Teamwork In Organizations Essay Research Paper Teams

Teamwork In Organizations Essay, Research Paper

Teams have an important place in our professional and personal lives. Working in teams is probably an inevitable life experience, even for people who prefer to work alone. Teams are everywhere. There are always student teams, task forces, and neighborhood associations in addition to all of the workplace demands for working in a team. A team generates positive synergy through coordinated effort. The individual efforts result in a level of performance that is greater than the sum of those individual inputs (Developing teamwork, textbook). By simply examining the results of teams built for problem solving during the lecture of Prof. Ronald Burke, it is easy to find that teams are not always effective. But . Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world; in deed, it s the only thing that ever has x (Marget Mead, The Wagon and the star). In most cases, teams lead organizations to engage in higher productivity. However, the effectiveness of a team is influenced by both internal and external factors. Internal factors include clear purpose, informality, participation, listening, open communication, shared leadership, consensus decisions, and clear role and task assignments.

The firstly internal factor related to team effectiveness is clear purpose. High performance teams have both a clear understanding of the goal to be achieved and a belief that the goal embodies a worthwhile or important result. .Help create jobs for our fellow New Brunswickers x and .doing things well or not at all x.(Creating effective teams, textbook). It was a clear and common purpose that empowered the employees of the New Brunswick government s Economic development department to develop strategies to attract telemarketing firms to New Brunswick. As team members, they defined and accepted the vision, mission, goal, or task of the team. They knew why a team existed and what it should be doing. They translated their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic performance goals. These specific goals facilitated clear communication and also helped teams maintained their focus on achieving results. Another example, Motorola China divided her sales division into many sales teams. By creating a clear sense of purpose which was to further expand her market share, she stimulated her employees to act as important roles in make teams higher performances. Simultaneously the team members were clear about their daily tasks and about agenda for essential meetings. In Motorola China, every meeting must have a detailed agenda, and members should be prepared with the information necessary to discuss all agenda items. As team members, they insisted that the team have a vision of the future, develop a mission, prepare goals and objectives, and then periodically revisit them. It was team members that created milestone charts and task assignments. The empowered team was able to make a difference in the attainment of individual, team and organizational goals, because it had clear direction and the knowledge, skills, information, and resources to do its job. In addition, it had power to make decisions with its scope and to influence decisions that are of a larger scope. Finally, team members experience positive outcomes when they perform effectively. However, a clear purpose will empower team members to achieve their objectives and allow teams to focus on their goals and evaluate progress toward the goals.

Shared leadership is an essential factor to influence the team effectiveness. Although a variety of titles are used to designate a position: manager, supervisor, director or simply the boss, all teams have a formal leader. A team will not be successful if the leader carries the sole responsibility for ensuring that the team reaches its goals. As a team leader, Texas instrument s Bryant said: . I m supposed to teach the teams everything I know and then let them make their own decisions x (What team leaders need to know, handout). Leadership of a team must be shared among team members. Everyone must feel and take responsibility for meeting the task and process needs of the team. Today Companies expect middle managers into star team leaders ready to coach, motivate, and empower. Anderson, who worked at Hewlet-Packard, one of the world s best managed corporations, said: .we took things away: no supervisors, no hierarchy, no titles on our business cards, no job descriptions, no plans, no step-by-step milestones of progress The idea was to create a sense of personal ownership. x( Secrets of HP s muddled team, handout). Shared leadership is one of most important factor to affect team effective. In Motorola China, her sales teams have matured. Team members know who is to do what, and ensure that all members contribute equally in sharing the workload. Additionally, the team members determine how schedule will be set, what skills need to be developed, how the group will resolve conflicts, and how the group will make and modify decisions. Although the team leader has certain administrative, and bureaucratic responsibilities, leadership functions shift from time to time among team members, depending upon the needs of the group and the skills of the members. On one hand, they help the team reach its goal, accomplish an immediate task, makes a decision, or solves a problem. On the other hand, they make the team focus on how to accomplish