Unity is strength-is an old adage that means that sticking together is a source of strength. This proverb can be applied in our day to day practices whereby it encourages people to collaborate with others in their various activities in order to achieve more. This now brings the aspect of team work whereby a team is made up of a group of people who are linked together with a common agenda. A team is more appropriate especially in conducting the tasks that may be high in terms of complexity as well as those that may have subtasks that are interdependent. A team may be interdependent like in the case of the football teams whereby all the members work out singly but together as a team for a common objective.
When team work is incorporated in an organization, it makes the organization successful in all its operations since the employees are able to tackle every mountain task that come along (Jones, Oyung, & Pace, n.d.). Some of the benefits that team work brings to the employees as well as the organization in general include:
Problem solving- Teamwork is an important technique towards problem solving since solutions can be obtained from multiple minds that is from the employees and this increases chances of generation of a more amicable solution that will be acceptable to all the employees and this is better than when one person is allocated the role of working on a company problem alone since that person may use only her personal knowledge and experience to generate a solution. The solution may not work out well to other employees since they may be having diverse problems that the individual tasked to look for the solution may not have noticed. By using teamwork, the members bring their ideas together so as to create unique ideas and criteria for dealing with the problems, Melbin (2012).
Communication among the employees is the other aspect that is enhanced by use of teamwork hence making operations streamlined in the organization. An example is when employees are given tasks to work as individuals on various projects, chances are that they may not share the new information or knowledge. This communication breakdown increases the time taken to complete a project or a task. Incorporation of teamwork encourages conversations among the employees regarding the current task at hand, this possibly prevents the employees from working in different directions example, if an employee does not inform his counterpart that a certain method of tackling a certain problem comes to a dead end, the another employee would try to use the method since he has no idea on the dead end outcome and this may lower productivity in the firm.
Cohesion is another by-product created by use of team work within a company. The cohesion may be created by increased rapport generated from working on various projects as a team. Cohesive workers are not likely to confront each other violently but are expected to be more accommodative of each other’s ideas and decisions, Chapman (2008). This cohesion resulting from team work is likely to increase the speed of workflow in the organization.
Learning is another benefit to the employee for being involved in team work since each employee learns from another. The knowledge being dispensed is not restricted to personal encounters of co-workers; workers from separate departments can learn from their neighbouring departments and they are in a position to appreciate the other’s role via team.
Improved morale among employees is another fruit resulting from teamwork. Working in a team gives an employee a bigger sense of belonging as well as recognition. This makes them to take much pride in their jobs and also in their company thus boosting their morale. Team work also gives the employees a greater responsibility for making decisions as well as allowing them to control the work process. This leads to improved morale since it gives more authority and ownership of the projects that the employees are working on.
Greater flexibility is another reason to enjoy the presence of team work. Team enables firms to be more flexible. An example is where employees from different parts of a certain project are put together into one self-sufficient team, this helps in making work efficient since one team is able to complete a whole project and in case a problem arises, it is solved within the team and this makes work to proceed faster. An example is when I had an attachment at a Toyota vehicle manufacturing firm whereby this method of team work was used in designing the automobiles. Rather than each different car design undergoing different departments such as engineering, design and parts supply, the management converged experts from the different areas to design every vehicle. My role in this was in parts supply which we did to the engineers, who later worked out with the designers to have the whole project accomplished.
Efficiency is another virtue created by team work. Various work groups/ teams create systems that enable them to complete tasks quickly and efficiently. If a task is given to an efficient and well-trained team, there is an assurance that the task will be carried out accurately and quickly. This makes the firm to produce more work hence generating increased revenue even without adding more employees. This aspect becomes well applicable when efficient teams are created from different departments and they work together. In such cases, every team knows its abilities and this makes the groups work together in an effective manner compared to using of disjointed groups of workers who might not be familiar with team work.
Team work also facilitates exchange of ideas, teams meet regularly and discuss on the methods to solve emerging company issues. Well organised teams allow their team members to feel comfortable sharing out their suggestions after brain storming and this gives the company a wide variety of ideas that are beneficial to the firm.
Support is another benefit achieved from team work. A strong team offers support to its staff members. The team members help each other in improving their performance as well as professional development. The strong team is also able to support each other when faced with a difficult challenge hence they produce power to overcome the challenge.
