To Work Alone or as a Part of a Team - Essay Example

TEAM Although there are benefits to the independence and lack of oversight when doing individual projects, thinking of my own experience within organizations overall, I would prefer to work as part of a team, rather than working alone. In this investigation, the organizational cultures of teamwork are therefore vital. This research investigation looks at extant sources to highlight this issue of management (teamwork vs. working alone), from my own perspective. My personal management philosophy centers more around teamwork, because when a team is acting effectively, and communicating with each other well, it is my personal assertion the strategic decision-making power of the organization is increased exponentially. In this current investigation, I examine some of the benefits of teamwork in organizations, including its emphasis on shared and creative decisions, and its ability to generate new ideas and perspective. However, teamwork is not all positive: there are also risks, such as groupthink. Overall, though, in my estimation, it is better to be a member of a working and functional team which can communicate, than someone working alone. In terms of the leadership of the organizational professional along the lines of providing conflict resolution and providing a valuable leadership, in my experience, communication is the key. There is a difference between positive and negative communication, and often this difference is that in positive communication, the leader knows how to listen, as well as how to speak. In terms of solving conflict between groups in an organizational context, communication must be a two-way street in which both the sender and receiver of information benefit. “Typical problems in working relationships… include communication break-downs and a lack of cooperation. Specific interpersonal skills also are mentioned, such as an "overbearing, micro-managing supervisor” (Cole, 2000). If teamwork is broken, the productivity of the organization can suffer as a result. There are risks as well as rewards to teamwork, just as there are various pros and cons to working alone. For example, someone working alone does not have to find a consensus. But, in terms of drawbacks, they will not be able to reach out to others for help and ideas. Teamwork is doubly important today, because the degree of relationship building between professionals in many organizations is on the increase, and this is a positive aspect of change that brings with it, more leadership opportunities. Integration of platforms is another important part of this shift; professionals need to feel that they are acting in leadership that is able to integrate improvements not on a case-by-case department basis, but on a whole basis in which improvements in one aspect or department are linked to other improvements to the organization as a whole. It is the team member’s responsibility, therefore, to be self reflective. “Self reflection is a critical step in becoming a leader. It starts when you reflect on your experiences, including both successes and failures” (Bennis, 2003). The responsible leader knows their own weaknesses and limitations, and therefore is able to use a team situation to strengthen these limitations, as well as taking advantage of natural strengths and amplifying them through teamwork. I also believe that working as a part of a team is more important than working alone, in today’s organizational cultures, because more and more, multiculturalism and diversity are becoming a part of organizations. Cultural diversity is a potential obstacle or source of conflict to many relational groups among organizations and within them. The commonness of conflict in these groups, and also in other relation groups within the organizational environment, may be related to authority roles and other factors. These factors may include the problems of some employees as well as managers in overcoming personal feelings about diversity and multiculturalism and personalized conflict roles with each other, and other team members in doing the same thing, as well as looking into the ways in which they communicate with others and vice versa. Once again, in my opinion, communication is the key. There are obstacles, but if communication is good, the team will achieve. The idea of planning or strategizing is good thinking for managers who want employees to achieve organizational objectives, and who want to achieve their leadership goals in relation to the manager leadership. Planning is a central part of leadership because managers have to plan meetings and engagements. The manager who goes into a team situation without a plan is taking a big risk. Evaluations are plans of action or actions specially tailored to achieve goals, and they differ from individual to individual. They often involve self-regulation on the part of the manager who is looking to enhance their leadership abilities through teamwork, rather than through working alone. Strategies are not often directly reaction based and are most likely to be performed in advance of the action or situation in which the goal is sought. Along these lines, if the strategy proves to be a good one, it can be repeated. In the same way, a successful evaluation can be put to many situations, and a group can magnify their decision-making power. There are some obstacles to effective teamwork and leadership, which I have observed personally in organizational settings. Some even argue that there may be a leadership crisis within the contemporary managerial and organizational environment. “Witness