People Working in Teams and Their Goals - Research Paper Example

? People Working in Teams Always achieve their Goals more Efficiently and Effectively than People Working Alone Number Name and Number Name of Professor Date of Submission Number of Words: 2,192 Executive Summary As compared to employees who prefer to work alone, this report concludes that people who prefers teamwork has a higher chance of achieving goals better in terms of being efficient and effective. Teamwork does not only increase the company’s production rate and overall work performance but also decrease employees’ absenteeism and/or lateness, increase in financial performance, saves time, increase the levels of employees’ commitment and involvement, promotes work creativity and innovation, and prevent the risk of organizational conflicts. To increase the success rate of teamwork, the corporate manager should use effective leadership approach, establish organizational culture that promotes open communication, and create organizational culture that easily accepts work diversity and organizational change among others. Table of Contents Executive Summary …………………………………………………… 2 Table of Contents ……………………………………………………… 3 I. Introduction ……………………………………………………… 4 II. Literature Review ……………………………………………….. 4 a. Advantages of Teamwork over Employees who prefer to Work Alone …………………………….. 4 b. Strategic Ways on how Managers could Effectively Promote Teamwork ………………………. 7 b.1 Leadership …………………………………. 7 b.2 Communication ……………………………. 7 b.3 Organizational Culture …………………….. 8 III. Practical Implications ………………………………………….. 8 IV. Conclusion ………………………………………………………. 9 References ……………………………………………………………….……. 11 – 13 Introduction In response to the increase in market competition, a lot of businesses today are recognizing the importance of teamwork in terms of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of each company’s daily operational requirements. In fact, the act of working with other employees is necessary especially when there is a strong need to perform shared tasks. Through teamwork, complex business situations can easily be resolved within the shortest possible time. This report will focus on discussing why people who works in team has a higher chance of being able to achieve goals better in terms of being efficient and effective as compared to employees who prefer to work alone. As part of going through the main discussion, various existing theories related to teamwork will be tackled in details. Eventually, strategic ways on how managers could effectively promote teamwork within the business organization will be provided followed by discussing the significance of leadership, communication and organizational culture in the promotion of teamwork. Literature Review Advantages of Teamwork over Employees who prefer to Work Alone As a common knowledge, each person is a social being that is capable of developing a set of unique talent, knowledge and skills. Because of these limitations, man is required to constantly interact with other people. In fact, social interaction is the only way wherein each individual could continuously enhance their acquired skills and knowledge. The word ‘team’ has different meanings to people. With this in mind, a team can be composed of a man and a wife as a couple. Furthermore, it is a myth to believe that all teams are effective in terms of achieving a single organizational goal. For this reason, this report will purposely define ‘team’ as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993, p. 45). Several authors have noted that the advantages of teamwork exceed those of employees who prefer to work alone (Akbarzadeh, 2011, p. 136; McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2010, pp. 454 – 477; Gevers and Peeters, 2009; West, 2004, pp. 9 – 10). First, employees who work as a team could learn new ideas from one another. In case one there is a flaw in the work strategies of a team member, other group members could uncover these flaws in order to create new and more effective ideas for the benefit of the team. It means that employees with less skills and talent could learn from other group members who are more competent and talented (West, 2004, p. 9). Since each of the team members are required to share their work experiences and knowledge with other employees, the team leader could feel more secured each time a talented employee decided to leave the company (Argyris, 1991; Astley and Zajac, 1990). In response to globalization, businesses today became more complex in terms of its organizational structure. By continuously promoting the importance of teamwork, West (2004, p. 9) explained that it is a lot easier on the part of the managers to pool the company’s available resources (i.e. knowledge, skills, talents, work experiences, etc.). By encouraging employees to work as a team, managers could make the accomplishment of a shared organizational goal more feasible. Aside from being cost-effective, the act of encouraging employees to work as a team empowers the business organizations to immediately and effectively respond to the rapidly changing global market demands (ibid). Composed of a group of diverse employees, Carnegie explained that “teamwork is the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives” (Akbarzadeh, 2011, p. 136). It means that a group of employees should work together to make the organizational goal more attainable. In order to maximize the benefit of teamwork, team leaders should be able to delegate important tasks based on the individual knowledge, skills, and previous work experiences of each employee. Furthermore, team leaders should clearly inform each of the team members that they are expected to offer useful contributions which are necessary in attaining a common goal. As compared to employees who prefer to work alone, several authors revealed that the promotion of teamwork could lead to the following work and production benefits: (1) increase in production rate and over work performance; (2) decrease in the rate of absenteeism or lateness in work; (3) increase in financial performance; (4) saves time; (5) higher levels of commitment and involvement on the part of each employee; (6) promotes work creativity and innovation; and (7) avoid the risk of organizational conflicts (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2010, pp. 454 – 477; Gevers and Peeters, 2009; Harrington and Ladge, 2009; West, 2004, pp. 9 – 10). Even though each employee can be productive as an individual, there is still a strong possibility that his/her maximum work capacity is not met due to the absence of group pressure (Hallowell, 2005). In most cases, having in mind that other employees are expecting more from each of the team members is more than enough to increase the work capacity of each employee. Since team members are working towards a single organizational goal, Barbuto (2005) revealed that the chance of increasing each of the team members’ initiative and motivation at work is higher. It is common for team leaders to encourage each of the team members to become self-directed. However, we should not forget the saying that “two heads are better than one”. Since each of the team members will be given the opportunity to speak out their thoughts each time important business decision has to be made, the contribution or suggestions coming from the team members could make the team leader able to enhance the quality of its management system. As compared to relying only in the work performance of a single employee, the promotion of team work could help employees prevent job burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001) and easily develop new strategies that