Organizational Structure Operations - Film Internship - Coursework Example

TEAM AND TEAMWORK IN AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT Name Tutor’s Name School Location Date This paper analyzes organizational structure operations, focusing on theories of teams and teamwork to achieve set goals and objectives of an organization. The essay begins by outlining core concepts of teams and team work. It then reviews related research on types of teams that may operate in organizations structure, problems they encounter and processes they undergo through in their formation. In exploring these issues, the essay use some examples from the 2013 film ‘Internship’ to highlight a number of potential strengths and limitations of these critical theories, and relate to the literature’s account of team work in the organization. In conclusion, the essay will summaries main arguments and will try to determine what will impact future research on this topic. The first section is focusing on the team’s role, formation and process in an organization. Larson and Lafasto (2009) define a team as; “A entity of two or more people who coordinate and interact towards the accomplishment of a set objectives”. Kogler-Hill defines teams as “organizational groups composed of members who are independent, who share common goals, and who must coordinate their activities to accomplish these goals” (in PG Northouse, 2011, pg161). For Katzenbatch and Smith (2013), “a team refers to a group of people that complement each other in commitment towards the attainment of common performance goals and purposes for which they accept to be mutually accountable”. They suggest that teams are likely to comprise between two to twenty five members, with ten being an optimum number for achieving optimum number for achieving effective performance. Katzenbatch and Smith add that the essence of team work lies in a degree of commitment. Without it, the group functions as a set of disparate individuals working together. Teams are useful in organizations ranging from greater resources for finding solutions for problems, enhanced innovation and creativity, enhanced decision making quality, more dedication to tasks, greater enthusiasm through group activity, enhanced control and discipline in the workplace geared toward individual satisfaction. It is important to notice that there are different groups forming various teams under a single company. Some coordinate with others while some are independent (M. Beyerlein 2011). They include; Formal groups — that are officially recognized and supported by the organization for specific purposes. Informal groups — are not recognized on organization charts. They are not officially created for an organizational purpose and emerge as part of the informal structure and form natural or spontaneous relationships among people. They have positive performance impact and can help satisfy social needs. Committees - here, people work together for a common purpose in small groups outside daily job specifications. Their Task agenda is narrow, focused, and ongoing. Projects teams or task forces-people from different sectors of the firm collaborate to solve common problems, in the short term. It’s disbanded after task is completed. Cross-functional teams — Members will be drawn from a range of units of the firm. The team is involved in finding solutions for specific issues or tasks with regard to organizational wide objectives. Virtual teams — are made up of people who collaborate towards the solution of problems by use of computer-mediated as opposed to face-to-face communication. In the film, ‘Internship(2013)’, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Dylan O’Brien, Rose Byrne and Jessica Szohr come together as Roger, the Google internship coordinator instructs the internship students to form teams and manage several tasks to be assessed to determine the group that will be retained to work there. Such team of the five members in the film constitute an example of a projects team. According to Craig E. Johnson (2009), Team building is a perspective of job design wherein employees are deemed members of mutually dependent teams as opposed to being individual employees. Team building is accomplished through different practices, which may be simple bonding exercises or intricate simulations and multi-day team building retreats aimed at team development (may incorporate group dynamic games and group assessment), or a mixture of the two. Team building is beneficial to self-development, better team collaboration, positive communication and the development of leadership capacity. The overall goals of team building are aimed at enhancing team collaboration and an understanding of team dynamics. As opposed to group work, team work will include group accountability as opposed to individual accountability and hence emphasises collective outcomes. Team building emphasizes the team work in the accomplishment of assigned tasks. This offers several benefits such as: better flexibility in capacities and skills building, team improvements and development, greater productivity, organizational change, emphasis on group goals, enhanced aspects of team building including greater creativity or flexibility in thinking, communication and collaboration. In a classic UK management study, Belbin (2011) suggests that that recruitment and selection process within the enterprise should in part be based on the need to “team-type” individuals. This means selecting them for their team role capabilities. He also suggests that training and development processes should include team building and team leadership skills. In contrary to the film, Nick and Billy being older finds it hard to get a team from the teenagers and are left to form a team merely from “left over’s”. They team with Dylan O’Brien, Rose Byrne and Jessica Szohr to tackle assignments from the internship coordinator but still encounter serious at early stages before it becomes functional. It is important to acknowledge Bruce Tuckman (2005), an Ohio University professor in psychology. He is deemed one of foremost theorists with regard to team development. He has worked for over fifty years and his theories regarding the functioning of small teams are considered revolutionary. Alternatively known as Tuckman’s stages it had four stages and was widely acknowledged in the intellectual community as a prototype of functioning of teams. The four original stages of Tuckman's theory of group behaviour include performing, forming, norming, storming and adjourning as a later addition. Forming is the stage at which group or team members interact for the first time (In the film Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, join 3 teenagers to get started as a group). According to Tuckman team members will do their best to avoid conflict in order to avoid the pitfalls of a bad first impression and hence very little of the assignment will be accomplished at this stage. During this stage members will put a premium on acquaintance and learning to work together (in the film, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson encounter opposition as they are termed ‘old school’ from the three teenagers they find themselves grouped with. They are counter attacked by the teenagers on any contribution they attempt to pass across). Storming is the second stage of the process. The definition may have two meanings in that arguments and disagreements on ideas put forth are common even as brainstorming of different ideas is encouraged. According to Tuckman the maturity and capacity to compromise on ideas which are critical in group