Working Together Towards a Common Goal
What is a team?
“A group of people working
together in a coordinated way towards a common goal”
A team is defined as: the people who are dedicated to a shared cause, meaningful goals, and complementing abilities. They share a collaborative working style, are clear about their respective duties and responsibilities, and hold one another accountable for the team's performance. Teams that are successful show confidence, excitement, and a constant desire to get better.
Without
teamwork houses take long to build, government collapse and companies are
outshined by their competitors in the market and lastly without teamwork people
lose their inspiration (Husain, 2011). According to Wageman (1997) “company’s teamwork
is the only way anything gets accomplished with quality and efficiency and a
major reason why economic growth is under control and company’s success is scrutinized
by top management to achieve the desired goals.”
In a
survey of business leaders, Sherwood(1991), discovered that being a team
player, working The most crucial elements for job satisfaction are working
hard, being creative, and producing high-quality work. Sherwood conducted
a survey of 200 Goodrich & Sherwood Co. executives. It was shown that 94%
of participants indicated that the caliber of their work was crucial to their
success and job happiness.
Characteristics of an effective team
There are several
attributes which define an effective team and some of them are highlighted in
below figure.
Figure: An Effective Team
Clear expectation – the collective aims of the team
are fully understood and communicated to all members equally.
Self-assessment – an analytical review of the team and
its performance from within will help improve the effectiveness of the team.
This will enable a sense of overall commitment to the teams cause to be
realized.
Participation- everyone needs to be involved and be
comfortable with their role or indeed be developed to fulfil different roles
within the team.
Shared leadership -an autocratic style will divide a
team and have an adverse effect an involvement and morale.
Disagreement- by allowing disagreements to be voiced
and addressed shows commitment and understanding to the aims a core value of
the team.
Openness- there should not be any “hidden agendas “within
a team.
Listening – Everyone has an opinion and everyone can contribute.
From inception to evaluation a team will benefit from the contributions of all
team members.
Relaxed interaction- linked in a way to openness, all
conversations should contain emotion but not be personal.
Characteristics of a good team member
- Works to achieve the team’s goals
- Shares openly opinions and thoughts in support of the team
- Involves others in the decision-making process
- Trusts, supports, and has genuine concerns for colleagues.
- “owns” problems rather than blaming them on others
- Listens inventively respecting others viewpoints.
- Influences others by involving them in the issues.
- Encourages the development of other team members
- Respect and is tolerant of individual differences
- Acknowledges and works through conflict openly
- Considers and uses new ideas and suggestions from others
- Encourages feedback on own behavior.
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Group Responsibility Responsibility should be spread across all those who play
a part in the activity. This ranges from the accountable manager who
formulates policy, through management that set procedures to supervisors,
teams of personnel and individuals within those teams. |
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Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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Outputs will be checked ·
Individual inputs given group focus ·
Challenging decisions |
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Unsafe – everyone could devolve the responsibility
(someone else will do it!) ·
Collective responsibility eases accountability |
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This is tendency
for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than an individual’s initial
position. In some situations, a group may arrive at a course of action that
is riskier than that of an individual. |
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Intergroup
Conflict A clique
group within a group, a group of people who identify with each other and
interact frequently; an exclusive social group can divide the main group,
hinders interaction, promote a feeling of inferiority, result in bullying or blame.
And, they will hesitate to share responsibility. This should be understood
and inhibit before it gets worse in order to work as a team. |
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Peer
Pressure |
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Social
Loafing |
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To Improve
Teamwork, we should |
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As Henry Ford mentioned “Coming together is a beginning,
staying together is progress, and working together is success “. Clearly no
group can, as an entity, create ideas; only individuals can do this. However, a
group of individuals can work as a team stimulate one another in the creation
of ideas. People engage in teamwork when they cooperate to achieve a common objective. That objective could be either professional or personal. We can do our duties more effectively by learning from others' experiences and by utilizing their skills. But competing with one another is not what collaboration is all about. Instead, you ought to value what each person has to offer. A team must work hard to become one that appreciates cooperation. Having assistance along the way might be beneficial as you push others to embrace a more collaborative working style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvVVJR9FCRw
References
Froebel, P., and Marchington, M.
(2005). Teamwork structures and worker perception: a cross national study in
pharmaceuticals, International Journal of Human Resource Management.
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