Name: Nasir Ali What is teamwork? Teams are groups of people with complementary abilities who are dedicated to a common purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable for its achievement. Teamwork advantages and disadvantages “Although teamwork has many advantages, it also has a number of potential disadvantages.” “When teams are successful, they improve productivity, creativity, employee involvement, and even job security.” “At their worst, teams are unproductive and frustrating, and they waste everyone's time.” (Thill and Bovée, 2008, pgs 40 & 41) Working in a team has many benefits; the combined knowledge of specialists from numerous areas of work provides the team with the utmost information possible to achieve a superior decision for the benefit of a company or client. As a team comes together in the purpose of forming a decision the individuals involved are more likely in effectively inspiring others to accept the decision. The city council planning permission team is a prime example; it is an illustration of how being part of a team shows more acceptance of a solution as they come together to decide whether a build should or should not go ahead. Functioning in a team shows that individuals are further likely to think out of the box thus excluding settling with the ‘safe’ option, providing a sense of belonging and consequently reducing stress and tension between workers therefore increasing performance levels. A personal example of being a team member was when a group was put together for the purpose of a presentation in the module of law, more specifically on considerate construction scheme. A total of five persons were placed in the team and were each given a definite topic on which to base their research. The total research was put together and a final presentation was made; my topic was on ‘where is ccs taking place?’ Within a few weeks the presentation was put together because of vital teamwork and everyone working together for one purpose. Teamwork is extremely important in organisations; a generally flatter organisational structure with a wider span of control that reduces the layers of middle management thus increasing empowerment of employees gives them a greater emphasis on the significance of working in a team. Working in team is looked upon by organisations as they key ingredient to achieve greater performance levels, the performance is faster thus proving to be profitable and better than the competitors. A few disadvantages are when individuals are intimidated or pressured into acting a certain way by thinking their opinions are not worth hearing; this is called groupthink. This is a major disadvantage as some of the opinions may have been much better than the end decision. There are some members of a team who have hidden agendas and try their best to undermine other team members, or sometimes they simply want to take control of the group. Another major disadvantage of a group is having ‘free riders’; these are people who show no enthusiasm and make no contribution to the decision making process. This is shown well in Lord Allan Sugar program ‘The Apprentice’ as is shows people in real life working in a team and coming together looking for solutions and the free riders are always the first to be fired.
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Name: Nasir Ali A personal example of being on a team that had the disadvantage of having a free rider was during a two-day class that had various activities as a whole. In one of the activities, we were put in groups of five, were given a topic to discuss and list the reasons/outcomes, and then to present it to the entire group. Since this was not a graded activity, the group chose the free rider to make the presentation. The free rider was not too happy with this group decision, but realized if they would have participated, that someone else may have actually volunteered to make the presentation. The free rider made the presentation with as little enthusiasm as shown during the group activity. There are certain qualities for effective team working, without these, the fundamentals of teamwork would fail. Technical competence of individual team members is critical alongside the ability of the team members to gel. A great deal of collaboration skills is required with great support of team members, all these go hand in hand with the ability to handle conflicts, this is one of the best qualities one could have in a team as conflicts need to be dealt with quickly and fairly. There are five dysfunctions which could break a team, the absence of trust; this could be a problem as the team would conceal weaknesses and mistakes, hesitate to ask for help or offer constructive feedback, dread meetings and hold grudges. Whereas trusting teams admit mistakes, ask for help and accept input about their areas of responsibility. These teams give the benefit of doubt before arriving at negative conclusions, take risks in offering feedback and assistance, offer and accept apologies, focus energy on important issues and not politics and look forward to meetings. The fear of conflict could mean that team members are scared to voice their opinions; this has a knock on affect as the meetings then become boring thus creating an environment where backchannel politics and personal attacks thrive. These teams ignore controversial topics critical for team success; fail to tap into opinions of team members and waste time with posturing and interpersonal risk management. Whereas teams that engage in conflict have much more interesting meetings thus exploiting the ideas of all the team members, they solve real problems quickly minimizing politics and putting critical topics on the table open for discussion. Lack of commitment and avoidance of accountability could result in a total break-up of the team as these are crucial to the success as this would lead to team members blaming each other similar to the situation of ‘the boardroom in the apprentice’. The failure to commit creates ambiguity among the team redirection and priority, breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure. Whereas having a committed team creates clarity of priorities, a member learn from their mistakes, aligns the team around the common objective, takes advantage of opportunities before competitors and can change direction without hesitation or guilt. What makes a team is the focus on results; this is what a corporation is ultimately looking for. When the team loses focus on the results means that the corporation may fail to grow, competitors are rarely defeated, has a loss in achievement orientated employees and are easily distracted. Teams that are focused on collective results retain achievement orientated employees, minimise individualistic behaviour, enjoys success and suffer failure acutely, benefit from individuals who subjugate their own goals for the good of the team and avoid distractions. These would help keep a corporation at their optimum level of production.