the changes in leadership and direction in many of our most respected corporations. The mood of the populace has deteriorated and become more angry, cynical, sometimes foul and in a few horrifying cases, even murderous” (Bennis, 2003). It is the responsibility of the true team player to overcome this foul mood; team players are active, while team members may be more passive, or more likely to rely on their position rather than action. It is important to be active and dynamic, and contribute, when on a team. To me, being a part of a team means working together and communicating to achieve creative and strategic decision making. And I have found that creative decision-making emphasizes action. Developing a fresh perspective can lead management professionals to see a familiar problem in a new light. Sometimes all that’s needed is for the professional to look at an old problem in a new way to find a suitable new solution that hadn’t appeared before, when the process of measuring pros and cons tended to outweigh the aspects of solution-finding. It is often much more difficult to find this kind of new perspective when they are working alone; with more minds to contribute on a team, the process becomes much easier, because there are negations and additions inherent in the process. A willingness to change one’s perspective is a critical element of creative team decision-making in the field of business; professionals can look to creative-decision making as a fresh approach to which there are few limitations from the open or natural systems perspectives. There are communications that go on in organization that are internal to that organization, and those that are external and relate to the customer, and all of these must work together like gears in a machine. “While some advocates of systems analysis were suggesting that managers look at inputs, transformation processes and outputs, other systems advocate were developing quantitative techniques to aid in decision making” (Hellriegel et al., 2005). Building teamwork is about finding the most effective solutions. If someone is a part of an active and contributory team, they are going to have a natural advantage. It may be hard to motivate people on the team, but once this gets started, and everyone is pulling their weight, it really is a much more powerful entity than an individual. I tend to personally work better with teams than on my own. I like to take the position of a team leader, and organize teamwork while motivating others to be the best that they can be. But this does not mean that teams are inherently always a good thing. In business, groupthink can be an obstacle that is the result of too much social and not enough professional cohesion. “Groupthink is an agreement at any cost mentality that results in ineffective work team decision making and may lead to poor solutions. The fundamental problem underlying groupthink is pressure on members to concede and accept what others think” (Hellriegel et al., 2005) Others believe that dynamic external environments require quick decision-making methods within any business planning structure that claims to be an agent of change. Groups will generally have more capacity to be creative and capture alternatives, as well as being increasingly able to make feasible decisions through group decision-making processes that are creative and constructive. However, it is acknowledged that working in groups requires more effort for some individuals who are not as attenuated in terms of dynamic atmospheres that focus more on stability, in various organizations. The need for specification interaction and group collaboration is significant, since this builds the team at the foundational level, but too much group unity can lead to bad decisions being supported for social reasons. This can lead to an inappropriate situation, in which team members let their social lives become more important than organizational goals. Of course, at this point, communication is not really working positively to benefit everyone involved: people may feel benefited, but the organization suffers. In conclusion, in my opinion, teamwork is important within an open system, in alignment with theories of leadership, and tends to focus less on positional leadership, planning, and formulated strategy in the organization, and more on the open communication between individuals. This could most clearly demonstrate the role of the project manager within the organization, because they are let go to coordinate activities and build teams according to their own creative standards and communication patterns after the rational career development training. “In contrast to the rational-model approach, this area focuses on variables not subject to complete control by the organization and hence not contained within a closed system of logic.” (Thompson, 2003). In my personal estimation, it is important to be a member of a team where communication is open and positive between team players. In this situation, the decision-making power is amplified, and becomes much more powerful than that of a person working alone. An individual working alone may be able to deal with less oversight and obstacles, but in the end, it is my assertion that, despite these obstacles, it is better to be a team player than a loner. REFERENCE Bennis, W (2003) Learning to Lead. New York: Basic. Cole, L (2000). Teamwork = Communication. Communication World. Hellriegel and Slocum (2005). Management. New York: Pearson. Thompson, J. (2003). Organizations in Action. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Read More