Teams as a Necessary Condition in Contemporary Organisations - Essay Example

College: Lecturer: A team can be defined as a group of people who are coordinating their activities in an effort to accomplish a common goal, objective, and purpose (Smith, 2004). The members of the group are responsible for the end result of their work even though they work interdependently. A team can be observed as two or more people united together by a common social entity where the level of responsibility, trust, and understanding is of a higher degree compared to a simple group. Individuals who are working on separate projects cannot be identified as a team since they are working independently and they don’t share any common responsibility and the end result of their efforts is not interdependent (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). Teamwork is not a new phenomenon, it is a strategy that has been in operation for a long time but its structure and organization is changing with time (Smith, 2004). Several contemporary organizations have structured team-based networks which are very different from the hierarchical structures of the industrial era. Advanced communication technologies have suddenly changed the course of teamwork from control-based traditional teams to virtual teams which are evenly distributed within the organizational structure. The traditional Industrial age teams were basically hierarchical and the employees were bound by fixed rules as a means to keep them under control and this inhibited freedom and risk taking (Grey, 2009). With regard to contemporary business organizations, it is fundamental to efficiently utilize the available scarce resources to overcome the challenges which have risen as a consequence to globalization in addition punctually responding to the demands of market place. Since the demand of quality products and services has risen, it has been a prerequisite for companies and organizations to timely adapt to the changing market demands where there is an ever increasing call for employee satisfaction as well as increased efficiency coupled with reduced operational costs. Thus, as a result, organizations are turning to team-based style of organization (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). The degree of hierarchy which used to be dominant in traditional organizations has transformed to a uniform structure (Wellins, 2006). The members of a team used to cooperate with one other rather than being obliging their single performance to a single manager. The members of a team in a contemporary organization have a great influence on the decision making and planning of the tasks to be executed ad how they will be executed and this designs the expected quality and quantity of output hence eventually resulting to increased production as well as customer satisfaction. A good example of the benefits which can be gained from team work can be learnt from the Motorola company in 1971 where due to implementation of team work; their turnover decreased by 25%, productivity increased by 30%, and attendance shot to 95%; a rather recommendable result (Wellins, 2006). Through both involvement and consultative techniques, the company had managed to utilize team and individual creativity optimally. Considering the benefits and the advantages that accompany team based organizations, the management has the core responsibility of analyzing the issues affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of a team so as to improve them further. Contemporary organizations should base their interest on the development of team performance and growth. They should be in a capacity to initiate and maintain a level of cohesiveness among the members of a team in addition to establishing healthy teamwork (Grey, 2009). Teamwork should be given preference as well as constant attention since if the level of cohesiveness in a team is high, then the probability of effectiveness in the team is also high. Team cohesiveness in a group can be referred to as the habitual tendency of a group to remain united and stick together in an effort to accomplish their main tasks and objectives (Wellins, 2006). It is the degree which the group organizes itself to create a sense of belonging and commitment in pursuit of achieving a common goal. There exist several basic drivers which have a fundamental influence on the effectiveness and cohesiveness in a contemporary organization; the clarity and acceptance of the common goal within the team should be initially defined. The members of a team should be well trained on what is expected from each individual member of the team and more often than not this is achieved through ultimate involvement of the team members I the decision making process. The members of a team are united together by the feeling of acceptance to fulfill a common objective where the success or failure of the team is credited to each and every member (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). Another major factor which results to healthy team cohesiveness is trust. It is recommended that each member of the team trusts the other for they are responsible for interdependent tasks as well as shared responsibilities. a member of a team should be aware that his/her performance can affect the performance of the team in general since if the members fail to trust each other, then eventually they forget their common goal and each member pursues his/her individual objective hence resulting to lack of team cohesion (Grey, 2009). The management is expected to facilitate continuous free flow of information within a team since this train the team members to understand and respect each other. In the process of establishing a successful and efficient communication an organization additionally implement some unique and informal strategies lake adding humor within the team; recent research has proven that laughter and fun creates easiness and some sort of bonding among the members of a team as this eliminates social barriers which draw a line between the management and employees. Managers who have been observed to be humorous have a high chance of becoming an integral part of a team than those that are strict and tight lipped, however it is very essential to avoid negative forms of humor as they can disorganize the team (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). In a contemporary business organization setting, the members of a team may originate from different countries with a combination of diversified cultures and as a result the level of skills, likes and dislikes may vary and this becomes a major drawback when forming a team. It is the onus of the management to pool the right combination of skills so as to achieve the required cohesion within a team. The major challenge while forming a team is cultural diversity where individuals’ posses personal interests rather than common goals. Unless there are defined guidelines on who to do what and when, then, there is a high likelihood of the team failing to achieve the desired goals and objectives. As a result, the human resource department should ensure that it efficiently accommodates these differences as well as capitalizing on the combined potential of a team (Grey, 2009). Every factor that plays a part in building the cohesiveness within a team