customers (Mellahi and Sparks, 2002). Team building According to Darwin’s universal approach an organization is made up of systems that are dynamic and keep on changing from time to time. These organizations use mechanism of variations selection and retention that looks at the relationship between replicators. A small business is also an organization that keeps on changing from time to time. At most times, businesses can be affected by several internal and external factors that can lead to business failures like the Marks and Spencer business failed because it failed to look at the interaction between the interactors and replicators with exploitation emerging from the external environment yet the mangers looked down upon the whole process. In relation to Darwin’s universal approach, for a small business to grow and develop, they need to understand the growth problems that are associated with the dynamic structure of the business so as, to develop a balanced management team, most small business managers fear to delegate due to poor guidance from management teams, therefore, there is the need to form a balanced team to manage the state of the small business (Breslin, 2010). This team should be in a position to perform an evaluation of small business performance to get feedback that can be used to improve the weak areas. A team building model can be used to develop teams that are effective in small business performance. The model can easily be used to form small groups within an organization. The model is more suitable in assisting teams to develop and work rapidly. According to this model, within a group there are two sets of issues of concern that are felt by members. These issues are termed as relationships and issues and they can be seen as dynamic and can be put on the x and y axis in a graph. Issues can be plotted on the y axis and relationships can be plotted on the x axis. This interprets the duties of a team at each stage of development, because within a group different issues arise. Group development does take place at different stages (Breslin, 2010). At stage one, the individuals are under the formation stage where the team members identifies themselves within a group, in terms of their personalities and to understand the reasons they are in the team in that particular small business. The second stage is the naming stage whether members start identifying individual difference and what each one of them can do within a group. During this stage, the team members experience creativity after which they move to the next stage and start performing. The performing stages all the members have identified their responsibilities and are functioning as a team to achieve the business objectives. A team in small business refers to the group of people joined together with a common goal so as to achieve a common objective. Most of the small business does require a range of skills to be able to survive and grow within a stiff market completion. Therefore, small business mangers need to perform several roles out of necessity so as to improve their business in terms of performance (Breslin, 2010). For the improvement of business skills, it is important to get the right mixed group of staff members that are built positively. Business manager needs to identify these skills and the roles of each member and this direction usually relays on the ideas of the managerial team who will provide the small business with ideas from different members that are essential in the development of small business (Breslin, 2010). Positive rapport is very important, and it does add positive values beyond personal talents, and skills. Teams within the small business who relate positively with beast other add positive value to their small businesses. An organized and disjoined team in small business sends away customers that are involved in buying and selling of items in the small business, and these could lead to business failure while a strong team built within the small business is very significant in developing the small business. It is important for the small business managers to ensure, that for their teams to work on different levels, the team formed should be a strong team, which can work at different levels. Ultimately, staff development is evident in the organization. When coming up with a team within the organization, it is important for the small business managers to know that most of the staff members do require skills and some training from time to time like when promoting and individual. The individual will require some training in order to fit properly in the new position after getting some initial training. Small business managers can think of developing team spirit and training the staff members in diversity and flexibility, a factor that leads to improvement in communication within the small business. Building a growing team is a continuous process and this can be done by conducting performance feedback. This feedback does help in identification of weak skills that may need development and training. Small business do stand a chance of getting different benefits from effective training and development of employees, and all these benefits positively to small business development (Robert,2002). A successful team shares a common characteristic each member under his or her roles and they understand what each member’s responsibilities. This can only be achieved by the small business managers developing an organizational chart that entails each member’s job description, and encouraging frequent staff meetings to discuss upcoming issues and to discuss current issues affecting the small business. It is known that communication is a building block to the success of a business, for team building the small business managers is to ensure that there is an effective way of communication without any barriers that can affect sharing of ideas. Small business owners are to know that conflict is a major issue that is likely to occur within the firm. It is, therefore, important for the business managers to find ways that can be used to make a ruling on conflicts within the business premises. These can be done by creation of mechanisms that can be applied by the teams to resolve conflicts on their own without involving the mangers. Teams are known to adapt the attitude of their managers, so it is important for the business managers to look at their attitudes and act as role models, so if the leader has an optimistic outlook the team will tend to have an upbeat attitude towards what they do unlike when the leader has negative attitudes, the team members will tend to have negative attitudes thus affecting the performance of the small business. Every business that has a well developed team does work together as a team