Teamwork: an Interactive Approach | Teamwork: an Interactive Approach

Teamwork Development: An interactive approach

Organizations all around the world are comprised of many essential elements, including management, employees, and operational schemes. As techniques in stronger organizational development are conjured, the issue of teamwork within corporations increases in relevance. Today, managers ranging from small businesses to worldwide industries have realized and integrated teamwork methods into their planning. Essentially, teamwork can be referred to a new way of reorganizing, while mainly concentrating on decentralizing responsibility to the employees in a cooperative decision-based environment. Strongly considered are the benefits that employees, working in a team motivated process, offer to the company in all its aspects, including culture, virtues and goals (www.winstonbrill.com, Innovative Leader). What will be thoroughly discussed are the dominating characteristics of teamwork, the methods of selection, leadership and team development. Following this, a team assessment exercise will conclude the research while comparing our personal experience as a team to the theoretical determinants, which will have been previously analyzed.

To begin, the business definition of teamwork relates to the collective decision making processes that lead to goal oriented relationships formed between all participants. Generally, what is required from teams are the integration of work from the people involved, the generation of motives and solutions to the problem concentrated on, high involvement, team leadership and continuous encouragement (http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu, General Considerations). The first characteristic of integration relies on the overall cooperation off all members as well as the convergence of ideas. Everyone is different and so are our ideas. A team allows us not only to convey those ideas, but work toward a common goal of joining thoughts and working toward a plausible solution to a problem we have been assigned (http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu, General Considerations). Thus, incorporation of work allows for a more effective plan and even a holistic approach to decision making. The second characteristic of motivation compels members to work together and this may go hand in hand with encouragement. Only if the team has particular reasons for doing something will they strive to meet objectives. Similarly, motivation plays a major role in pushing individuals toward reaching their target - the solution to a problem. Another characteristic is high involvement, which is really something that should be encouraged by the team leader (who will be discussed next). This occupies the whole `space' in which the team works. It is highly encouraged because it would eventually lead to a rounder way of looking at the tasks ahead, taking into consideration things that would serve to be important for the problem-solution process. In addition, contribution from all members is a valued resource. Given that a team is made up of more than one person, it is important for all to express their ideas in a functional way (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People). Finally, there is the issue of leadership. This is normally the task of one person who is chosen by management to lead, exert some power and motivate the rest. `Leaders have to be deliberate and have a plan on how to communicate' the goal of a team (www.tms.com.au, Executive Excellence). They need to build trust amongst members and make sure that everyone is clear on what is asked from them. Essentially, it is the leader who organizes the team, setting objectives, aligning tasks, setting the environment and motivating. The leader, at some points is also asked to act as a negotiator between his members when conflict eventually arises. The scope of this paper is not to fully describe the job of a leader, but even so it is important to highlight his/her role in the process of teamwork (www.tms.com.au, Executive Excellence).

The next part of the paper discusses the process of Team Selection. After the problem has been realized a team must be chosen to find a solution. What must be considered on behalf of management in making such a selection is choosing the right people and leader for the task; `Teams must be capable of carrying out all the tasks involved'. The team leader is in charge of organizing and assembling members. Most often teams are selected from an array of present workers in a company and it is highly likely that some training is involved for preparing people for the task at hand (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People). The aim of team recruitment is simply collecting the qualified staff. This is done through `personality testing' for example, which assists in the decision, selecting the individuals with the most required skills. These tests are based on a type of selection that focuses on choosing an array of different skills to create a balanced team. Of course, personality tests are only one type of procedure used in team selection and there are many more that can also contribute to the process.

After the team is selected and all members are gathered, Team Leadership takes on what could be thought of as the most important role in bringing the team together and focusing on the project. `Leading is one of the most critical solution-centered skills' (http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu, General Considerations). The leader is in charge of coaching and counseling the rest of the team to reach `high standards of performance' (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People). The leader acts as a supervisor and even mentor to other persons. They coordinate tasks and suggestions while keeping in mind the job they have to complete, along with the vision set for them. Choosing a leader is a task done be management or sometimes by members of an existing team through elections. In addition, leaders may adopt different ways of carrying out their task: The first way is by a supervisory method. This includes acting while overseeing things from outside the group. The second

way is by being included inside the actual team as a member whose only difference with the rest is the direct contact with management for briefing sessions; Acting as a liaison between the team and top branch. The third way is by separating the team into different sections or tasks and assigning leaders to each of those tasks. Training plays a big role here, because members need to directly control `group dynamics and decision making.' This type of coordination allows for a multi-member involvement in group leadership (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People). Overall, the type of leadership chosen determines the ways in which things will be done and how people will be managed.

