Team Effectiveness and Future Challenges for Teams - Essay Example

Management and Organisations Individual Report Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Team Effectiveness 3 Future Challenges for Teams 6 Virtual Teams 7 Implementing Virtual Teams 7 Conclusion 9 Bibliography 9 Introduction Work groups and work teams take the description of gatherings of people who actively depend on each other while sharing roles towards specific results within particular organizations. It has a major concern to the interdependence aspect that indicates of the team members’ dependence to one another while doing their respective works. Further, team members have a mutual responsibility to deliver certain products and results for the company as well as the larger social system that they continue operating. Such an aspect puts much pressure to different members of a team towards sacrificing their particular personal goals to the gain of the team. Through such cultures, the allowance of personal goals to subsume the team goals becomes rather difficult as they go against the core drivers for elements of self-preservation. The elements of team operation have a major effect on considering the different teams and elements types for team effectiveness. Team Effectiveness The major components of team effectiveness include viability and performance. Performance focuses on success in the delivery of several outputs (that is, services, products, information, or performance events) to the prospective consumers across the organization. The organization viability element has a future orientation and inclusion of continuity. The variability of viability is the ability towards maintaining the integral group membership while responsibility has to do with a shared group purpose. Cohesion refers to the responsibility of appreciating each of the team member’s contributions while capability describes the accomplishment of shared purposes (Cascio, 2006). For gaining success, teams have to focus on the integration of viability and performance. Researchers offer different explanatory models towards helping accurate conceptualization of team effectiveness. There is a pioneering development into input-process-output model in measuring organization effectiveness. Even with the age of the idea, most other models for work group effectiveness have a heavy reliance on it. Inputs have a key change driver for processes in case they mediate the effects of such inputs to their issues (Mullins, 2007). Inputs embrace all personal elements (such as experience, expertise, personality, and status) brought to teams when formation. The process variables engage the interaction of different team members of social information exchange, attempts leadership, and influence) as well as inherently dynamic outputs. They refer to yields from the group. From these, process variables are most difficult to measure and understand accurately as they have a high context of dynamism and dependence. Before-mentioned nature for team processes is a contradiction of the static operation in most capital intense teams. Team effectiveness needs to have an accurate conceptualization embedded within the multilevel system coupled with team, individual, and organizational-level factors. The focus is on the central components of processes (task-relevant) seeking to incorporate the temporal dynamics and developmental progression and episodic tasks. These views have team processes and their effectiveness categorized as emergent phenomena that unfold within large environmental contexts or business systems (Mullins, 2007). The understanding driving team effectiveness remains a complex part that requires due attention for the context in which the teams continue performing their respective tasks. The team contexts become multifaceted, as it is difficult to establish a definition and measurement (Daft, 2007). Among other challenges, this prevents research on diverse teams from achieving ready applicability for the real teams while attempting to have an improvement on effectiveness. There is progress because of research and practice; however, highlights are important towards the thorough consideration of the teams’ history. The teams’ implementation to performing different tasks is a commonplace in developing the teams’ goals. Customer service teams (like in Kodak), inter-functional teams (Chevron), unionized self-managed teams (Dow Corning), nonunionized self-managed teams (Motorola), and cross-functional teams (Miller Brewing Company) are examples got applicability of teams in organizations. Currently, teams continue ubiquitous within industries, companies, and continents. However, the comprehensive application of teams is not an implication that successful collaboration is attained in exemption of significant challenges. The emergency response teams consistently face unpredictable circumstances. The main challenge in managing such uncertainties and maintaining the effectiveness is majorly for related forms of teams. The members of an emergency response team need to overcome difficulties having to coordinate with teammates while making the effectiveness of their team a priority. They also seek to ask for help whenever needed (Blackard, 2000). While encountering significantly variant business environments, the management teams face challenges of the similar nature. They have to deal with major complexities while making decisions towards benefiting many key stakeholders. The management team members have to represent the sections of the business that they have a responsibility for. They also keep up with the organization’s success for organizational paramount. The transition teams have a task of implementing management models such the Six Sigma in environments concentrated with new employees (Chenhall, 2005). The management of external relationships as well as the continued focus on the essential milestones poses challenges for the teams. In gaining effectiveness, individual members need consistency in sharing information and performing their respective different roles. The virtual teams, on the other hand, encounter teammates on a face-to-face basis. Virtual team members face challenges of accuracy in communicating and understanding electronically transmitted information. The identification of the difficulties facing different team’s types as well as their members in disparate contexts goes above the management scope (Mullins, 2007). However, teams face related challenges in their workings including workplace globalization, significant teamwork dilemmas, as