settings are tested at this stage. The norming stage is probably the most simple of the five stages. It follows the completion of storming and is a time during which the team is prepared to begin the assignment of roles and actual work. Efficiency and productivity is enhanced when the team works together as a cohesive unit. In the film, Vaughn’s team despite age disparities, they settle and share ideas on meeting tasks. Encouragements are seen from all spheres of the team when a member messes things up. When Wilson accidental makes the team score zero due to negligence, he decides to quit the group and the program entirely but the team encourages him to bounce back and focus on their final task. Argument and hesitation are minimized; the project moves towards completion as each member becomes more adept at fulfilling the task assigned to them. Adjourning which is the last stage is the process of the members giving up roles assigned and the connections to those roles and other team members. Once Vaughn’s team emerges the winner and get employed by Google, they depart and dissolve the group though they remain friends and allies and now everyone for own self in the employment. Contrasting Tuckman's stages, Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum theorize on how managers empower employees in decision making through role assignment in the team. A sopposed to the Tuckman theory Schmidt and Tannebaum emphasized on the manager scenarios especially with regard to how they played the primary role. Tuckman emphasized on the cohesiveness of the team and compromise was a core element in his theory. For Schmidt and Tannebaum the emphasis is on the leader as the single decision maker while member only contribute and offer ideas. The film Internship (2013) is contrary to Tannenbaum and Schmidt as the group operates without a common stand out leader throughout but still achieved its targets. In general, Tuckman's stages emphasize greater balance and team collaboration, as opposed to the contemporary the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum. Sandstorm, deMeuse and Futrell (2010) suggest that team effectiveness in workplace may be measured by productive output and personal satisfaction as two benchmarks of achievement. Indicators of productive output will be employed in the description of the quality and quantity of work accomplished according to set goals. Indicators of personal satisfaction will be used to determine the extent of the solution of group and individual needs in work situations. Common problems in teams include; Personality conflicts, individual disagreemtns over work styles, agenda ambiguity, lack of enthusiasm, poor team organization, ill preparation for work, conflict between priorities and deadlines, lack of purpose and unstructured processes. The following section is focusing on team work in organizations. Cohen et al. [23] defined agent teamwork as “a group of persons with shared mental states and objectives”, on the other hand human teams may be aid to be a distinct team of two or more persons who act in mutual adaptive and dynamic processes towards the attainment of certain set valuable objectives Salas et al [85]. Teamwork’s come with some benefits and costs at all stages. Benefits include; an enhanced volume or quality of product or service resulting from satisfactions and synergies that has developed from team integration and cohesion or more simply derives from the interactions of team members who like and enjoy working together. There is application of cross functional expertise enhanced by ability interrelate, integrate and apply a variety of skills, expertise and disciplines and also increase in operational flexibility and build up of experience and expertise. The costs include; dealing with “free riders”, achieving coordination and integration in terms of time and energies required of management and team members to establish effective team working. In teamwork, the relational and productive effectiveness of teams is held, in part to depend on the leadership capability that may be a key variable in the team situation. Ineffective leadearship is often cited as a cause of the failure of teams to achieve the objectives for which the teamwork situation was established. Leaders in these teams fulfil the role of mentors, coaches or facilitators, assisting the group to achieve its objectives in a self managed or participative context. Team leaders have to make choices or decisions about; style, situation- which is concerned with the relevance of leadership approach and behaviour to the prevailing circumstances, in this case associated with the teamwork context. Blanchard et al. Model (with its directing, coaching, supporting and delegeting behaviours) would for instance appear to be of particular value. Another value is contingency where leadership choices need to “best fit” the contingencies facing the team and Path-goal- leaders who select the path which is seen as most appropriate to achieving the required goal in the team. In order to address this question of teams and teamwork in organization, the film ‘The Internship’ (2013), Nick (Owen Wilson) and Billy (Vince Vaughn) and are marketers facing great difficulty as a result of digitization of the world. Asserting that they have something to offer they join a company of bright college students doing an internship at Google through talking to the manager to allow them into the coveted program. But this is only the preamble since they now have to prove themselves against the country’s brightest minds and go on to prove that reinvention comes from necessity. The film has illustrated how teams can be developed from scratch to meet set goals and stick on set mandate they are formed for. To sum up, this essay has critically evaluated teams and teamwork concept inn organizational context. In exploring this question, the essay has challenging general assumptions of teams and teamwork as having no similar forms of initiation and coordination in an organization. It has illustrated how the relationship between leadership in teams and teamwork play a role in reaching set goals and objectives for both individual and the company associated with. It is however noted that teams do not form in a specific guaranteed way but the process is more similar. Irrespective of challenges they encounter, teams ought to stay on the course of events that initiated their formation and only terminate it when their objectives are met fully. They can however set room to future coming together when called upon to review or modify their previous work. Bibliography Belbin, R.M (1989) Management teams, Heinemann, London. E. Salas, T. Dickinson, S. Converse, and S. Tannenbaum. Towards an understanding of team performance and training. In R. Swezey and E. Salas, editors, Teams: Their Training and Peformance. Norwood, 2012. Katzenbach, R.J. and Smith, D.K (2013) The Wisdom of Teams: creating the high performance organization, Harvard Business school Prews, Boston, Massachusetts. Katzenbach, R.J. and Smith, D.K (2013) “The discipline of teams”, Harvard Business Review, march-April. Larson, C.E and Lafasto, F.M.J, (2009) Teamwork, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA LaFasto, Frank M. J.; Larson, Carl (August 2011). When Teams Work Best. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Northouse, P.G (2001) Leadership: theory and practise, Sage Thousand Oaks, CA Sandstorm, E., DeMeuse, K.P. and Futrell, D. (2010) Work teams, American Psychologist, Vol. 45, February. Tuckman, B.W (2005), Developmental sequence in small groups, Psychologist Bulletin, Vol63. Read More