Teamwork Makes a Dream Work - Essay Example

How an effective team can help an organisation to achieve great results, as well as highlighting how poor performance in teams can be overcome? Introduction Team working/interpersonal skills is one of the seven skills listed by the Chartered Management Institute as essential for business management[Gal101] Traditionally, management exercised control over the organization through planning and control, solving problems, making decisions and giving orientation, all by itself. Problem solving used to be the prerogative of the management. In modern times, the above mastership culture has transformed into team leadership characterized by empowered individuals. The team oriented management has come to be known as the second industrial revolution which the Fortune magazine calls as the great discovery of the 1990s. Management through teams has proved to be the cornerstone for many organisations to realize enhanced organisational effectiveness and productivity. Thus, traditional individualistic functioning has been replaced by team functioning in modern times [Gun08]. Flexibility Team oriented management is a flexible organisational model with “laminar and flattened structure” as opposed to the traditional organisational structure wedded to top-down (hierarchical) functioning. This flexibility of approach towards problem solving envisages participation of all the team members at the same time in the decision making and problem solving processes. Due to the underlying commitment, the team members would never overlook the common objective and most importantly, the team-based functioning is a morale-booster, cost-cutting technique, means of improving quality and productivity, leading to the highest possible organisational performance. The members who can act complementarily to one another alone can form part of a team. They, as a small group of people work towards the common goal, remain dependant on each other with mutual responsibility and complementary skills. However, teams are different from groups and teams have the characteristics of groups but not vice versa. There is delegated leadership within teams but paradoxically teams are characterised by self-managing traits (Belbin, 2010),[Gun08], (Ryan, 2012). Belbin’s Team Roles Theory: Belbin posits that team members have to play a dual role of “functional role” and “team role”. The functional role is drawn from the role theory which emphasizes the role as a part of social structure in that everyone has a role to play in a given activity. The functional role theory is explained in two perspectives of behavioural perspective and expectancy perspective. The former is manifested in an individual who is given or who has assumed a certain position in a community. The latter is manifested as an expected behaviour of an individual occupying a definite position in a society. Belbin states that while functional role is for survival, team role consists of roles required for the pursuit of the common objective [Gun08]. Self-managing teams The concept of self-managing teams has been discussed as early as 1997. Organisations have embraced the practice of self-managing teams for the sake of flexibility, decision making at the front-end and exploitation of employees’ capabilities to the fullest extent. The rationale behind self-managing is to make employees fully accountable for their actions/performance rather than being dependent on their managers. This practice of day-day to management has been found to improve organisational performance for reasons of closeness between the front end people and the customers, the potential to improve ‘organisational learning and adaptability’ enabled by the freedom with which the teams can experiment with their work so as to formulate their own unique methods of problem-solving and the employees’ commitment made possible by their wider participation [Bel12] [Wag97]. Mixed Results Self-managing team concept has its own drawbacks in spite of the promise it holds for organisational performance, learning and commitment. Managers find that the team members are not always ready to take responsibility and they have the tendency to divide their work and only do their part without any inclination for making strategies, taking responsibility and engaging in difficult decision making or problem solving. Self-managing teams are considered unethical in organizations with long history of hierarchical decision making. In a case study, Xerox Corporation’s Customer Service Engineers (CSEs) were recruited because of their ability to work on their own without being supervised, studies showed inconsistent results among the performances of the different groups of teams. The first team consisting of veteran CSEs reported that they were able to effectively attend meetings immediately after their vacation as they were in control of their own schedules undeterred by their self-chosen vacation days that came in between. The second team displayed altogether a different attitude when they were asked by their first-line manager what they thought of customers’ repeatedly calling for the same problems that in turn reflected in the reliability of the machine. Some of teams members expressed doubts about the accuracy of the month-old data based on which their manager posed questions. Few members did not want to engage in the discussion as the customers concerned were not theirs. Both the above two observations show their team members varied in their attitude. However, members of self-managing teams display three basic traits in their attitude towards their work. The three traits were present in the first team and were not present in the second team discussed above [Wag97], [Hac02]. Seven features that can make an effective team are 1. There should be clear and engaging directions, 2. Task designed for the team, 3. Rewards for team performance, 4. Availability of sources such as tools, accessibility to computer services and others that can make a proactive team. 5. Adequate authority to manage work, 6. Formulating team goals and 7. Team norms for an effective strategic thinking [Wag97]. Conclusion This brief discussion about teamwork reveals that a team gives its members freedom of action without having to depend on their first-line managers who are first supposed to ensure presence of above said seven factors that can make an effective team. However, to prevent failing a team, managers must ensure that team members do not shirk their responsibility, there is no personality clashes among the team members, there is no poor communication within the team besides avoiding lack of cooperation among the members and ensuring training and cross training to the members [Bro11] , to state a few from the long list. Reference List Gal101: , (Gallagher, 2010), Gun08: , (Gunduz, 2008), Gun08: , (Gunduz, 2008), Bel12: , (Belbin R. M., 2012), Wag97: , (Wageman, 1997), Hac02: , (Hackman, 2002), Bro11: , (Brounstein, 2011), Read More