Teamwork versus Individual Work - Essay Example

Teamwork versus Individual Work with Relevance to Decision Making Introduction: In the words of Orasanu and Connolly (1993), the process of decisionmaking is a “series of cognitive operations performed consciously,” which are involved with aspects from the environment in a “specific time and place” (Lizárraga, Baquedano and Cardelle-Elawar, 2007, p. 381). Furthermore, Narayan and Corcoran- Perry (1997) assert that decision making is the “interaction” between a “problem” that requires solving as well as any person who “wishes to solve” the problem within a particular environment (p. 381). However, decision making need not always be the responsibility of an individual alone, and various professional as well as academic contexts reveal the decision making process taken up jointly by a team. The effectiveness achieved when making individual decisions differs from the effectiveness attained when teams take decisions. However, if a particular decision should be taken by an individual or a team is totally dependent on the nature of the problem that needs to be solved as well as the available time and resources. Therefore, whether decisions made by individuals are more effective from that of teams or vice versa cannot be ultimately stated as each problem differs from the other, thereby requiring unique decisions as well as different forms of decision making. Definition of Team and its Types: In order to understand the difference in effectiveness arising out of individual and team decisions, one must first be thoroughly understand the concepts of individual and team with reference to decision making. Larson and LaFasto (1989) provide a definition of team, which states that it is a “unit of two or more people” who engage in interacting as well as coordinating their work in order to “accomplish a specific goal” (Morden, 2004, p. 248). Katzenbach and Smith further describe the concept of team as a small group of people who possess “complimentary skills” and are committed to a “common purpose, performance goals, and approach” for which they are mutually accountable (p. 248). Therefore, team is comprised of two or more individuals who are influenced by a common commitment and who are ready to coordinate their activities in order to take decision regarding a particular problem within a stipulated time frame. There are different types of teams and each category or type has a basis of its own. Morden identifies the different types of teams such as “permanent or temporary team,” based on the period or purpose for which they are created; “formal” teams including, vertical and horizontal teams that are based on hierarchy or scalar chain; “cross functional” and “self-managed” teams based on representation of different functions and degree of authority of members respectively (p. 249). In this light, our team can be identified as a formal team as it was formed by the University of Lincoln’s MBA course in order to fulfill the course requirement relating to the university’s framework. However, irrespective of the type of team or the basis of its formation, a team can reach joint decisions just like any other individual can. Relevance of Team in Decision Making: Whereas the individual decision making involves a single person who tries to solve a problem on his or her own by taking his own decision, the team involves all its members in the process of decision making. When compared with individual decision making, team has more resources and can come up with more ideas to tackle a particular problem. A team that is comprised of members who have complementary skills, can work together and use ideas as well as derive suggestions from each members, thereby resulting in a well thought decision. A single individual cannot come up with as many creative solutions and ideas as the different members of a team can, furthermore, if an individual takes a wrong decision, he or she cannot receive suggestion or advice from other people either as compared to teams. In addition, when encountering challenges that are quite complex as well as which need to be solved immediately, when compared to an individual, a team can function in a better way due to the joined forces and concentrated efforts of all its members. Thus it can be seen how teams can come up with a lot of alternative solutions within the given time as compared to individuals when taking decision. However, when a team takes a decision, there are several factors, which affect as well as influence those decisions, and one must understand the factors affecting teamwork before deciding if teams or individuals are more effective in taking decisions. Factors Affecting Teamwork: When studying teamwork, one can see that there are several factors that come into play, and these factors basically determine the effectiveness of decisions taken by teams. The first and foremost factor affecting teamwork is identified as the “commitment to team success and shared goals,” because after all it is commitment of a person, which determines how well they perform a particular job or task (Tarricone and Luca, 2002, p. 641). Tarricone and Luca assert that other elements that impact efficiency of a particular team include interdependence between members, interpersonal skills possessed by each member, positive feedback shared by individuals, appropriate team composition, leadership and accountability, motivation etc (p. 641). In the case of our team, although all members