Team Work and Management Theories - Literature review Example

TEAM WORK AND MANAGEMENT THEORIES By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Team Work and Management Theories Introduction Teamwork as defined by Wilson and Corlett (2005, p.794) is working collaboratively with a group of persons so as to realize the set goal. Without a doubt, teamwork is normally an important element of a business, as it is repeatedly essential for workmates to work collaboratively. Therefore, teamwork connotes that members of a team will try to work together, through their personal skills in addition to offering beneficial feedback, in spite of any individual disagreement between team members. Teamwork is popular because it offers the company as well as members the ability to grow to be more accustomed to one another other as well as learn how to collaborate. There are numerous reasons why teamwork is vital and important to the success of any organisation as well as to the employee development. Comprehending those crucial elements can help in developing policies of the company geared toward supporting team growth within the place of work. History of teamwork dates back to late 1920s and early 1930s during the Hawthorne Experiments performed by Professor Elton Mayo, who established that employee productivity heightened with the psychological motivation of feeling involved, being given attention, and feeling important (Robbins & Coulter, 2007, p.37). Basically, teamwork is important for employee morale, retention as well as output quality, and importantly competence is increased significantly by using teamwork rather than working alone. As mentioned by Tracey (2003, p.368), team projects boost motivation and lessen job-related stress. However, reason why teamwork is not good is when it comes time of performance review, which concentrates individual performance rather than team performance. Compelling a top performing employee to join a team full of unproductive members can truly obstruct his/her performance. The essay seeks to use theories and examples supporting and not supporting teamwork to show the benefits of the teamwork and the negative points against teamwork.   Main Body Scores of organizational leaders pursue the ideology that integrating teams into the multifaceted organizational structure can make the company more successful. This ideology has transformed the landscape of the organization, as it emerges that teams are at the moment a consistent and prevalent part of nearly all organizations. So, for organizations to become more successful in their domain, they have to rely more on their teams’ effectiveness. Collaborative teamwork is increasingly imperative given that it takes place when the organization management is concentrating on problem solving, learning and coordination (McCallin & McCallin, 2009, p.61). Effective control of teamwork allows for understanding the team roles and group norms, conflict resolution as well as the ability to goal setting and the readiness to collaborate. The keys to improving a harmonious and an effective team may be summarized in two words: training as well as education. All team members must value the complete necessity for discipline which is achieved through intense practice, self-improvement, as well as positive training and education. Evidently, as mentioned by Katzenbach and Smith (2005), creating a disciplined approach to teamwork is by thinking about teams as separate performance units and not only as positive sets of values. The real meaning of a team is common dedication and this cannot be achieved without disciplines, so discipline allow members of the team to perform as individuals; thus, becoming an influential unit of collective performance. Any organisation bigger than one individual is a group, and everyplace with more than one person there exist conflicting ideas, interests, and behavior, which as a result can generate conflict. Groups always offer rewards to the members and so everything impacting a member affects the whole group since a common objective is shared among the groups’ members. However, negative energy of the groups on an individual can result in conflict. So a negative member may make the group to become silent concerning problem areas, and also may heavily impact group learning (Felps et al., 2006, p.180). This can be attributed by inequity perceptions, group impassive tone, feelings of insecurity, and lack of recognition. This as a result may lead to conflict, which may result in difference of opinion, clash of personalities, harassment, and discrimination. With regard to John Adair's Leadership Models, the theory states that an effective leader must be aware of leadership in the team, the individual, and the task areas. According to Zaccaro et al. (2001, p.452), a good leader knows that a healthy interaction between the individual, the task and the team is very important. A third attribute of effective team performance, as mentioned by Zaccaro et al. (2001, p.451) is represented by team leadership. Nearly all teams have particular persons who are responsible for defining goals of the team as well as for structuring and developing the team to achieve such missions. Such roles subsist even in self-managing teams, though the behavior of leadership roles in these teams differ significantly from comparable roles in more conventional teams (Belbin, 2012, p.83). Still, the leader’s success in defining directions of the team as well as preparing the team to capitalize on progress along these directions results considerably in team effectiveness (Avolio, 2011, p.7). Grint (2010, p.96) and Belbin (2012, p.46) argue that processes of effective leadership symbolize the most vital factor in organisational team’s success. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is another theory supporting teamwork, and it states that everyone has his/her needs. Therefore, managers and leaders must have this level of knowledge if they desire to motivate their team for success. Still, as mentioned by the theory, to be a good leader as well as manager one must know that people are individually different. Therefore, motivation will arise only if the traits of a good leader are exhibited by recognising that a number of people go to work existence needs (money) and they lack relatedness needs (relating with other people), or growth needs (to earn promotion). Others work to challenge themselves and achieve something whereas others work to get experience to get promotion. Productive teams as indicated by Boud et al. (2006, p.58) help build successful and create effective companies. Companies concentrated on high levels of production always study interpersonal and teams interactions at the business with the intent of making changes so as to improve production. For instance, Steve Jobs former Pixar head and Apple founder, incorporated teamwork as a crucial element of his company operations. Jobs notion to high-performing teams entailed recurrent worker interaction. So he utilised teamwork theories to build his corporate headquarters so as to boost employee interaction. In spite of the actuality that Jobs pioneered communication by means of electronic media, he as well encouraged individual interaction to motivate teams in becoming successful. Trendy business periodicals and texts report that teamwork is the most excellent method of getting the job completed.  