What Is Teamwork

8/1/2016 Whatisteamwork?
What is teamwork?
Published: 23, March 2015
INTRODUCTION: TEAMWORK
Teamwork is about galvanizing a group of people towards a common objective while
simultaneously addressing the head yet appealing to the heart. Teamwork is also about
bringing the best out of each individual in the pursuit of a collective goal deemed worthy
of being realized.
Therefore, according to Jon Katzenbach (a published author and consultant who is best
known for his work on theinformal organisation.), a teamis a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance
goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.'
IMPORTANCE OF TEAMWORK IN ORGANISATION

A challenging business climate needs to be engaged by eective teamwork. It provides an
opportunity to come together and establish a common ground for the fulllment of
specic objectives. Empathy, appreciation and encouragement are some of the critical
ingredients of eective teamwork. The vision must be bold, stir the intellect and yet move
the heart. What is at stake needs to be clearly spelled out.
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Alcorn (2006) provides a denition of a team from 1886, which denes a team as "work
done by several associates, with each doing a part but all subordinating personal
prominence to the eciency of the whole." In a simple context, this means that a team is a
collective whole of people that work together so that they are more productive. The key
for any organisation is to possess a team that can be dened using Alcorn's provided
denition. A team isn't a team simply because a company pulls a group of workers
together and calls them a team, but instead as a result of careful planning, hard work, and
constant tweaking of team processes on a continuous basis.
In today's competitive world where every organisation is striving to gain the best position
in the market the concept of Group Development and Teamwork are steadily gaining
importance. Individual decision making has taken a back stage and paved the way for
team management approach for problem solving and decision making which has been
productive for the organisations. This strategy not only benets the organisation but also
the individual employee, hence it's been rapidly adopted by businesses.
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Management Professor Tracy McDonald states that "The teamwork push probably started
in business in the late 1970s or early '80s with the advent of quality circles [employee
problem-solving teams],"she says innovation, creativity and change have been some of the
main drivers of team success and since the past 30 years, organisations have embraced
this concept with welcoming hands.
Yuki Funo the Chairman and CEO of Toyota motor, states that the Toyota way is the way
to number 1. One of the principles of the Toyota way is to add value to the organisation
by developing your people' and people can be developed by molding them into
exceptional individuals and teams to work within the corporate philosophy.
Nippard B. creator a Facebook group (teamwork ladder) on teamwork states that more
than 80% of fortune 500 companies subscribe to teamwork. Teamwork brings success no
matter how you dene victory.
Groups and Teams facilitate the organisation to achieve a competitive advantage because
groups increase responsiveness to the organisations customers, employee motivation,
increase creativity and they have also been capable of helping the members of
organisation to enhance task performance and experience more satisfaction with their
work.
Team Responsiveness to Customers:

It has been a priority for organisations to be elastic and readily responsible for the
continuously changing needs, behavior and desires of customers. Being reactive to
customers often requires dierent levels of the hierarchy departments to combine their
skills and knowledge. For example, at the lower hierarchy the employees such as sales
representatives of a car company, they are the people who are closest to the customers
and are aware of the customer needs. But their job in the organisation is to just make
sales of the cars and they cannot instill the desired changes into the car, which is in the
eld of the research and development department. For making the change a higher level
of hierarchy is required such as research and development experts and other members
who can come together and create a group or a cross- functional team who with its
diverse skills and capability will enhance the responsiveness to customer needs.
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It is important for managers to understand the need and set up the appropriate cross-
functional team who will carefully determine what type of expertise and capabilities are
required to be responsive to the customers.
This information is very vital for forming teams. A cross-functional team is the best
solution that's aligned to any business needs can help you improve your eciency and
respond to customers more quickly.
The needs of a customer are focused forming such cross functional teams and a satised
customer is always an asset for any organisation.
Employee Motivation:
Employee Motivation:
Kreitner R. (1995) has dened motivation as the psychological process that gives behavior
purpose and direction. Groups and teams are formed to increase the productivity and
eciency of an organisation. To do so Managers have learnt that increasing employee
motivation and satisfying team members is the best way to achieve an organisations
strategic objectives. It is also about the motivation of members of the group to stick with
each other and oppose leaving it.
Being motivating to the team members and giving them the experience of working with
other creative members in the organisation is very inspiring and leads the team members
to be more creative in their work and helps them to be more productive and increases
their work eort.
All the ideas generated are directly contributed in the nal result and in the success of the
organisational goals, and hence the members of the team feel personally responsible for
the outcomes or results of their work. This satises the statement by Dwight D.
Eisenhower that"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do
because they want to do it."
Enhanced Performance and Synergy:

