Team Building and Organisational Structure - Essay Example

Team building: Introduction: One of the biggest concerns of the corporate culture cultivating in successful organizations in the modern age is to develop a team-based approach towards achieving the organizational objectives. Workplace conflicts are indeed, a part of the game of business. Strategies designed to achieve the organizational objectives involve certain courses of action that might not appear quite welcoming to certain internal or external stakeholders. However, an appropriate organizational culture requires the managers to be good enough to control their subordinates in a way that would keep them from overtly expressing their biasness on matters and affecting the inter-personal relationships of the organizational staff. This can be achieved through the formulation of certain team building exercises that would encourage the workers from different departments to unite to achieve pre-defined tasks. The benefit of such exercises is that representatives from different functional departments get a chance to frequently socialize with one another. In order to build a team to work for the organization with utmost sincerity, it is imperative that individual staff members respect one another and one another’s rights. Else, it would just be a crowd whereby everybody would be working for personal interests. A team works solely for achieving the organizational objectives. “A major advantage a team has over an individual is its diversity of resources, knowledge, and ideas.” (Townsley, 2008). Managers are required to design adequate and effective team building exercises to ensure the development of a holistic force to work in the best interest of the organization. There are many factors that play their role in the development of an atmosphere of mutual consensus and respect among the organizational staff some of which are discussed in this paper. Factors that allow teams to develop successfully: Some of the factors that are fundamental to the successful development of a team are given below: 1. Definition of goals and strategies to meet them: The most fundamental reason why organizations fail to develop teams is lack of the definition of organizational goals and the designation of strategies to achieve them. Most organizations work in a haphazard manner and place very less emphasis on getting the stakeholders familiarized with the basic goals and the resulting objectives of the organization. Before the start of any project, it is imperative that meetings are conducted to serve as a platform where all stakeholders can be made aware of the fundamental goals and objectives expected from the project at hand. 2. Organizational culture: The organizational culture is indeed, the most influential factor in the building up of a team to serve the organization. An organization’s culture can both make and break the organization. It is important to mould the culture in a way that would make it conducive to the development of unity among the staff members so that they respect one another and the managerial hierarchy. 3. Top management involvement: Since top management consumes the greatest power and hold over the organizational decision making, its interest and personal involvement in the process of team building is one of the most fundamental pre-requisites of the effective development of a team to work in the best interest of an organization. Managers need to concentrate on the development of frequent communication and interaction among the organizational entities at all levels. Decision making should be such that it should focus on creating an association both among the individual team members and between the members and the organization. 4. Strategic team building exercises: Managers can design specific teams to address specified tasks. The idea is to achieve the effect of contact hypothesis in the task force. In the task force, every individual member who has been assigned a certain task should be made fully aware of his/her boundaries and limitations before the start of the work. All foreseeable antecedents of conflict should be clearly addressed to the maximum extent to minimize the chances of conflict. Managers should make sure that in the team designed to accomplish a task, there is an elaborator who would serve as the mediator in case a conflict arises between members of different departments. This is a very effective way of developing mutual consensus among members representing different functional departments and shows top management’s involvement in the matter. The most critical factor in team building: The most critical team building factor is the organizational culture which is designed jointly by the owners, top-, senior-, middle-, line- and operational-managers. It influences the workers’ attitude and response towards their managers and the level of sincerity they show towards their work. “Schein contends that many of the problems confronting leaders can be traced to their inability to analyze and evaluate organizational cultures.” (National Defense University, n.d.). Three factors that lead to strained relationships: Three factors that are detrimental to the development of unity among the workers in an organization are as follows: 1. Undefined boundaries of the employees’ responsibilities: This is the biggest factor that serves to tarnish inter-personal relationships and promotes conflicts. Workers tend to leave personal work on each other and at the end of the day, work remains undone and the ultimate sufferer is the organization. 2. Biased decision making: Many conflicts arise when the employees are not allowed to participate in the decision making and they feel under-represented in important organizational plans. This may lead to strained inter-personal relationships. 3. Lack of leadership: This is also a main reason of straining relationships of the workers in an organization. In the absence of adequate leadership, employees indulge in dysfunctional conflicts with one another which tends to cause them to fight for personal interests on the cost of the organizational benefits. Conclusion: “If companies want a way to jumpstart innovation, team building exercises can be a real contributor to the long-term success of the company.” (Team Building News, n.d.). Functional conflicts should always be encouraged to build a healthy working environment. According to (Kinicki and Kreitner, 2009), functional conflicts result into mutual agreement, stronger and healthier relationships among the workers and provides opportunity for learning. References: Kinicki, A & Kreitner, R 2009, Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills and best practices. (customized 4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. National Defense University, n.d., “Strategic Leadership and Decision Making”. viewed 29 August, 2010, . Team Building News, n.d., “Is Team Building a Luxury?”. Vol. 1, Issue 2. viewed 29 August, 2010, < http://www.teambuildingnews.com/>. Townsley, CA 2008, “Resolving Conflict in Work Teams”. viewed 29 August, 2010, . Read More