did possess necessary skills, it was seen that some members were slow to perform their tasks and that they were not dedicated enough to their responsibility of teamwork. While some members took their work seriously and did the work on times, others were lagging, however, fortunately, this problem did not affect the overall team performance to a large extent. Furthermore, through their study about individual philosophies with regard to teamwork, Freeman, Miller and Ross find that open communication as well as a shared vision are also factors that affect the overall outcome of the activities of a team (2000, p. 242). Therefore, the factors that influence teamwork have been understood, and this in turn shapes how team members arrive at decisions. Thus, it becomes clear that the aforementioned elements play a prominent role in the effectiveness of decisions taken by team members. Challenges, Problems and Conflicts Occurring in Teams: However, there arise certain problems when a team takes a decision, and when compared with individual decision making, it can be seen that teams face a lot of challenges while making decisions, the primary one being the amount of time taken to arrive at a decision. Furthermore, other issues faced by teams when taking decisions arise when the factors affecting teamwork are not favourable with respect to a given situation. In addition to these factors being unfavourable, there are certain other challenges that may arise in the process of team decision making such as social pressure toward conformity, individual domination, conflicting secondary goals, undesirable compromise, ambiguous responsibility etc (Lunenburg, 2010, p. 4). It was Irving Janis who coined the term “groupthink,” and this term is used to describe in-group pressures which take its toll on members of the team and cause “deterioration in mental efficiency, poor tasting of reality, and lax moral judgment” in them (Lunenburg, 2010, p. 2). Groupthink can be identified from symptoms such as an illusion of invulnerability, wrong rationalisation, complete belief in group’s inherent morality, applying pressure to members that express opposition etc (p. 2). Groupthink is one of the major challenges that occurs in teams, thereby, negatively impacting decision making of the team. However, groupthink can be avoided by adopting effective strategies such as setting up evaluation groups, encouraging all members of group to evaluate each member’s priorities and relative performances, discussing group’s deliberations openly, taking up the role of devil’s advocate in order to express all possible objections to a particular policy etc (p. 4). Sometimes there occur conflicts and problems in the team due to the “complexity” of the problem as well as its dynamics and its aspects of “multidisciplinatiy” involved (Beers et al., 2006, p. 3). In such cases, the different team members will have different solutions to the same problem, and may argue that the alternatives presented by them are better suited to solve the issue as compared to that presented by another member. Thus, the “cognitive diversity and group creativity,” which are the fundamentally favourable attributes of teams, may take a different turn, thereby being the very reason for conflict arising in teams (De Dreu, Bechtoldt and Nijstad, 2013, p. 5). In case of our group, it was difficult to find a perfect balance between individual and team goal, as each member working for the group presentation had a lot of different ideas, which seemed to create conflicts with others’ ideas. Furthermore, when a particular individual dominates the group, the other members are always forced to follow his or her decisions, without being able to even make suggestions or come up with alternatives. Thus in such cases, the effectiveness of the decision taken by the group clearly rests within the hands of that dominant member, and if the decision made by that member is based on personal gain as well as personal bias then the decision will be totally ineffective. Thus in this way conflicting secondary goals can stand in way of the main priority of the team thereby leading to ineffective decisions. Thus, the aforementioned are the major challenges, problems and issues faced by teams, which ultimately results in ineffective decisions made by the members. Strategies to Overcome Conflicts caused in Teams: The various challenges teams face have been discussed, but it is to be understood that these challenges as well as conflicts can be avoided to a large extent with concentrated efforts from each team member as well as the team leader. First of all, in order to make effective decisions, the team should be an effective team. There are a lot of strategies that can be followed in order for effective team building, therefore creating a team, which comprises of members who can work together under any circumstance, thus achieving the required goals and objectives. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) contend that the following need to be ensured in order to build an effective team: 1) Team should comprise of only a few members. 2) Members should possess adequate levels of complementary skills. 3) There should be an underlying truly meaningful purpose behind the formation of the team 4) Specific goal or goals should be set and communicated to all members. 5) A clear approach to the teams work needs to establish beforehand. 6) There should exist a sense of mutual accountability. 