As seen above, team work is responsible for the wellbeing of an organization. Team work has to do with the human resource and the formation of teams is a process that takes some time and considers some factors. According to Tuckman(1995) The Forming, Storming Norming and Performing theory is a much helpful and elegant explanation of a team development as well as its behaviour. Tuckman explains that for members to form a group, the group undergoes various stages that include; forming stage, whereby a group of persons come together having their own individual agendas and there is creation of an urge for co-ordination. After people come together, Storming stage starts whereby the members of the group take up positions in the group and starts challenging the other members as well as the task put across (Arnison, & Miller, 2002). The norming stage then sets in whereby all the plans are put in place and the group begins operating in a co-ordinated manner full of wise decision making. Later the group gets to the Performing stage, whereby at this stage the members know what they are supposed to do, they are fully committed to achieve their goals and they possess the accountability for the outcomes.
Belbin(2011) did an experiment with many great teams, conducted an experiment, he repeated the experiments several times and with different teams, after his research, he found out that the teams that were composed of best brains were less successful than the teams with mixed levels of mind members. He further clarified that individuals in this different levels are motivated to master their recommended role as well as to adapt well within these designated roles so as to enhance a greater team performance. Beblin (2009) also discovered three key roles; that is Plant, co-ordinator and monitor evaluator. These roles are to be used to differentiate the behaviours of various individuals when working in these teams and this is now used to determine how a team carries out and manages its work.
Group structure is another factor that contributes to effective teamwork. Group structure refers to the layout portrayed in a group (Galbraith, & Webb, 2013). It is a composed of group norms, roles, workplace behaviour, status, conformity, reference groups, cohorts, group cohesiveness and its demography. A good group structure contributes to an excellent team.
Groups form and behave in a particular manner due to a number of reasons and we have several theories that explain why the formation of groups. The theory of propinquity suggests that people form groups due to their geographical proximity (Billett, 2003). The social system theory suggests that people in a group interact and mutually make an influence to each other’s behaviour.
For team work to succeed one must also consider and control the group dynamics. Group dynamics refer to the system of psychological processes and behaviours that occur within a particular social group -intergroup dynamics- or those that occur between various social groups often referred to as inter-group dynamics. Group dynamics go along in helping the management and team players to understand the various forms of discrimination and social prejudice such as racism and sexism, Rickards (2000). This brings in the aspect of ethical requirements in a group. Ethics refer to upholding what is true and good in the organizations, ethics can further be split into two that is ethical responsibilities as a whole group and ethical responsibilities as members of a certain group. Ethical responsibilities as a whole group include; Being assertive, having commitment to fair play, appreciating diversity, acknowledging and managing conflicts, sharing of leadership as well as practising fairness while making decisions. According to (Clarke, 2010), eethical responsibilities as a member of a group include; proper understanding of the groups purpose and goals, practising intercommunication, expressing a high degree of cohesiveness as well as understanding the values and limitation of democratic methods.
In conclusion, team work is not static but dynamic in that it is possible to improve the current status of a team. There are many ways of improving team work and they include; identifying existing problems and this can be done by encouraging members of a group to air out their grievances and discuss them collectively instead of allowing the problem to grow bigger. Another way to improve team work is by clearly outlining roles for each of the members. Identify member’s skills and assign them responsibilities in accordance to their ability to handle them and this will boost team work.
References
Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team roles at work. Routledge.
Meredith Belbin, R., 2011. Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. Human Resource Management International Digest, 19(3).
Rickards, T. and Moger, S., 2000. Creative leadership processes in project team development: an alternative to Tuckman’s stage model. British Journal of Management, 11(4), pp.273-283.
Chapman, L., 2008. Effective teamwork: Giving teams time to cohere has been fundamental to the successful implementation of an online learning management system, says Linda Chapman. Nursing Management, 15(6), pp.18-21.
Arnison, L., & Miller, P. 2002. Virtual teams: a virtue for the conventional team. Journal of Workplace Learning, 14(4), 166-173. doi:10.1108/13665620210427294
Billett, S. 2003. Workplace mentors: demands and benefits. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15(3), 105-113. doi:10.1108/13665620310468441
Clarke, N. 2010. Emotional intelligence and learning in teams. Journal of Workplace
Learning, 22(3), 125-145. doi:10.1108/13665621011028594
Galbraith, D. D., & Webb, F. L. 2013. Teams That Work: Preparing Student Teams For The
Workplace. American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 6(2), 223.
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