Committee Work in Teams - Assignment Example

Committee work in teams Introduction Working in teams has become a necessity in any organization. This is because most of the organizations have felt that teams can produce better results as they can harness individual synergies and utilize them in an effective way, far better than an individual can do alone. Teams can have various forms, like virtual teams and expert teams etc. But one important thing in all teams is that they have a common goal for which their members work. A Committee is a form of a team with a slight difference. Here the individuals do not work as team members but as individuals who have their independent objective. Though a committee may have its own objective, for example a centralized promotions committee has an objective of promoting individuals for various departments; each deciding member would have his/her individual preferences for candidates as the various members are drawn from different departments. The main purpose of forming a committee is to complete a task “on behalf of a larger group of people” (Grigsby 2008). We will look into details about the various aspects of teams and committees in greater detail in our ensuing discussion. However, we will first see how committees and teams are important for the organizations. Both are required for specific purposes in an organization. Teams are required when a task requires employees from different functions to work together while a committee’s purpose is to get experts in various fields to decide upon an action through consensus. Thus, in a committee all members are equal in power and responsibility for the overall task and are answerable as a whole and not as individuals. In a way, a committee can be considered as a team with a slightly different function and structure and perceived authority and responsibility. Teams A team can be defined as “A group of people who are committed to a common goal, work together, and help each other.” (Resnick 2007). A team has a specific goal to accomplish and all its members focus on this goal, leaving behind all their personal objectives. The tasks are divided into various sub-activities and each team member is given responsibility of completing that task. Each member of the team is responsible for his task and accountable for any failures of the same. Each member knows that his/her success depends on the success of the team which brings about commitment towards the end goal. Though the main purpose of a team is to achieve a specific organizational goal, a team goes through many phases of development before it is actually ready to achieve this. The members need to work together and hence there needs to be “teamwork”. Teamwork can be achieved when all the members of the team mutually agree upon “a specific target, performance indicators, a working approach and mutual accountability” before they start working on the assignment (Serrat 2009). To achieve this agreement all team members need to understand each other’s capabilities and accept dependency on each other for achieving the ultimate aim. One of the theories which describes how teams develop into a high performing work groups is called Tuckman’s Teamwork Theory. As per this theory, a team goes through 4 phases before they actually start performing to their maximum capacity – forming, storming, norming and performing (Fuhriman and Burlingame 1994). In the forming stage the team members are yet to know each other and their own position in the team. Once they have identified themselves with the team, they now try to sound their opinions about how things should be done. They question each other and the team leader regarding the various activities. This results in conflict among the team members. Once the team has been through the conflict stage, they start laying down the working rules, responsibilities, timelines, accountability and performance parameters based on their skill sets. Thus, there is a sense of ownership and mutual oneness in the team. Once this has been achieved, the team starts performing and moving towards its goal. This is the stage where team synergy and efficiency has been achieved and the team’s effectiveness is at its peak levels. To understand how a team should work, a STAR team model was developed. The following figure shows how this model works. thehappymanager.com) As per this model, a team leader should align the strengths of his/her team members to enable teamwork which can produce requisite results. However, besides the internal forces shown in the above diagram, there are three external forces also which the leader needs to take into account for achieving desired team performance. Outside influences include interaction of the team with external suppliers, customers and competitors etc. The position of the team within the organization is another factor that influences its work. For example a recruitment team performs an important function for an organization and will always have focus of the top management as it impacts the performance of the company. Slow or inaccurate skill set recruitment can be disastrous for the company’s performance. Any delays in recruitment could lead to poor performance by process and negative customer feedback for the organization as a whole. Whereas a team that deals with exit cases (employees leaving an organization) may not have a direct impact on the working of the firm and will not be under fire all the time. And finally interaction with other teams is also an important external factor that impact team functioning. For example the recruitments team needs to interact with training team, operations team, payroll team and administration team of the company. Thus, for effectiveness of this team, it is important for it to build good relationship with the other teams without which there will be inter-team conflicts. Such conflicts will not help achieve any organizational goals. Committees In a committee, “authority and responsibility are held by a group rather than an individual” (Gitman and McDaniel 2008). Committees usually have an advisory role but can also have powers to implement decisions. Committees are comprised of members who have come together to achieve a common purpose, but each member has his/her own personal goal. The members usually represent various departments and are usually biased towards the ones they represent. For example, a promotions committee, which is responsible for centralized promotions process in an organization, can be made up of senior members of various departments like human resources, operations, finance and quality etc. While considering the various candidates