7) The appropriate leadership structure should be defined (Fapohunda, 2013, p. 4). Thus, when the abovementioned are followed thoroughly, an effective team consisting of efficient individuals can be created. This will enable the team to take effective decisions and also avoid various challenges, problems and issues that may occur during the course of attaining the set objectives and goals. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the team takes effective decisions, all the team leader should always see to it that the “expectations and objectives” have utmost clarity and that each member understands things in the respective “perspective” (Fapohunda 5). The leader also needs to ensure that each member is given a role in the decision making process according to their respective capabilities. With effective “communication” and “cooperation” among all team members the team can maximum avoid conflicts thus, enabling the team to reach effective decisions (Sutter and Strassmair, 2009, p. 1). However, at certain times, no matter how much conflicts and problems are avoided, they still cannot be fully eradicated. Thus, in such cases, the team leaders need to come up with solutions to such conflicts and problems. Rahim (2011) describes the conflict management process, which consists of the following steps: 1. Conflict 2. Diagnosis 3. Intervention 4. Learning and Effectiveness 5. Feedback (p. 58). According to this process, the first step to understand what type of conflict has arisen as well as the degree of conflict and what impact it has on the individual, group as well as organisation. Next step to take in case of conflict is to measure as well as analyse the particular conflict. After this step, the process as well as structure to be adopted in order to compromise the conflict are developed. Once the strategy to overcome the conflict have been developed, the same information is passed to the individuals and the group, thereby giving them a clear idea about the conflict and how to avoid such possible conflicts in future. Thus, this is done through the last step, which is feedback, and in this way any conflict arising in the team can be overcome, therefore, the team thus develops an “intragroup trust,” thus enabling the members to concentrate on taking effective decisions and supporting each other in the process (Peterson and Behfar, 2003, p. 102). Conclusion: Thus, working in a team for the MBA course gave me a good idea about what it is like to actually be working with different people who have different views and interests. Although such complexities would not have occurred if I was handling the task single handedly, I now know that I also would have not been able to come up with so many alternatives as in the case of working with the team. Despite the differing views and conflict interests that occurred along the process, in the end we were able to fulfill the given tasks. However, different tasks or problems require different approaches, as in some cases an individual simply cannot take a good decision within given time, whereas a team can do it. But in certain cases, individual decisions are more effective and less time consuming as compared to group decisions. Thus, it cannot be concluded that either individual or team decisions are more effective, as the effectiveness of the decision basically depends upon the problem or task at hand. References Beers, P., Boshuizen, H., Kirschner, P. and Gijselaers, W. (2006). Common ground, complex problems and decision making. Group decision and negotiation, 15(6), pp.529--556. De Dreu, C., Bechtoldt, M. and Nijstad, B. (2013). Team personality diversity, group creativity, and innovativeness in organizational teams. Sustainable Development in a Diverse World (SUS. DIV)., [online] 5. Available at: http://www.susdiv.org/uploadfiles/RT3.2_PP_Carsten.pdf [Accessed 1 Jun. 2014]. Fapohunda, T. (2013). Towards Effective Team Building in the Workplace. International Journal of Education and Research, 1(4). Freeman, M., Miller, C. and Ross, N. (2000). The impact of individual philosophies of teamwork on multi-professional practice and the implications for education. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 14(3), pp.237-247. Lizárraga, M., Baquedano, M. and Cardelle-Elawar, M. (2007). Factors that affect decision making: gender and age differences. International Journal of Psychology \& Psychological Therapy, [online] 7(3), pp.381-391. Available at: http://www.ijpsy.com/volumen7/num3/176/factors-that-affect-decision-making-gender-EN.pdf [Accessed 1 Jun. 2014]. Lunenburg, F. (2010). Group Decision Making. National Forum of Teacher Education Journal, 20(3). Lunenburg, F. (2010). Group decision making: the potential for groupthink. Int. J. of Management, Business and Administration, 13(1), pp.1-6. Morden, T. (2004). Principles of Management. 2nd ed. UK: Ashgate. Peterson, R. and Behfar, K. (2003). The dynamic relationship between performance feedback, trust, and conflict in groups: A longitudinal study. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 92(1), pp.102-112. Rahim, M. (2011). Managing Conflict in Organizations. 4th ed. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Sutter, M. and Strassmair, C. (2009). Communication, cooperation and collusion in team tournaments—an experimental study. Games and Economic Behavior, 66(1), pp.506--525. Tarricone, P. and Luca, J. (2002). Successful teamwork: A case study. Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia. Read More