Definition of Team Dynamics - Report Example

Running Head Team Dynamics Team Dynamics Recent years, team work becomes very popular in organizations. Because self-managing members are working onpermanent teams, the effort and expense involved in changing compensation structures is often justified. However, in more temporary teams, such as cross-functional or problem solving teams, other types of HR policy changes (for example, altering an evaluation system to include team behaviors) may be more appropriate to encourage positive behaviors. In general, the pattern of relationships among positions in modern organizations and among members of the organization is important because without effective support performance efficiency can be reduced. The divi­sion of work among members of organizations and the co-ordination of their activities so they are directed towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization is also a crucial factor. So, effective and efficient groups work provides security and social satisfaction for customers and organization supporting individ­ual needs and promoting communication, formally or informally. Recent trends underline the important of client-oriented relations and high level of cohesiveness in working groups which ensures clients satisfaction and improve service level. (Buchholz and Roth 1987). The advantage and benefits of working in teams are joined actions of all team members and an opportunity to work on complex problems and solutions. For this reason, team work plays a crucial role as it is concerned with provision of services for the diverse client population. Design of a team and effective leader can be seen only as tools for providing effective support. Neither a group work nor a leader in isolation cannot secure effective work of modern organizations. Group work is a complex notion which depends upon different strategies and methods. Modern organizations deal socially and economically with diverse settings. The class-based approach has a tendency to foster autonomy of client population. The population is also divided into groups: clearly defined social groups such as poor and middle class families. Programs are normally designed to meet the needs of specific client (interest) groups and their specific characteristics. The client-oriented structure seeks to ensure that these needs and demands are accurately identified and acted upon. (Dickson and Hargie 2003). The main challenge of team work is effective communication and coordination of all team members, motivation and rewards. In general, a work team can be defined as a group of individuals working interdependently to solve problems or accomplish tasks. Teams are a powerful design option for organizations that hope to meet the challenges of increased global competition, improve output quality, and address the social needs of the ever-changing global workforce. However, the success or failure of work teams in multinational organizations will depend largely on communication. Effective communication requires that HR practitioners adapt key assumptions about motivation, structure, and accountability. Adapted assumptions must support lateral thinking, collaboration, interdependence, a focus on process, permeable boundaries, and mutual responsibility. Following LaFasto and Larsen (2001) the “key ingredients” for successful teamwork are “openness, supportiveness, action orientation and personal style” (p. 5). Work teams are most effective when there is high task interdependence or a high degree of coordination and collaboration required between team members to accomplish tasks. Thus, a group of insurance sales agents who are geographically dispersed and have little interaction with one another to carry out their tasks would most likely be an inappropriate context in which to implement teams. The agents would probably see such an effort as an empty, poorly developed strategy designed to capitalize on a management fad. Work teams are also more appropriate when the tasks that their members carry out are complex and well designed (Dickson and Hargie 2003). In modern organizations, teams are designed to meet the needs of particular groups of clients in order to solve complex problems they face with. If a group is to be successful and perform effectively there must be a spirit of unity and co-operation, which can be achieved through scheduling and decision-making. In this case, work based on cooperation becomes the main tool helping both the client and the agent to achieve the goals. Team members should be aware of needs and expectations of interest groups (client population) who are also involved in decision-making process. Usually, the most con­sistently successful groups comprise a range of roles undertaken by various members (Hanlan, 2004). Teams in individualistic cultures appear to be particularly susceptible to overconfidence. “Effective communication depends at least as much on the ability to use narrative well as on the ability to use argument well” (Jameson 2001, p. 476). Individualists view their team as an entity in and of itself rather than one that is connected to the external context and are therefore even less apt to use external sources of information to make corrections in their behavior and improve their performance. Particularly in individualistic cultures, team-based organizations need to have systems that help teams set realistic expectations. This allows them to stay motivated while at the same time remaining