for possible promotions, each member is bound to push for the one from his/her department. Thus, though the committee has a common purpose of promoting the best employee, there will be personal interest of pushing the best interest of their own people. The interpretation of goals in a committee is from the angle of their department people rather than the company goal. Another characteristic of a committee is that the members have to refer back to their group (may be department heads or HR heads) before they decide something (Resnick 2003). Most of the decisions in a committee are based on compromises (give and take). The aim is to give the minimum and get the maximum. The main aim of the members of a committee is to work in the best interest of the department or people they represent. Difference between committees and teams If we look at the working style of the two seemingly similar groups, we can see a huge difference between them. The basic difference lies in the mind set of the members. A team is more of a partnership with equal sharing of responsibility and accountability by the team members. The main aim of the members is to achieve the final goal for which it is formed as their success depends on the success of the team. Each team member takes onus of the job he/she is doing and any problems encountered during the course of the project are instantly discussed and addressed. Thus, there are no delays. However, in a committee, as seen earlier, members function on the premise that they have to get the best deal for the department they are representing. As a result they keep referring back to their departments for inputs before deciding. This results in bureaucracy and slow decision making. Many of the committees are of advisory nature which may not actually implement all the actions recommended. Thus, the committees at times do not have much influence on actual implementation while in teams members are the main implementers. Let us look at how a team would respond to a particular situation in a HRM process and how a committee would respond to the same situation. In a recruitments process, which is very critical for an organization which is into software development or call center operations because of its dependence on manpower, a centralized recruitment team can be formed to facilitate quick recruitment of appropriately skilled employees as per requisition sent by various processes. Such a team would normally consist of employees with various skill sets like human resources, finance, trainers, and process experts and so on. After this team has gone through the various stages of development (as described earlier), it will start performing as a single unit irrespective of departments where the individual members belong. This is because their performance is judged by the amount of timely and apt recruitments achieved by the team and not by the departments they have recruited for. The aim of each member would be to recruit the correctly skilled candidate at the earliest. Thus, any delay due to, say, lack of sufficient training or salary issues, will be quickly resolved by mutual discussion between the respective team members. Everyone understands the importance of ensuring timely recruitment. Now let us look at how a committee will work if it is given the same task in hand. Each member has the department benefit in mind. So, each one will view the candidates as per their departmental perspective. A human resource person will try to recruit as many candidates as possible as he/she has his/her own department’s recruitment targets in mind. A trainer may not agree to the candidate selected by the HR person as he/she might find the candidate not easily trainable. An operations person may want to recruit him for a different process as he has compulsions of filling that process requirement. So, there will be a lot of discussion and ultimately either the recruitment will be delayed or the candidate will go to a process whose member was more influential than the others, irrespective of the overall company perspective. Looking at the above discussion it looks like that teams are better than committees. However, to understand the actual difference between the two let us look at the advantages and disadvantages of the two from HR process perspective. Advantages of teams and committees Some of the advantages of a team have been conspicuously highlighted by the HR recruitment process working. One of them is the need for understanding each others’ strengths and achieving synergy by utilizing them efficiently (Lussier and Achua 2009). Each member in this team knows what the other is good at. For example, the HR representative knows that a trainer is the best person to evaluate the trainability aspect of a candidate which is crucial for his/her long term sustainability within the company. A candidate recruited without assessing this aspect could last for a couple of months in the company depending upon the complexity of the process. Any attrition after trainings is a huge cost to the company. Hence, the HR representative depends on the trainer for the correct inputs to enable the best fit candidate recruitment. Similarly an operations representative in the team will have no understanding of salary issues which only an HR representative can resolve. Because of this interdependence all will work efficiently to produce a synergistic impact. Another visible advantage is the speed with which decisions are taken in a team. Since there is no bureaucracy and most of the operational decisions are taken at team level after mutual agreement there is minimal delay. Whenever there are problems resolutions happen through discussions. Say for example, one of the team members is unable to decide whether to recruit a particular candidate or not. In such a case all team members can sit and discuss the issue and brainstorm the various solutions and arrive at the best possible one. This reduces the chances of errors (Lussier and Achua 2009). And finally, as the team members work together, they develop trust and feeling of togetherness. This provides them with job satisfaction through the contentment of the need to socialize. Committees are useful when various departments need to be represented at a particular forum of the organization. Since it consists of members from various departments, it ensures that there is adequate representation when a particular decision is taken and the employees also feel that their voice was heard before implementation of a policy. This helps in getting employee participation and support. “wider member participation results in member support and commitment for