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Name: Nasir Ali The characteristics of a good team member are that they are committed, share responsibility, are flexible, they are able to work to deadlines, wiling to trust and give mutual support and are team s. They are also required to be good listeners. Listening is a primary activity. “Understanding the nature of listening is the first step toward improving your listening skills. People listen in a variety of ways, which influences what they hear and the meaning they extract. In fact, relying on a single approach to listening limits your effectiveness.” (Thill and Bovée, 2008, pg 53) “The importance of listening in communication is enormous. People often focus on their speaking ability believing that good speaking equals good communication. The ability to speak well is a necessary component to successful communication. The ability to listen is equally as important. Listening takes work and when it comes to improving our communication there is no getting around that.” (http://EzineArticles.com/210731)
Forming
Storming
Adjourning
Norming
Performing
Figure 1: shows Bruce Tuckmans stages of team development: BruceTuckmans stages of development model proposed in 1965 showed that all these phases are necessary and inevitable in order for the team to develop and face up to challenges. This model became the basis for further subsequent models. The first stage of team building is forming where the individual’s behaviour is driven by a desire to be accepted by others and to avoid any form of conflict. The second stage is storming where different ideas compete for consideration. The third stage is norming where the team has one goal and comes to a mutual plan for the team at this stage. Ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external supervision is the fourth stage performing. Lastly, the final stage was added by Bruce Tuckman jointly with Mary Ann Jensen called adjourning which involves completing the task and breaking up the team. Synergy the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements. This means that persons work better together and if corporations are contented to accept that team determination is always better than individuals working in isolation, and then Belbin’s research may help in constructing the perfect team. Belbin said that each individual of every team is different, people with the same skills that work on a project may behave differently, Belbins team roles suggest that most people have one or two roles which they fill easily, and perhaps one or two secondary roles. There are nine team roles, a class exercise was conducted and each classmates role was determined using a multiple choice quiz, the roles were as follows; plant, resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor, team worker, implementer, complement and specialist. 3
Name: Nasir Ali Elton Mayo conducted a research and came to the theory known as the Hawthorne studies and his book ‘The human Problems of an Industrialised Civilisation (1933)’, these studies showed the importance of groups in affecting the behaviour of individuals at work. The theory showed that boredom and repetitiveness of tasks reduced motivation thus affecting teamwork. Motivation was improves through making employees feel important, giving them a degree of freedom to make choices and recognising their social needs. In conclusion, there are many advantages and disadvantages for teamwork as discussed above. I have learnt this from my own personal experience which I have outlined above, for example when I was in a group researching where ccs takes place, it was the teamwork that ensured that the presentation was put together so quickly and smoothly. However, I have also worked in teams where there have been free riders so feel as though I have experienced both advantages as well as disadvantages. In my opinion, the number of advantages outweighs the disadvantages as there are more positive aspects to teamwork such as motivation, synergy and inspiration.
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Name: Nasir Ali
References: •
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effective-teamwork-construction-12170.html accessed on 29/04/2013
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http://www.slideshare.net/ChessenClook/motivation-theory-elton-mayo - accessed on 1/05/2013
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http://EzineArticles.com/210731) – accessed on 03/05/2013
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman's_stages_of_group_development - accessed on 03/05/2013
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Harris C (2003) Innovative Teams Palgrave Macmillan. Hampshire.
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Lencioni P (2002) The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco.
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Mullins L (2007) Management and organisational Behaviour 8th Ed. Pearson Education. London.
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Nicholas, J.M. (1990). Managing Business and Engineering Projects: Concepts and Implementation, Prentice-Hall, Inc.
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West M (2004) Effective Teamwork. BPS Blackwell. Oxford
Figures: Figure 1: shows Bruce Tuckmans stages of team development
Class notes- Steve Brailey
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