Effective Teamwork - Assignment Example

Effective Teamwork Research shows that team work is an important tool in helping the continuous growth and improvement of an organization’s performance. Today, tremendous transformations are being made in the working environment as organizations are taking up the current trends in the market to ensure that they get a competitive advantage over their competitors. For this reason, the working structures of organizations are being transformed in order to get the best structures that will meet the organization’s objectives (West, 2004). Globalization has made organizations face complex and ever changing environments and to meet the needs of consumers which change over time there requires a structure that will flexible and is able to deliver products that consumers demand quickly and in a flexible manner. Organizations all over the world are looking for new work structures or forms and concepts so that they can comply with their internal and external demands, and this puts them an edge over their competitors (Rosenhauer, 2009). For this reason, teams have become an integral tool in many organizations for the purpose of management to ensure that the external and internal demands are met. Despite the fact that not all teams will work well, they are known to harness the collective energy of all members and there needs to be proper strategies to be followed to ensure that teams are effective. Teams refer to a group of individuals who have complementary skills and committed to a common goal, which they will be mutually accountable to ensure its success. Team members will come up with a distinct identity the work together by supporting each other to ensure that they achieve their set objective. Accomplishing a task is the extent, to which a team’s effectiveness is determined, and teams achieve this because working together and combining the different expertise goes a long way in ensuring success of any endeavor. Successful teams will be determined by the levels team spirit, which ensure trust, respect for one another, helping each other and being collaborative (West, 2004). Bringing people together does not necessarily mean that they will work effectively as a team and make the right decisions. People in a team will come from different backgrounds, and this can be a plus or a minus depending on how the team members relate, and this means that teams can either help or frustrate the emotional or social needs of members, which determines the effectiveness of the team. Team indifference results as a product of failing to enhance good teamwork, which is likely to result to poor performance. Effective teamwork will require certain measures put in place to ensure that people who are put together work collaboratively to achieve the set ends. Resources are an important success factor for a team and forming a team whose resources, task and membership matches is paramount when considering forming a team. This is because lack of resources may result to scramble of the available ones, which may cause stifles in the workforce. Good leadership is also paramount to the success of any team as the leader will coordinate the activities of the team to ensure that all members accomplish their tasks to ensure that there are no delays in delivery of the products (West, 2004). Team member commitment plays an integral part as no member will want to work more than the other members. Members should identify with their goals and ensure that they have achieved their task, which eliminates the chances of certain members feeling that they are overworked. Developing team goals plays an important role in ensuring that the members have focus on the ends that they are supposed to meet and this gives them a shared vision, which will motivate them as they want to achieve the set goal by the allocated time. Common ownership and joint responsibility is the other determining factor of an effective team as this will ensure that team members are in unison and are determined to achieve the set goal. Coordinated effort in achieving the set goals will ensure that all members help each other to achieve the endeavors as tasks are planned and shared, which reduces the workload of each member. Honesty and open communication will ensure collaboration among the team members, which a determining success factor as members will be able to freely share ideas, which results to increased performance. There are numerous benefits that arise from effective team work. Team work results to improvement of member confidence, attitudes as well as personal satisfaction. When team members work together and advice each other on issues that may be hard to accomplish alone and they achieve the set ends, it will motivate the members as they will value themselves highly as they have achieved their set goals.in the event that someone worked alone and is unable to accomplish a task, it may demotivate them but working in teams pools knowledge together, and the members are able to help each other which increases productivity (West, 2004). Effective teams will have greater clarity in expressing ideas as they are able to meet during group discussions and share ideas. When every member is allowed to air their opinion, a lot of information is collected, and from this, the most viable decision is made, which further increases productivity. Successful teams will help in better understanding each individual member’s contribution to the task, and this is helpful when combining the different tasks as everyone will know how best to fit their tasks with the other members. Teams will ensure effective use of resources as tasks especially