Effectiveness of Work Teams in Organisations

Effectiveness of Work Teams in Organisations

A great deal of research in organizational management (OM) has led practitioners to adopt concepts like, just in time (JIT), total quality management, sustainability and more recently supply chain integration. Simultaneously research has focused on job shop micro level scheduling, to macro-level operations strategy, and business functions integration. Where, adopting these new concepts many companies have flourished, numerous others failed because they fail to understand that changing dynamics of workplace led to greater interdependence requiring renewed focus on managing human issues (soft issues) like teamwork, cohesion, motivation, performance measurement and reward / punishment (Pagell and LePine, 2002). The research on work teams, from organizational perspective stems from psycho-social theory and exploration of group psychology. Most of this knowledge was created in laboratory condition through experiments (McGrath et al., 2000), mostly performed in 1950's very few related to the real world (Sundstrom et al., 2000). More recently focus of research on work teams / groups has shifted from social psychology to organizational psychology (Levine and Moreland, 1990).

The emerging importance of work-teams is the result of growing acknowledgement of the role groups play as enablers or inhibitors of organizational effectiveness. The dynamics of globalization, emerging new technologies and era of specialization has further complicated working environment. Now ever than before, employee need to team up, as different skills and knowledge are required making it impossible for any individual to accomplish the tasks alone (Buzaglo and Wheelan, 1999). However, team-based functioning on its own does not guaranty success. The effectiveness of work-teams is dependent on number of factors including organizational culture. This brings us to the question, "Is the effectiveness of team's dependent on a supportive organizational culture?" before answering, it is necessary to discuss organizational culture.

Describing organizational culture can be problematic, because starting with some kind of cultural phenomena and using its existence evidentially to justify the existence of groups in itself is flawed. It needs to be identified that the given group of individuals has had enough common history and stability to have allowed for culture to develop. This means that organisations with members frequently turning-over will lack common history and overarching culture. Other organisations with intense experiences (as in combat) or longstanding shared history can be assumed, to be culturally strong. Cultures form through group learning, while they interact and collaboratively solve problems of external nature and internal cohesion and integration. Such an experience is simultaneously an emotional, behavioural, and cognitive process. According to theorist the deepest level is cognitive, and the experiences shared within the group would casually define the overt behaviours, espoused values, feelings and attitudes within an organization in general and the group in particular (Schein, 1990).

In large organisation number of groups coexist side by side, in such a case there would be an overall organizational culture and subcultures distinct to each group based on their intense experiences and shared learning, which could sometimes lead to cross functional intragroup conflicts. Teams do not operate in isolations and more often than not require support from other functional groups within an organisation; therefore for team effectiveness equilibrium has to be established in the organizational context, which would require an overall teamwork supportive organizational culture.

A supportive organizational culture is the one where top management is strong believer of theory Y. Where organizational culture promotes constructive criticism, empowerment of employee in decision making, provides continuous learning environment, employee take pride and ownership of their work, innovation is encouraged, respect for colleagues and customers is valued, open and honest opinions are appreciated, cross functional supportive teamwork is a common norm and conflict is viewed as an opportunity for improvement rather than a hurdle (Mary Lovell, 2007).

As the Crusaders advertisement says "A Champion team will always beat a team of champions" (Mcfarlane, 2010). The challenge is how to develop a team of experts into an expert team. Members of an effective team are highly dedicated and while holding one another mutually accountable is committed towards a common purpose with focus on achievement of established goals (Katzenbach and Smith, as cited in Mcatavey and Nikolovska, 2010).

The overall effectiveness of the team is a function of corporate culture, team behaviours, attitude, team performance and characteristics of team members. Performance, defines perception of quality, quantity, and timeliness from the client's perspective (dependent on team composition, individual skills, knowledge and processes). Attitude, relates to team member's willingness to cooperate, share responsibility, openness to others ideas and feedback. Behaviour defines the interaction between members and should promote collectivism. Team members' characteristics explain member's perception of one another and lastly culture describes the climate through which teams operate (Mcatavey and Nikolovska, 2010).

Team effectiveness to great extent is leadership dependent; managing teams is a "leader intensive" activity. As team task requires navigating rough waters and task accomplishment demands problem solving which can cause difference of opinion within a group leading to a conflicts. As, most teams have members representing their respective functional areas (For example project management teams, R&D teams) these members bring with them their own cultural influences, intense experiences, time frames, attitudes and biases. Creating a cohesive workforce in such diversity becomes a challenge even for the most skilled and seasoned leadership. The leadership style appropriate to successful management of teams could vary from situation to situation; there is no fixed recipe. "The essence of effective leadership is in its ability to use it flexibly. The worst of leaders are those, who either are indifferent or unaware of the freedom, they have to vary their style of leadership" (Pinto and Kharbanda 1995).

Though, there is a lot of literary debate on which leadership style is more effective under different circumstances, there exist a general consensus on leadership traits that are necessary for a leader to be effective. According to Zenger and Folkman