Team Dynamics and Employee Conflict - Assignment Example

 Additionally, she has the task of encouraging these teams to 'lead' the company in the direction required, without herself being directive. Her role is that of a competent doctor assisting childbirth. If the process is going smoothly, the doctor waits and encourages the mother, and provides her all the assistance required. Medical intervention should happen only in an emergency! What is the process that teams go through while resolving business issues Beer et al (p160) state that research has proven that "inter-functional coordination, decision making, work organization and concern for people" are the four indicators of performance-in the long run-and, not financial parameters, which in the short term, can spike or recede in response to other factors?

These four factors are directly connected with team functioning. Apart from this, they talk of six distinct steps (pp161-164) taken by successful managers to elicit task-related responses-i.e. a response ideally suited to deal with the task at hand. What are these six stepsFirst, mobilizing commitment to change through joint diagnosis of business issues. Here, the operative word is 'joint'. Participation in this process ensures a commitment to the process of change required to tackle this problem.

Second, comes the process of drafting a 'shared vision' to organize to cope successfully with the situation. Note, it is not the CEO spelling out the steps to be taken, it is the team ('shared') doing this. In this process, new roles and responsibilities are taken on, but since it does not involve a change in titles or remuneration there is less resistance to the steps. Here, cross-functional teams operate-teams from across different departments and at different levels of the hierarchy-the only criterion for the composition of teams being that it is the most conducive to task attainment.

Then (third) comes a pro-active fostering of consensus for the new way of functioning, and building competence and cohesion to achieve it. The new way of functioning would require new skills, and employees seek to gain these skills. This process is assisted by the management. Apart from this, if the management sends out a message that team functioning is what is required, then the building of competence and cohesion happens quickly and smoothly. (Fourth) Once team functioning has succeeded in one department, it has to spread to other departments.

However, it is likely to fail if it is a top-down effort. Other departments, which would be at various levels of readiness to reorganize themselves into new functional teams, need to work out their own way of attaining this. The management has to stand by and cheer, as it were, without pushing. (Fifth) Once the process of change has more or less spread through most departments, the new roles and team relationships have to be institutionalized, so that the company does not inadvertently slip back.