open to learning from feedback and mistakes. Doing so often requires extending team members task skills. Task skills and effective performance is impossible without effective communication and positive climate (Katzenbach and Smith 2003). Multi-skilled teamwork involves teams made up of individuals with multiple and overlapping skills that are deployed around the performance of a whole task, which represents a significant part of a larger work flow. Members are multi-skilled so that work can be flexibly allocated among them. In organizing work around processes, organizational boundaries must often be renegotiated. Increasingly, work teams include external customers and suppliers (Hanlan, 2004). Team dynamics can be achieved by effective communication which increased cohesiveness of the team. These types of work structures require a whole new notion of collaboration—collaboration with external constituencies. A potential impediment to the success of work teams comes from differences in employee preferences and values. Just as some cultures are more individualistic or more collectivistic than others, individuals within cultures also vary on this dimension—even though there is, on average, more variation across cultures than within cultures (Hanlan, 2004). For example, when faced with the prospect of moving to a team-based work environment, some employees in a study conducted in the United States expressed concerns that reflected their individualistic values (LaFasto and Larsen 2001). Numerous impediments will challenge the effective implementation of teams across national contexts, including the inherent time lag between implementation and results, the often tenuous relationships between teams, cultural differences that require adaptations in practices to fit the context, and increasing domestic demographic diversity within nations. As temporary team structures, multicultural teams, and virtual teams proliferate, these team-savvy practitioners will be able to lead their organizations through successful implementation and use of teams in multinational contexts. Team dynamics can be explained as the ability of a team to grow and develop itself. These principles of work should not be imposed from the top, but should be a codification of already accepted behavior of social workers (LaFasto and Larsen 2001). The principles are revised from time to time and one of the challenging tasks for the central group work function is to introduce a code of practice relating to social justice, which takes considerable discussion and consultation before agreement could be reached. It is possible to add that group members should work not only of their own groups but also of the next superior team and, where appropriate, of peer teams. This strategy is based on group work and enables each group to be linked to the rest of the organization or network which resulted in high efficiency and effectiveness of a particular program. Social workers working in groups encounter moral dilemmas frequently in their working lives and are likely to find them very difficult. Some standards of ethics derive from voluntary agreement by social workers. Then there are the ethical standards that are generated within a particular work group. The need for ethical guidelines is that actions in group work are the result of decisions by human beings, and human beings tend to seek justification for their actions beyond the rule of value for money. The solidarity of some work groups or their cohesiveness is an indication of how much influence the group has over individual members. Members are not so likely to violate group norms if they are strongly attached. It is important to note that managers must be aware of certain aspects of group performance. One is that in work groups which are highly cohesive, norms can be very influential in encouraging high or low productivity of members of the group. One method of increasing the cohesiveness of a work group is to give members more say in the selection of persons they will be working with (LaFasto and Larsen 2001). In sum, despite organizational strategies that call for a flexible, diverse, and situational workforce, many benefit, compensation, and status systems remain grounded in tenure and conformity, with an internal focus. If the power of this tool can be harnessed and used to the fullest, then organizations can better their chances of success in a highly competitive business world. The involvement of workers more and more in the decision-making process can reduce antagonism and enable group members to see themselves as part of the whole organization. Teams provide security, social satisfaction for members, support individ­ual needs and promote communication, formally or informally. Thus, the main challenges of team work are communication and culture, coordination and cohesiveness. References Buchholz, S. Roth, Th. (1987). Creating the High Performance Team. Wiley. Dickson, D., Hargie, O. (2003). Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory, and Practice. Routledge. Hanlan, M. (2004). High Performance Teams: How to Make Them Work. Praeger Publishers. Jameson, D.A. (2001). Narrative Discourse and Management Action. Journal of Business Communication, 38 (4), 476-477. Katzenbach, J. R., Smith, D. K. (2003). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High- Performance Organization. Harpercollins Trade Sales Dept. LaFasto, F., Larsen, C. (2001). When Teams Work Best. Sage Publications. Read More