time as the tasks are shared among the members and each member is expected to complete their task by the deadline set. Effective teamwork ensures greater optimism as members will focus on positive outcomes and try to resolve problems through discussions. Successful teams ensure a wide range of ideas, which is not the case with working individually. A wide range of ideas ensures that the best decision is arrived at, and this increases the efficiency of the organization. Trust is essential for people working together, and effective teams ensure there is mutual trust by ascertaining there is honesty among the group members. The overall effective of an effective or successful team is improved performance in the organization as people will work together to ensure that they achieve the set objectives promptly, and this gives the organization a competitive edge. Despite the numerous advantages associated with teamwork, it also has drawbacks, which may undermine the effectiveness of an organization. Group think can undermine the effectiveness of a team as members can be pacified into false satisfaction, which makes the group loose its sense of focus. Some members can leave most of the work load on the hard working members of the team, and this will undermine performance as there can be delays in delivery as the tasks are not shared. Unequal participation has the effect of creating resentment, which may result to conflicts and this undermines performance. Some people struggle with teams and they may prefer working alone, and if they are forced to be in a team by the management, it undermines their performance. Therefore, if the majority of employees prefer working alone team work may not be effective , and for this reason, it is necessary to evaluate the workforce to ensure that they can work productively as team members can waste time and energy while trying to come up with a decision, which undermines the effectiveness of the team (West, 2004). Lack of cohesiveness in a team is the other pitfall, which results from members working independently or at times at cross purposes. This normally occurs when the teams are made for administrative purposes, which requires employees to comply with the directions of the upper management and is not by their own will. These forced partnerships will often result to animosity, lack of ownership of responsibility or not functioning at all. This is because the members may not be in sync with each other and disagreements are likely to occur. To deal with the situation of lack of collaboration, the vision statement of the organization should be tailored to meet partners, organizational and team expectations. This will create a shared vision, which the partners will work together to achieve by supporting each other when need arises. Creating trust among partners by ensuring constant communication enhances cohesiveness as members will feel that their ideas and aspirations are valued hence they will work towards achieving the shared vision. Creating ground rules and addressing conflicts promptly further increases the cohesiveness and helps in building a team. Lack of cohesiveness results to team members being distracted by personal or organizational priorities, which arises from feeling that the organization should be accountable for certain activities, and this may end up to partners refusing to share resources and stop working on the tasks assigned (Harvey and Finley, 2000).To counter this, the organization needs to ensure that tasks are shared equally, and there is room for redistributing the roles in order to counter conflicts that may arise. Research also shows that teamwork may decrease creativity despite the fact that good ideas may arise from it. Lack of innovative thinking arises when employees are too focused on achieving the organizational goals and they forget their own aspirations. Employees may hold back their ideas in order to avoid conflicts, and this will prevent the organization from moving forward as new ideas for improvement may not come up. Team work is also associated with slow decision making as the members must discuss the most viable solution to a problem and this result to slow delivery of deliverables and increased expenses. In order to come up with an effective team, Cutting edageis will have to follow procedures that will ensure that the team goes through the process of team development which will ensure that the team made is effective and it will increase the productivity of the company. Cutting edageis should have different teams for manufacturing and selling the tennis racquets as this will create specialization, which increases efficiency. Changing the organizational structure will require time as the members are new to this kind of setting and this means they have to be talked to and informed of the change to be made in order to avoid conflict in the organizational or resistance to change. Members will need to be educated on the importance of teams as well as their drawbacks so that they are able to know what they are going to deal with after which the process of team development can start. Getting people acquainted is the first step and the team members will identify themselves in an attempt to categorize each other and know how they can work with each other. At this stage, it is paramount to avoid controversy by keeping ideas simple and emotions in control as the agenda is not yet decided. The second stage is where the members will start to decide on the team’s goals and they discuss the reason for forming the team. The members will then know why they were placed on the team, and this is determined by the task that the