this then calls for celebration as a team. Where if a team succeeds then they should all celebrate as a team and share the achievement depending to the size of achievement. Advantages of team building in small business Team based business group does filter decision making, where the process of decision making has to involve several members of the small business team, this is advantageous because the members feel that they are fractions of the business instead of just mare business members. This makes the business work effectively gaining competitive in the global market competition making it grow creating jobs within the community. Team building in small firms leads to growth in terms of cultural practices in that the small business team members learn to share ideas and appreciate cultural values building a positive cultural environment within the firm (Hannon 2007). Team building leads to the identification of skills that require educational provision and skills that do require further training. Team building makes the team members stay focused into the development of business objectives. Through team building the members are in a better position to understand their effectiveness in terms of strength and weakness that may require improvements in terms of professional development. Team building helps business team members identify different ways that can be used to improve the smooth running of small business and solve internal problems within the business (Dobbs, 2007). Team work dose lead to the development of relationships within the small business firm, these built relationship by the team creates unity within the organization. These relationships are very important because they improve the nature of communication leading to growth in small business. Such relationships will make support staff feel comfortable and improve on their responsibilities because team members do work as a team to attain their objectives. Another benefit of team building is the unique skill can be combined to produce utility skills that can be used for the improvement of small business. Each member of a team has stand and weakness when the strengths are a combined as a team then the results will be positive thus improving the small business leading to its growth. Combining different skills leads to creativity in business. The most valued aspect of team work is its efficiency; in terms of work, team work leads to increased rate of production this is because things get done faster when the team members work as a team. Team members also do not get tired in trying to perform a taste because the task is performed by the whole team thus less fatigue. Disadvantages of team building in small business It is always challenging and difficult to conduct an assessment of individual performance in a team. Team members keep on making decisions as a team and working as a team. It becomes extremely difficult for the small business owner to measure individual performance, so the lazy workers keep findings ways to escape performing their duties. This actually makes some of the members to overwork due to free riders. The process of team building in the small business requires members to feel comfortable in the teams either in terms of age education qualification among others, but this becomes a challenge because most of the team members belong to different age groups and different educational qualification and this can lead to friction causing conflicts. Team building does depend on situational factors such as group size and most of the configurations that can be found within the organization. This is very challenging in small business because the managers have to consider the optimum six of the business before creating a team. They also need to consider the organization of the team before establishing a team (O’Gorman, 2001). The process of team building in small business is so expensive that very small business managers put it into practice this mainly occurs through poor management from the management teams. Team building process requires that each and every member identifies their individual roles so as, to act in an expected way, and this seems to be very expensive process in small business (O’Gorman, 2001). Intelligence is a key factor in team building; the more intelligent a group is, the more effective the productive it provides. Intelligence thus leads to ambiguity in the process of team setting in that the more intelligent members of a team will seem to work faster than the other members’ thus confusing friction and conflict leading to poor production (Dobbs, 2007). Conclusion Smaller businesses are turning to team building as a way of improving their business. This is because team building as proved to be the only alternative ways of improving the productive of most of business around the world. In many cases team seems to lower the costs the businesses and increase productivity. It is also clear that so long as team remains positive in the business production line they will forever remain in the market environment (Dobbs, 2007). In my opinion, team building can be justified to be a critical move in the development of small business this is because most of the workers within a small business tend to work in a more comfortable environment and a team that accepts them. These teams can only function in a situation that is well constructed based on a given norm. These norms should be made in a way that they fit particular strength of a team within an organization. In instances where the team norms have been developed it is expected of each member to take part in the team activities for productivity, though, there occur some situations where some team members fail to get involved in the. In order to control the rate of riders in a given group, I think the managers need to develop lasting procedures to punish and discipline the team members who do not perform and do not take part in the different activities of the team. This kind of discipline can range from giving warnings to team members, or to terminating their contracts. Therefore, the key to small business success is getting the team to work by involving each member of the team. References Aldrich, H. (1999). Organizations Evolving. London: Sage Publishing Beaver, G. & Jennings, P.L. (1995). Picking Winners: The Art of Identifying Successful Small Firms. In Hussey, D.E. (Ed), Rethinking Strategic Management – Ways to Improve Competitive Performance, Chapter 4, Wiley, Chichester. Breslin, D. (2010). Broadening the Management Team: An Evolutionary Approach. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 16(2) Dobbs, M. & Hamilton, R.T. (2007). Small business growth: recent evidence and new directions. 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