Some authors have devoted themselves to gainsay this statement. Arguments in opposition to teamwork as evidence in Griffin and Moorhead (2009, p.402) and King and Lawley (2013, p.187) study include: loss of entity contributions, misdirected work efforts, lack of control as well as accountability, risky shift and groupthink, in addition to individualism. In numerous cases team decisions are more precarious as compared to the average individual decision by team members.  Those opposing teamwork posit that it promotes unequal participation: with a number of teams, most members lazy around making people to work extra hard. This as per Haslam et al. (2014, p.105) can result in anger in the place of work, particularly if the manager acknowledges only the team efforts rather than the team leaders’ efforts. Conflict arising from unequal participation may have an unfavorable effect on morale of team members. Adams' Equity Theory necessitates the need for a fair balance between an team members inputs (enthusiasm, skill level, hard work, broadmindedness, and so forth) and members outputs (benefits, salary, intangibles like acknowledgment, and the like) (Budd, 2006, p.20). According to Equity Theory, finding a fair balance guarantees achievement of productive and strong relationship, with the overall outcome being motivated, satisfied workers. Still, those arguing against teamwork posit that inherent conflict amongst team members is unsuitable for business productivity. Whenever a team is brought together to realize a goal, at least a number of conflict is probable to take place (West, 2012, p.188). Different individual may disagree and a number of members may have trouble accommodating ideas that are at variance from their own. Besides that, peer pressure may as well make a team member to be against his/her better decision so as to flee from the anger of other members or to make project completion possible. Theoretically, realistic conflict theory makes clear how intergroup resentment can crop up because of conflicting ambitions, and it as well provides an enlightenment for the feelings of discrimination as well as prejudice toward the outgroup accompanying the intergroup resentment. Team members can compete for a perceived or real shortage of resources like authority, money, or status. Undoubtedly, teamwork may help business organist ion to become more flexible by bringing workers from various parts of a project collectively into one team, so bottlenecks or problems can from time to time be sorted out without difficulty For instance, automakers like Toyota and Volkswagen use this technique when designing vehicles. Rather than all new car design going through different areas, like parts supply, engineering and design the automaker will institute a team whose members are workers from all departments so as to design very vehicle. When issues crop up in one area, the whole team can handle them and the work may carry on much quicker. This is evidenced in the Hawthorne Theory, which states that team members may work with more enthusiasm when valued and treated like an important asset of the company (Miller, 2014, p.58). For instance, at Emirates Airlines they use efficient as well as strong members of the team, and it is the team effort makes the airliner the most hospitable airlines. Another example is Toyota motors, which believes spend millions of dollars daily on its research and development to make certain that their team works with filled enthusiasm in reducing the carbon emissions from its vehicles so as to keep its customers trust. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be posited that teamwork is beneficial because it involves scores of people, which connotes more energy, resources, and ideas as compared to a personal effort. Behind every successful organization or individual, there is a team and this can be evidenced by celebrities, political leaders, spiritual leaders, and business innovators who at all times achieve success with the assistance of their team. Therefore, individually I think teamwork exhibits determination as well as selflessness, and its main benefit is learning whereby team members tend to learn quicker as compared to workers working individually. In teamwork, competition is healthy as if a member desires to outshine another member of the team, and then the assignment will be accomplished above and beyond anticipations. An additional benefit of teamwork is that it improves creativity in the workplace, given that while working in a team each person has individual concepts and ideas to share. The teamwork and leadership theories are important because they assist managers comprehend that team leadership is about generating the conditions that enable people and ideas to prosper, and allow performance to flow. When a manager balances members’ strengths by building good connections and relationships, in search of meaningful and challenging team goals, then he/she is moving a long way towards promoting effective teamwork in the place of work. So theories help team leaders to align the individuals’ strengths, with effective teamwork as well as a concentrate on significant results. References Avolio, B.J., 2011. Full Range Leadership Development. 2nd ed. Thousand oaks,CA: SAGE. Belbin, R.M., 2012. Management Teams: Why they succeed and fail. Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team Roles at Work. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Boud, D., Cressey, P. & Docherty, P., 2006. Productive Reflection at Work: Learning for Changing Organizations. London: Routledge. Budd, J.W., 2006. Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Felps, W., Mitchell, T.R. & Byington, E., 2006. How, When, and Why Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: Negative Group Members and Dysfunctional Groups. Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 27, pp.175–222. Griffin, R. & Moorhead, G., 2009. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. New York: Cengage Learning. Grint, K., 2010. The Sacred in Leadership: Separation, Sacrifice and Silence. Organization Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, pp.89–107. Haslam, S.A., Knippenberg, D.v., Platow, M.J. & Ellemers, N., 2014. Social Identity at Work: Developing Theory for Organizational Practice. Florence, KY: Psychology Press. Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K., 2005. The Discipline of Teams. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://hbr.org/2005/07/the-discipline-of-teams" https://hbr.org/2005/07/the-discipline-of-teams [Accessed 10 December 2014]. King, D. & Lawley, S., 2013. 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