can be useful in solving unfamiliar challenges. All these advantages makes team-based work force more attractive as compared to hiring employees who prefer to work on their own. Strategic Ways on how Managers could Effectively Promote Teamwork Among the strategic ways on how managers could effectively promote a successful teamwork includes not only the use of effective leadership approach but also the need to establish a strong organizational culture that highlights the importance of two-way communication. Leadership The process of making a new project successful is not only tedious but also quite a very challenging task. According to Zaleznik (2004), managers and leaders are two different from one another in the sense that a person can be appointed as a manager but not as a leader. To become an effective team leader, competitive leadership skills is required to enable the team leader easily motivate the team members to become self-directed and persuade this group of individuals to actively participate and work together towards reaching a single organizational goal. With this in mind, team leaders should be able to practice the use of transformational leadership style (Pieterse et al., 2010). Several authors explained that the use of transformational leadership approach is effective in making the team leaders easily motivate and encourages the rest of the team members to work on their own without the need of much supervision (Winston and Patterson, 2006; Barbuto, 2005). As a result, the team could easily accomplish their assigned tasks on a daily basis. Communication Two-way communication between the team leader and the rest of the team members is another important factor that leads to a group performance. Not only does the establishment of a two-way communication line helps minimize the incidence or development of unnecessary internal conflicts, several authors also mentioned that the use of this strategy is equally useful in decreasing the chances wherein a business organization could commit production errors (Bambacas and Patrickson, 2008; Mayfield and Mayfield, 2006). Since a group of employees who are able to work in team could prevent the risk of encountering human errors, people who works in team has a higher chance of being able to achieve organizational goal better. As a result of establishing a culture that promotes the importance of two-way communication line, business organizations could avoid unforeseen operational costs. Organizational Culture In general, managers could increase the overall work performances of a team not only through the use of effective leadership approach or the promotion of two-way communication line but also through the development of a strong organizational culture. Organizational culture is referring to “a set of norms, beliefs, principles and behaviour that gives the organization a unique character” (Brown, 1995). In line with this, David (1999, p. 143) defined organizational culture as “a pattern of behaviour developed by an organization necessary to help them cope with business problems related to external adaptation and internal integration aside from enabling the employees to feel and think positively”. According to Vecchi and Brennan (2009), establishing organizational culture that promotes acceptance and immediate response to organizational change could help the team increase their overall work efficiency. Upon analyzing the significance of organizational culture in the promotion of teamwork, it is clear that having a strong business culture that strongly promotes the importance of teamwork, work diversity and organizational change could help the team leaders avoid the risks wherein the team members would initiate internal conflict and resistance-to-change. Because of the importance of organizational culture, the team leader should gather the team members to attend meetings on a regular basis. By doing so, the team leader will have the opportunity to communicate not only the main purpose and objectives associated with the need to implement a new project but also inform the team members on how the group could easily reach the project goal(s). In other words, the process of allowing the team members to know specific directions on how the group could deliver the project could somehow encourage and motivate the team members to actively participate in the project completion. Practical Implications Founded back in 1907, United Parcel Service (UPS) is a US-based company that provides the public with package delivery services to as much as 200 countries and territories all over the world (UPS, 2011a). Since UPS is serving the world market, the company needs a large-based of regular customers to enable the company to compensate its daily operational expenses. Today, the company employs approximately 240,000 full- and part-time employees around the world (UPS, 2011b). In order to cater the needs and wants of its long-term customers, UPS managed to establish organizational norms and values that fully recognizes the importance of teamwork and work diversity. In fact, UPS management strongly believe that work diversity does not only uplife employees’ moral but also contributes on encouraging its people to work well with other races (UPS, 2011c, p. 31). Aside from increasing the work effeciency of its employees, giving importance on teamwork enabled the company prevent possible internal conflict which may arise out of the cultural differences of its employees around the world. In general, UPS employees are obliged to keep track of its daily business transactions such as the shipment and delivery schedules around the world on a real-time basis. Without teamwork, open communication line, good leadership skills, and organizational culture that promotes work diversity, it would be difficult on the part of UPS management to deal with not only its global customers but also in managing employees around the world. Conclusion The continuous promotion of teamwork could result to a significant increase in production rate and overall work performance, decrease employees’ absenteeism and/or lateness at work, increase the company’s financial performance, saves time, increase the levels of employees’ commitment and involvement, promotes work creativity and innovation, and prevent the risk of organizational conflicts. Given that the advantages associated with teamwork outweigh the advantages of having employees who prefer to work alone, it is safe to conclude that people who works in team has a higher chance of being able to achieve goals better in terms of being efficient and effective. There are many ways on how managers could benefit from having a group of self-directed employees who value teamwork. In order to increase the success rate of establishing effective teamwork, corporate managers should not only focus on the use of effective leadership approach but also exert extra effort in establishing organizational culture that strongly promotes the importance of establishing two-way communication line amongst a large group of self-directed employees. Corporate managers should also consider the importance of creating organizational culture that easily accepts work diversity and organizational change among others. *** End *** References Akbarzadeh, K., 2011. Leadership Soup: A Healthy Yet Tasty Recipe for Living and Leading on Purpose. Xlibris Corporation. Argyris, C., 1991. Teaching smart people how to learn. Harvard Business Review , 4, pp. 4-15. Astley, W. and Zajac, E., 1990. Beyond dyadic exchange: Functional interdependence and sub-unit power. Organization Studies , 11, pp. 481-502. Bambacas, M. and Patrickson, M., 2008. 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