Why Establishing Team Work Is Difficult in Organisations - Coursework Example

Assignment: Assessment Task: Is establishing team work difficult in organisations? Student’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 Teamwork in organizations 5 Social Loafing and Teamwork 5 Hierarchy and team effectiveness 7 Bias towards individualism vs. Teamwork 8 Over-cohesiveness and Team work 8 Virtual teams and costs on Teamwork 9 Conclusion 10 References 11 Executive summary This essay looks at the impediments that organisations face in their attempts to establish teamwork within its ranks. It begins by appreciating the benefits an organisation will reap by investing in teams actually effective teams. Social loafing stands out as an impediment to actual working teams. The essay looks at social loafing as a characteristic of ineffective teams, hence teamwork is not fostered in such teams because of the ‘free riding’ aspect in the members. The essay also discusses how the hierarchical obstacles impede teamwork by restricting autonomy on part of the team members. It goes ahead to isolate the aspect of individualism inherent in many employees as an obstacle that organisations face in trying to foster teamwork in the work force. It also looks at the costs associated with setting up of teams, especially virtual teams as an obstacle that organisations face in establishing teamwork. Over-cohesiveness is also discussed as also having contributed to setting back efforts by organisations to establish teamwork. Introduction Teams are groups of people who realize goals by working interdependently, effectively communicating and making decisions about their duties independently. These groups enjoy some level of autonomy (Topchik 2007). These individuals are no longer a group but an effective team (Tjosvold, West and Smith 2003). Teams in organisations sometimes become necessary in order for the organisation to achieve the intended goals. For instance when a broadcasting corporation like the ABC wants to cover the Olympic Games it needs to gather a team consisting of researchers, producers, cameramen/women, writers, technicians and commentators, many of whom are meeting for the first time for this particular assignment. This team are required to pull it off at once because there is no retake hence work under high pressure (Gratton and Erickson 2007). There exist actual and virtual teams. The actual teams are also known as the face to face teams or co-located teams. In this type of team individuals accomplish plan and execute a task while in constant face to face communication and these individuals happen to be in the same geographical area when they do this (Heller et al. 2010). This face to face contact is important in that it ensures communication of tacit knowledge to take place (Bower et al. 2001). That is the knowledge that is neither documented nor defined but can only be obtained through experience in interaction (Griffith, Sawyer and Neale 2003). Virtual teams are teams consisting of individuals working together to achieve a common goal but these individuals achieve this goal across territories of space, organizations, culture and time being aided by technology that is the use of ICT tools and networks (Heller et al. 2010; Kozusznik 2005; Warkentin, Sayeed and Hightower 1997; Webster and Wong 2008). There are many advantages associated with teamwork ranging from increased and better performance by employees, motivation of employees because of autonomy, effectiveness on the part of employees and many more (Topchik 2007). These advantages are achieved when an organisation is able to put together a cohesive and effective team. No team comes about without performance difficulties relating to those who are involved (Katzenback and Smith 1993). It is important to note that a team is not the same thing as teamwork. Teams can exist but devoid of teamwork thus it has proven difficult to organisations to establish teamwork. This paper will argue this fact out bringing out some of the reasons making it difficult for organisations to establish teamwork within their ranks. Teamwork in organizations Social Loafing and Teamwork Social loafing is a phenomenon where individuals working together on a task exert less individual effort than when they perform the same task alone (Horn 2008). Team goals are coined for the collective achievement by two or more people. Team goals are generally general and not specific and tend to be process oriented rather than outcome oriented (Brawley, Carron and Widmeyer 1993). Team goals have be found out to affect psychological aspects of the team such as satisfaction, motivation and cohesion (Brawley, Carron and Widmeyer 1993). It has been found that when individuals set their own goals they tend to set higher goals but in the team relatively low rated goals are set to take care of all the team members because of low perceptions of some team members. Thus team goals which do not incorporate individual goals lowers performance through social loafing (Horn 2008). Social loafing has been an impediment to creation of effective teams within organisations. High performing individuals are prone to loaf and perform below their capabilities in teams thus a team only exists in a name not in its effectiveness. In his management principles, Henri Fayol, brings out the principle of spirit of co-operation, espirit de corps, where he emphasizes that for best results individuals must work together in teams. To achieve these results individual and group goals and efforts must be effectively integrated and coordinated otherwise social loafing sets in and kills team effectiveness (West 2012). High performers when in such a situation tend to hold back their capabilities. Thus in a team if not properly constituted and coordinated it results to loss of effort. In his experiments Max Ringelman set out to establish whether individuals working alone were more effective than when working in teams. He ordered agricultural students whom he was teaching to pull a rope connected to a dynamometer and measured the intensity of the pull. Working alone the average student managed to pull 85kg. When Ringelman arranged the students in teams of seven the average pull by the team was 450kg translating to 64kg per student (Kravitz and Martin 1986). This indicates that when one is working alone puts in more effort than when working with a team. Social loafing has proved to be a challenge to the establishment of effective teams by organizations. Social loafing can be reduced where team members perceive that their individual contribution to the team is being recognised and evaluated and indispensable (West 2012). But this aspect is problematic in a team setting. Hierarchy and team effectiveness Autonomy is very important in achieving team effectiveness. It refers to the level of freedom