team is assigned. Members will have divergent opinions at this stage but members may agree in order to avoid conflicts in early stages of its formation. The third stage gets each member thinking if their personal goals fit with the team and this may result to the formation of private alliances as members realize the members with a shared vision (Rosenhauer, 2009). Members will question on how tasks will be divided as they want to develop themselves while still working in the team. Therefore, the organization needs to put a common goal to ensure that all team members are confident that they will develop as well as help in achieving the organizational goals (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2001). The fourth stage entails giving attention to the skills of each member and how they will contribute to the overall effort. The management needs to ensure that people with different skills and talents are placed on the same team as if they overlap productivity may be undermined. With the objective agreed on, the fifth stage entails negotiating the best means to achieve the set goal. The struggle for leadership comes up, and bids for power are a common occurrence. Individuals bring out their agendas and at this stage decisions are made on the basis of voting.at this stage it is necessary for the management to ensure there is proper communication and sharing of opinions as conflicts due to struggle for leadership may arise. A compromise on the decision comes from the willingness of the members to collaborate and put their individual agendas aside and focus of working together to achieve the set goals (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2001). The next stage entails members’ attitudes changing and realizing that they can achieve greater good in working together than individual effort. With proper leadership and focus the team is now fully developed, and they work together to achieve the goals that they had set.at this stage, morale. Loyalty and trust are properly laid down, and despite the fact that there is a coordinator for a task, all members assume leadership as they are responsible for completing their tasks and are held accountable for their actions. In order to ensure that the teamwork is effective the company needs to ensure that there is proper leadership, which will ensure that the management of the teams is effective. Leadership will ensure that members work collaboratively through proper cooperation. The leader should be able to create a supportive environment, which ensures there is trust, and cohesiveness in the team (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2001). The effectiveness of the teams will require management to create a collaborative culture, which will be essential in ensuring that long term effective team members are recruited. Organizations with a negative attitude will loose valuable people as they will feel that their aspirations are not met. Management should ensure that they create a positive corporate culture which will help to retain the employees in the organization. Team members will search for recognition, and it is important to reward the hard working employees as is with the case with Starbucks which rewards its hardworking employees with bonuses after they are reviewed for their performance. This has the result of creating employee loyalty and accountability to their job. Research by Slechta (2005), suggests that three elements of recognition that should be ensured are outstanding performance, continued performance and improved performance which go a long way in motivating the hard working team members. Team members are able to make sure their results from positive performance and management should ensure that they give feedback so as to eliminate chances of confusion, missed expectations and disappointments. Finally, providing new opportunities will help in creating a creative environment and the team members are assured that the organization cares about the careers of the employees, which increases their commitment. In conclusion, teamwork plays an integral part in success of any organization, but precaution must be taken to ensure that the teams are effective due to the pitfall that may arise from them. Teams will increase efficiency if they are properly structured, with members having different talents and skills being placed on the same team. This increases the pool of ideas and team members are able to work collaboratively to achieve the ends of the business. Cutting edageis needs to ensure that they follow the steps of team formation discussed in order to ensure that teams do not undermine the productivity of the company due to the drawbacks such time wasting, slow decision making, poor communication and disorganization. Ensuring that team members can work together and creating a positive corporate culture will ensure that teams created work effectively to give the company a competitive edge in the market. References Harvey, R and Finley, M., 2000, The New Why Teams Don’t Work: What Goes Wrong and How to make it Right, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.. Marks, M. A., Mathieu J., & Zaccaro S. J., 2001, A Temporally Based Framework And Taxonomy Of Team Processes. Academy of Management Review, 26, 356-376. Rosenhauer, S.,2009, Teams And Teamwork As The Basis Of Effectiveness: Developing Business Knowledge: An Independent Learning Approach, GRIN Verlag, Norderstedt. Slechta, R., 2005, Teamwork: Components of an Effective Team, Leadership Management International, Inc., Lake Shore Drive, Waco, TX. West, M. A., 2004, Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey Read More