Synergy is the eect that the combined return whole is greater than the sum of the
individual parts'. (Sebastian Knoll, Cross-Business Synergies, page 14).
The phenomenon of Synergy within a Group or Team has become one of the most vital
parts for an organisation. People who work in groups are able to produce more eciently
and they confer greater quality of output than that produced by an individual and their
productivity combined. Joint problem solving, variety in idea's and knowledge, dierent
views towards an issue and accomplishing dicult tasks are some of the factors added by
synergy in groups.
To make utilize of synergy in groups managers need to make sure that, the group they put
together comprise a variety of skills and talents which are diverse and corresponding but
still relevant to the task, and being certain that these skills are coordinated eciently.
Managers should make sure that the groups achieve goals for the organisation in their
own way and enough independence is provided to solve problems.
Innovation:
Organisations constantly strive to develop new products, services, new technologies and
deliver them to the market. Innovation provides organisations with competitive
advantage. An individual working alone might possess an innovative idea, but it takes a
team with skills and expertise to execute it. For this reason, Managers create teams with
dierent individuals, with diverse skills, knowledge, and a variety of talents so they can
turn an individual's innovative idea to a successful one.
Managers give maximum freedom to their teams to perform their tasks without
interfering much and full responsibility is given to execute the innovation. Required
guidance, training, and resources are provided by the Managers but the rest is in the
hands of the team. It's therefore important to have skillful team mates and everyone
should be specialized in their own work, to be more creative and quick which all lies as
additional advantage to the team and organisation.
Team Conicts
Teams do not work in isolation and are often highly dependent on other groups or teams
within the organisation to complete their goals. Conicts can arise due to several reasons
but it's often due to lack of agreement on the goals of dierent groups. Sometimes it also
arises due to direct competition.
The consequences of conict can take two forms, positive and negative.
Positive also known asconstructive conicthelps teams work towards goals through
healthy debate on the decision in question. Conicts helps the team reduce conformity
and unhealthy agreement, solve problems better and overcome obstacles to group
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progress. It also helps teams achieve goals outside the box through continuous feedback
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Negative which is also known asdestructive conicton the other hand can result in lack of
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cooperation within teams and this may prove disastrous to the nal goal if not managed
well
at its early stages. There are following conicts in groups which are causes of
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destructive conicts.
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Relationship
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Conict
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Task Conicts
Value Conict
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It is therefore very important for managers to take control of all the problems right from
their roots. Teams that face problems such as conicts, risky shifts, groupthink and social
loang are a treat to the organisation and should be resolved at the earliest.
Conclusion:
Team oriented approach is the order of the day when it comes to successful organisations
who have empowered their employees, motivated them and involved them in such a way
that the existence of the organisation wouldn't have been possible without the existence
of teams of such highly motivated individuals. Teamwork has bought the employee and
the organisation closer than ever. Problem solving, creativity, innovation and shared vision
are as synonymous to teamwork as teamwork is to success. Although team building is a
complex process and there are many challenges that hinder a team's success.
The eectiveness of teams is dependent upon a number of psychological factors that can
inhibit or improve performance.
Subtle processes such as social loang, hierarchical eects, and personality
dierences can dramatically inhibit team performance.
Within organisational settings, teams are usually put together and allowed to
function without attempts being made to ensure eective functioning.
The most important elements of team management are specifying individual and
team goals and the design of the team task.
At the same time there must be regular clear and accurate feedback to the team on
its performance over time in order to promote eectiveness.
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8/1/2016 Whatisteamwork?

IMPORTANCE OF TEAMWORK IN ORGANISATION

Team Responsiveness to Customers:

Enhanced Performance and Synergy:

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