that team members possess in carrying out tasks (West 2012). For teams to be effective in performing their duties they should be free to make the decisions as well as implement them. They must have that sense of ownership of the ideas so as to be fully motivated. But according to Henri Fayol subordinates should take commands from only one boss. This restricts the autonomy of team members to make decisions (Wood and Wood 202). The decisions are imposed on the team. Thus, it has been difficult for organisations to establish teamwork in their undertakings without compromising the hierarchy effectiveness within the same organisations. Managers make decisions and pass them down to the teams for implementation. Managers demand performance from the teams on the set goals. This is contrary to Mary Parker Follet’s perspective on effective management which brings out the best in teams. Follet is for the view that managers should motivate performance instead of demanding. And this can be achieved by understanding their beliefs, emotions, attitudes and habits and hence device the right mechanisms of motivating them (Kreitner 2009). Because of the restrictions on the autonomy of team members they end up agreeing with opinions of those that rank highly in the hierarchy or are senior than them in the group. This results to poor decisions hence poor problem solving thus an ineffective team (West 2012). Max Weber’s view of bureaucracy where managers and owners have the power to control and run affairs of the organisation by controlling both the means of production and the employees also hinders organisations from coming up with effective teams (Hatch and Cunliffe 2013). Because such organisational climate does not guarantee team members autonomy which is a pre-requisite for effective team work. This makes it difficult for organisations to incorporate teamwork in their operations. This aspect of effective teamwork within organisations is supported by Elton Mayo’s findings in his Hawthorne experiments where he found out that employer motivation can improved by making employees feel important, giving them freedom to make choices and acknowledging their social needs (Sheldrake 2003). But with the bureaucracy in most organisations and stringent hierarchical restrictions, it becomes difficult for organisations to achieve teamwork. Bias towards individualism vs. Teamwork One thing that gets in the way of organisations in establishing effective teams and thus teams is the tendency of team players showing biasness towards individual responsibility (Katzenback 1993). This threatens team cohesiveness. Most of the employees grow up in a setting emphasizing individual responsibility. Parents, teachers, coaches and role models mould the values held by most of the employees based on individual achievements. These values have carried on into organisations. Even when teams are in the picture, it is rarely so at the expense of individual responsibility. The issue of playing fair has never preceded that of always aiming for position one (Katzenback 1993). Over-cohesiveness and Team work Cohesiveness is a very important ingredient for effective teamwork. But extreme cohesiveness can also be a source of inter-team and intra-team conflicts leading to eventual breakdown of teams (Lussier and Achua 2013). A team can be so cohesive in that it ends up looking like a sect and members are willing to stand by their teammates and achieve the team’s objectives at whatever cost. Even within the same team there may emerge sub-teams with strong ties hence creating fault lines that hinder teamwork within the team. This sets up team conflicts which break down the team (Lussier and Achua 2013). The fear of creating sub-teams and effects of the sub-teams in teamwork has proved to be an impediment to efforts by organisations to create teamwork. Over-cohesiveness also results in what is commonly referred to as ‘groupthink’ which is detrimental to the team because it ends p compromising members when it comes to decision making. In this case members tend to agree to a decision just because they don’t want to reject an opinion raised by many and not because the decision is not on merit basis. Members agree to opinions not because they merit but because these opinions are shared by a majority of the members and the others with a contrary agree just because of their strong allegiance to the team (Lussier and Achua 2013). For example members of a political will agree to whatever decisions the party organs comes up with even if they share a different opinion on the subject at hand simply because they pledge allegiance to the team that is the party. Virtual teams and costs on Teamwork Members of a virtual team are scattered over a large geographical area and are derived from different cultures. So bringing such a group together to a work on a particular task has proved to be difficult for most organisations and most importantly such undertakings have proved to be expensive. The ICT tools required to enable communication between these individuals is too costly and thus most organisations have not committed to establishing team work because of these costs. These tools are not entirely reliable and there is also the time difference of regions where these individuals hence meetings cannot happen at the same time (Kozusznik 2005; Salas et al. 2013). Most of the teams contain or should contain experts from different sections. Thus members within the same team have attained good academic performances in different disciplines. Hence the more the level of academic qualifications of team members the more difficult they will have in collaborating. In this respect it becomes difficult for organisations to establish teamwork. It has been found out that the more the experts a team have the more likely it is for that team to break into conflicts hence a stand-off (Gratton and Erickson 2007). Conclusion For effective teams managers should follow to the latter Mary Parker Follet’s guidelines including embracing the diversity of people’s skills, experience, culture, backgrounds e.t.c. Organisation leaders need to enhance team effectiveness by building a strong performance ethic rather than promoting a team environment alone. Instead of managers striving to have their organisations have a team based outlook they should strive to ensure that teamwork reflects performance. References Bower, DJ et al. 2001, ‘ICTs, videoconferencing and the construction industry: Opportunity or threat?’, Construction Innovation, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 129-144. Brawley, LR, Carron, AV and Widmeyer, WN 1993, The influence of the group and its cohesiveness on perceptions of group related variables, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, vol. 15, pp. 245-260. 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