well as a virtual work environment. Future Challenges for Teams The contexts and environments that teams work, exponentially expands as time progresses. The recognition of globalization within workplaces leads to significant increments for the experiential cultural and variety for different team members. The teams increasingly complete respective works virtually due to the expansion in global reach. Such experience for several teams in the effective management of virtuosity and variety partially determines the experience of surviving and flourishing (Chenhall, 2005). Teams face another set for challenges coupled with the vital team dilemmas as an evident part. The fact that the dilemmas remain ubiquitous of the teams and are essential for their functioning, they have an intertwining effect and affection to the team’s diversity. In this regard, the dilemmas present themselves while covering first the framing components of subsequent discussions for globalization within virtual working environments. Virtual Teams The rapid development of information technologies as well as new communication tools expands the opportunities for teams in working together within different spaces and time. Such an aspect in combination of smaller budgets and heightened performance expectations leads into significant increments in virtual team’s implementation from the organizations across the world. While using the virtual teams has been around for a while, it has quick expansion while it continues into the future (Barnes & Taska, 2012). Many traditional and colocated teams do more of these while working virtually. Working together for processes of different team members within disparate locations occurs with the increase in regularity while the teams have an ideal equipment and skill of managing such a reality into more effective outcomes. The Virtual teams take the definition of groups of employees having different skills with a situation within the distant locations where the members need collaboration in using the technology of space and time in accomplishing set organizational tasks (Khandela, 2002). Implementing Virtual Teams The firms implementing virtual teams are in a position of bringing team members closer. Otherwise, they could not be in apposition of collaborating due to aspects of time, cost, among other travel limitations. Subsequent virtual teams’ advantages include an increased organizations’ experience in adapting readily to the drastic changes of team composition. Having the team members collected around relevant organization parts allows easier correlation and consultations. It also helps companies increase its retention on talented employees as they have minimal willingness for relocation. Most of the virtual teams encounter implementation through the target of improving performance as well as reducing related costs (Blackard, 2000). However, such goals are not realized in most cases. Various challenges that face the virtual teams involve the creation of trustworthy environments and the need to align the team members within singular purposes. There is also an essence in selecting competent virtual team members using sufficient interpersonal and technical knowledge and skill. Lastly, there is a trade-off in the maximization of the process gains across performance in form of teams. Such challenges cannot be exclusive to the different virtual teams but for lack of consistency in interaction of face-to-face exacerbating them. Teams that work within virtual environments have a consideration of contexts of the primary teamwork dilemmas (Mullins, 2007). A critical team process variable is information sharing which is responsible for effective team functioning. In times that there is a lack of information to team members, effectiveness can suffer. The remedy to this is active sharing of information among teammates and equal distribution. For top management teams of companies with potentially harmful drugs to the market, the team needs to make a decision whether to degenerate from the drug within respective markets. Lack of sharing information in the team significantly degrades the overall team’s decision quality (Barnes & Taska, 2012). For the success in developing, designing, building, advertising, and selling new products, all member of the team need to share significant pieces of information. The different team members develop individual and unshared information of specific situations that action need be while encountering information asymmetry dilemmas. Conclusion The work teams’ proliferation continues to expand with new developments of business principles and technologies. With the difficulty in predicting future aspects of teams, there are different trends, which are seemingly dominant in the strategic developments. The main issues of focus include virtual business environment and globalization. Firms and teams require a consideration of all these factors while attempting to prepare for the changing future. While these are main facets for business developments, teams face the challenge of addressing the fundamental dilemmas for collaboration. To achieve success, the dilemmas need an understanding as well as active management in contexts of increase of diversity. The teams with preparedness of increasing their chances for the success in navigation of the future as well as emphasizing on sustained effectiveness, the focus goes onto an experience of individual members successfully managing interpersonal relations as well as an experience of maintaining top-level healthy working relationships. Bibliography Barnes, A., Taska, L. 2012. Rethinking Misbehavior and Resistance in Organizations. London: Emerald Group Publishing. Blackard, K. 2000. Managing Change in a Unionized Workplace: Countervailing Collaboration. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Cascio, W. F. 2006. Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Life, Profits. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Chenhall, R.H. 2005. Integrative Strategic Performance Measurement System, Strategic Alignment of Manufacturing, Learning and Strategic outcomes: an exploratory study. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 30 (5), 395-422. Daft, R.L. 2007. Understanding the Theory and Design of Organisations. Thomson South-western, Mason. Khandela, M. C. 2002. Organizational behavior. Sydney: Arihant Publishing House Mullins, L. J. 2007. “Work Groups and Teams and the Nature of Management” Management and Organisational Behaviour. New York: Financial Times Prentice Hall, Read More