contributes to the effectiveness of the team and thus team effectiveness can be described as the ability to bring different people together to work efficiently. A well coordinated team can achieve fundamental goals which are beyond those that can be achieved by the same number of individuals working independently and this is what can be referred to as the synergistic characteristic of a group (Wellins, 2006). The right motivation is also a contributing factor to team effectiveness, the members of such a team need to be motivated so that they can perform optimally and this situation is possible on condition that they can observe that their efforts are being sufficiently rewarded by the end results. Organizations can motivate their teams through provision of frequent appraisals as well as rewards to the best performing team; this acts as a challenge to the other teams and creates a room for healthy competition (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). Teams basically depend on employee empowerment instead of control and direction from the management. The proper organization of teams have resulted to efficient work structures which are more flexible and democratic accompanied by achieved goals of information sharing and uniform distribution of responsibility between the employees and the management. An ideal team consists of a global focus in place of departmental focus. Problems in the organization are solved at the source rather than by an independent policy function. The distribution of information is basically focused on the employees in addition to the fact there is increased emphasis of the balance between work and life at home (Grey, 2009). The value of improvement is highly appreciated, rather than promoting individuals who posses highly specialized skills; team-oriented organizations lay their objectives on creating multi-skilled flexible team members who can perform various functions. Teams that work with limited or no supervision at all are the most efficient as they are capable to rapidly adjust to the environmental and technological changes. These types of teams are capable of exploring new cross-border operations through the utilization of technology and available information (Grey, 2009). Contemporary organizations have laid their focus on teams which are self-regulatory where they increase their efficiency through the negative feedback mechanism; this is a process where signs of negative feedbacks and deviations from the usual norms are detected at early stages and brought back to control and eventually the organization remains on the track. The common model that is implemented is known as the Cybernetic model and it mode of function is similar to a thermostat since it demonstrates the capability to monitor indicators of failure and corrects the situation before it gets out of hand (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). A virtual feedback starts with the assumption of the fact that a contemporary organization consists of teams which act the building blocks of the organization. Teams work shoulder to shoulder where after completing the initial work one team passes the work to the next team for further processing or completion; this procedure resembles the bucket brigade but it has been observed that pressures of competition from the market call for reduction of operating costs which has proven to be a major challenge of this design therefore individuals who are working as a team lack the space and time to exploit their potentials fully (Grey, 2009). The best and most recommended means of achieving team effectiveness is the recognition of the fact that the team should be able to efficiently communicate, coordinate, in addition to cooperation. Even though this is a very well concept, many teams fail to appreciate it hence failure to achieve their goals and objectives, the best means of overcoming this major drawback is planning ahead and putting into consideration all the aspects that may affect the performance of a team prior to the formation of the team. To improve efficiency; the members of team should be able to communicate efficiently about the best alternatives to improve the performance of the team and any member who needs to work extra time to be abreast of the others should be given the liberty to do so (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). It is healthy for a team to interact freely and coordinate their activities in a synchronized manner in addition to the fact that the members should learn to appreciate and complement one another such that incase of the absence of one member, a quick replacement can be found immediately and the work completed. Cooperation and the spirit of mutual understanding support the process of building a strong team. Contemporary organizations appreciate team work as this form of organization improves output per worker in addition to bringing employees closer to one another. Teamwork in contemporary organizations has ensured that workload is executed with assistance of united efforts. The importance of united effort is the fact it enhances productivity through division of labor which eventually results to specialization (Grey, 2009). Equal and fair distribution of labor within an organization ensures that every individual in the team is executing his/her duty sufficiently hence the work available is completed within the stipulated deadline. When tasks are done with the maximum expected efficiency, there is distribution of risk and the burden of failure is equally distributed within the team. A member of a team has the opportunity to specialize in a single field and this creates room for creativity and innovation. This means that a team member optimizes his/her potential fully thus increasing efficiency within the organization and as a result the quality of work is improved (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). In team work, personal interest is considered to be subordinate to the interest of the organization; this ensures that every member of the team sufficiently works effortlessly towards the success of the organization through implementation of the maximum possible individual resources (labor) hence ensuring that there is timely output as well as high quality work. It is important to note that when work is equally distributed among the team members, the workload per worker is reduced hence ensuring that labor optimization and efficiency is increased (Thompson & Mchugh, 2009). Team work in any contemporary organization is of great significance for several reasons. Recent research has proven that the companies that have adopted team work have reported increased efficiency and performance resulting to a high output per worker. Team work has for many years been observed to improve the morale of employee since the employees motivate each other through cooperation and timely coordination (Grey, 2009). References Thompson, P. and Mchugh, D. (2009). Work Organizations: A Critical Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Grey, C. (2009). A Very Short, Fairly Cheap and Reasonably Interesting Book about Studying Organizations, 2nd ed. London: Sage Publishers. Smith, D. (2004). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization, HarperBusiness Wellins, R. (2006) Empowered Teams, Jossey-Bass Read More