Following leadership, we reach to the development of teams. Management is in charge of regulating the teams they chose and, parallel to this, the teams must keep in line with authority. They are free to express and develop ideas but with some sort of instruction. Thus, team development is ensured by the correct management authority being delegated with the corresponding support, and by giving the team certain responsibility over decision making. This process begins with the assignment and distribution of tasks. Coherence and realization of task allocation are important in regulating the group. The four phases that follow further describe development (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People):

1. The `Forming' phase deals with the beginning reality of the team, when members are collected and introduced to each other, if formulated for the first time, and a feeling of superficial eagerness is expressed. Overall aptitude is low compared to the interest generated.
2. The `Storming' phase involves the building of team relationships. The matter of working together comes to surface, along with outside influences. This phase is crucial to the commitment made by the individuals.
3. The `Norming' phase is that which shows the team truly and potentially committed to working as one toward a result.
4. The `Performing' phase is the final part where effectiveness of team coordination is shown. High involvement is encouraged here and we see individuals dealing with issues in a more established, effective way.

Overall, what is considered throughout team development is that conflicts do exist. Once having reached certain objectives, members need encouragement and some authority leading incentives to keep them working with the same rhythm. Teams cannot afford lagging periods in which members believe that all that needed to be done has been done. Thus, when a problem is encountered, before the goal of a team is completed, leaders and management are needed for control (www.acas.org.uk, Acas-Teamwork: Success Through People).

After the theoretical approach to teamwork, we will now briefly evaluate our team effort for the sake of an Organizational Behaviour project, regarding research on the topic of present discussion. After having been given the topic, the four member team formed by itself. It was on that same day that phone numbers were exchanged and names were recorded. The first meeting took place a couple of days afterwards, on the weekend. Come the gathering, all members turned up either with propositions on establishing a more focused topic or simply with the willingness to listen and contribute ideas on the spot. In that first one hour meeting, group communication was positive, ideas were shared and one person kept a journal of the progress. Already, some sort of agreement was established on task distributions. It was agreed that all members were to gather some background information, by reading the relevant chapter from our book, as to have a clearer idea on what to do for the next conference.

In the second meeting more ideas were shared and discussed between colleagues. All had completed the task required and had acquired some general knowledge on the topic at hand. A brainstorming web was sketched and our thoughts were put to paper. At the end, every person was given a task to complete by a particular date. Persons A and B were in charge of doing Internet based research, while C and D would focus on the library. As far as leadership is concerned, it was decided that there was not to be a single authorative figure, but rather that direction would be assigned according to tasks. However, the one in charge of keeping records of the meetings agreed to later assemble all information into a coherent state of representation for the final project layout.

Another three meetings were held before the completion of the project. During these, the group met up and decided on the final topic, wrote out an outline and agreed upon assigning the following responsibilities: Person A was in charge of coherently typing up the assignment. Person B dealt with correctly writing the bibliography and typing the cover page. Persons C and D returned all borrowed sources. Everyone contributed in the reviewing and editing of the final paper.

What we found interesting as a team was that, even though we were all pretty much unknown to each other, we all managed to communicate without any conflicts. Even though we were only able to meet one of the weekends due to two members' occupational obligations, we managed to work the time into each of our busy everyday schedules. The fact that we made our focus clear from the first meeting really helped us get a good start. Furthermore, we were able to determine each individual's strengths and weaknesses, something that allowed for an easier task division. If one person was better at writing, he/she would take over that particular task. If another was stronger in researching he/she would be assigned or even volunteer for that duty. Similarly, if a member would have difficulty understanding something, then the others would stop and revise that which needed to be clearly comprehended. In addition, the fact that three out of the four live nearby was an advantage because it allowed Person C to offer dropping the other two at their houses. Thus, this was another positive aspect, even if it was not directly related to the project. Overall, we believe having started out as a group we weaved our work interaction into a team due to our abilities to complement each other and distribute accountability accordingly. Our team had cohesiveness and productivity given that our common final result was to earn an `A' for this unified project. Generally, we set common objectives, listened to what the other had to say and made decisions by consensus. It was a gratifying experience that may have served as a window to the world of business communication and teamwork behaviour.

By Kourouniotis, Anna

Perronnet, Yann