organization’s goals” (Richardson and Marshall). A good place where a committee would be suitable would be a restructuring committee setup on a short term basis to restructure the organizational setup for a better performance. Such jobs require adequate discussion and complete overview of the staffing situation and employee psychology in the various departments as it could require some amount of downsizing which is a delicate and sensitive subject and can have legal implications as well. Committees also help in building future leaders because individuals work with members of varying capabilities and experience (Richardson and Marshall). A committee is the best way of getting together people with variety of experience and expertise a solution. Committees can be standing committees or short term one. For example, the restructuring committee would be a short term one. Once the desired outcomes have been achieved the committee would cease to exist. However, a committee to enhance the public relation for the organization by working for social causes would be a permanent committee with members changing after a period of time. Such committees give a lot of exposure to the employees even while working in their concerned departments. Disadvantages of teams and committees In teams all members may not be equally vocal. For example, in the recruitments team, a trainer may not be very open to suggesting ideas fearing being ostracized by other members. This may result in incompetent candidate selection. Many team members take advantage of others by pushing their burden on others. Sometimes team members start mutually agreeing on things to avoid getting into embarrassing situations while facing questions. This can have disastrous consequences for the organizational goals. Sometimes groups tend to become so unified that they do not allow outside ideas to pour in. For the recruitments process any changes by other employees to compensation policies or training style may be out rightly rejected by the concerned team members as they feel it as an interference in their team functioning. This may not be good for the improvement of the process. Committees on the other hand tend to be very slow in churning out decisions. As it is assumed that the members are well equipped to perform their tasks, no external inputs are usually provided to ensure efficient member functioning (presbyteryofli.org). Committee does not work on a vision for the future but focuses on the present. Thus, in the HR recruitment case, if a committee approach is followed, members will be fighting for the present resources to be sent to their departments rather than thinking on how to make the system more efficient for the future so that all resources are efficiently utilized. The work as a member may not be a routine job in a committee; hence the focus may not be very high. Another drawback of a committee is that the control is not decentralized. Conflict is an intrinsic part of a committee (presbyteryofli.org). Conclusion The difference between the two, even though one seems to be the subset of the other, is beautifully summed in the following quote - “in committees, various interests come together and share resources only if their own goals aren’t jeopardized. In true teams, resources are readily shared because goals can only be reached as a unit, not individually.” (Miles). This is very well supported by our above discussion. A committee structure works at only very specific places and is plagued by many faults. One of the major problems is that a committee structure is unable to get adequate commitment from the members for the company level initiative. All members work for their personal goals and if by the way the company goals are met, they are fine with the situation else they are not bothered about them. Since there is no individual accountability, there is no danger of repercussions. Team members in a team on the other hand function as a unit and have high cohesiveness. If appropriate inputs are given by the team leader at appropriate time to keep the team motivated, there is high synergy and innovation. The vision of a team is more futuristic and each member is accountable for his/her action. Failure of the team to deliver results can result in personal failure. Thus, based on the STAR model and Tuckman’s team theory teams can be driven to excel their performance. Recommendations The above discussions show that teams in general are able to produce concrete results and are better suited to do a job than committees. Organizations which have committee structure of working may be beleaguered with lack of commitment for company goals. However, if committee members are made accountable for their work, a committee can also delivery good results as accountability helps in earning commitment. For HR processes, advisory committees which work towards chalking out future policy paths can work well. However for actual implementation of policies a team made up of members with various skill sets will help achieve better results. As setting up committees is a good way of getting people with varied experience and skills together, they should be used in a way that can get the best out of them. References Fuhriman, A and Burlingame, GM 1994, Handbook of group psychotherapy: an empirical and clinical synthesis, John Wiley and Sons. Gitman, LJ and McDaniel, C 2008, The Future of Business: The Essentials, Cengage Learning. Grigsby, KR 2008, Committee, Task Force, Team: What’s the difference? Why does it matter? Academic Physician & Scientist, viewed on July 19, 2011 https://www.aamc.org/download/164730/data/grigsby_committee_task_force_team.pdf. Lussier, RN and Achua, CF 2009, Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development, Cengage Learning. Miles, K, Teams Vs Committees, stratipoint.com, viewed on July 19 2011 http://stratipoint.com/2010/06/teams-vs-committees/ presbyteryofli.org, Groups/committees versus teams, viewed on July 19, 2011 http://www.presbyteryofli.org/uploads/pdfs/Groups%20and%20Teams.pdf Resnick, HS 2007, Are you leading a team or committee? Worksystems.com, viewed on July 18, 2011 http://www.worksystems.com/freeResources/organizationalDesign/are_you_leading.html Richardson, B and Marshall, MG, Working with Committees, University of Arkansas, Cooperative extension service, viewed on July 19, 2011 http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publications/PDF/dist06/Section3_Program_Issue_Committees/1_Committees.pdf Serrat, O 2009, Working in teams, Knowledge Solutions, viewed on July 18, 2011 http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/working-in-teams.pdf Read More