Teamwork character in an organization

Because it gives employees a chance to communicate with one another, teamwork has grown to be a crucial component of any firm (Cole and Kelly 103). To assure an improvement in productivity, strengthen employee camaraderie, and enhance corporate culture, the majority of firms have adopted collaboration into their organizational culture. Additionally, cooperation enables firms to divide up responsibilities, which is crucial in settings where the constant development of new concepts and products is required. The team members can interact and exchange ideas, ensuring that they accomplish their objectives within the confines of the workplace. Based on their success in organizations, groups are growing in popularity. Especially in tasks that demand a variety of skills, especially in tasks that require diverse efforts and attention.

Various problems exist in teamwork; organizations must have the ability to address these problems to ensure they maximize the use of the group. The challenges experienced within a group setting affect its effectiveness and consequently impact on the success of the institution (Levi 19). Therefore, entities must understand the various challenges and problems that exist within group settings to formulate the methods of mitigating the disadvantages of the ineffectiveness.

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional teams are assets to organizations’ problem-solving techniques. The teams serve as sources of innovation and thus improve the productivity of individuals (Rockhurst College 93). They are very valuable in organizations. However, despite their effectiveness and benefits to the organization, cross-functional teams are difficult to maintain and manage, and they are faced with major challenges.

From experience, cross-functional teams experience problems in their goals and priorities. The members of these groups place value on items that will have an impact on their performance measurement and reward. In most cases, the tasks of the team are not part of factors that will be used in measuring the performance of the employees. The employees give the tasks from the project being handled by the cross-functional team lower priority in comparison to other tasks (Martin 25). This reduces the effectiveness of the team and consequently its productivity. The goals and priorities of the team members must be aligned to ensure they achieve the overall purpose. This will involve the leaders in the organization coming up with a performance measurement program that takes into consideration the efforts of the employees towards the achievement of the goals of the team.

Further, communication is a challenge that is experienced by cross-functional teams. In any group, communication is an important element that contributes towards its effectiveness in the achievement of the set goals (Rockhurst college 91). Therefore, the right cadence of communication must be established within the team. Lack of effective communication will lead to missed deadlines where members do not communicate with each other at each step of the project (Rockhurst college 97). Similarly, excess communication will affect the effectiveness of the team. For instance, if the team holds too many meetings, they may waste time that could have been used in the completion of various tasks in the project. Additionally, many emails may be a nuisance to the recipients and may lead to misinformation. This will reduce the effectiveness of the team and consequently productivity levels. Therefore, leaders need to ensure communication is done only when necessary to allow the members’ time to complete their tasks and give them the freedom to use their ideas (Levi 23).

The lack of trust from experience is another factor that affects the effectiveness of the team. In most organizations, the trust among employees is non-existent in that employees do not believe that other staff are competent and passionate about their job. Without trust, cross-functional teams cannot be effective; this is because members need to trust the ability of others from different departments for them to work together efficiently (Rockhurst college 112). Therefore, leaders need to ensure they generate trust among members through guaranteeing that every member will deliver and working towards it.

Furthermore, teamwork experiences the challenge of delegating the managerial authority and the responsibility among the members (Martin 66). Members lack the eagerness to take responsibility for decisions originally made by managers. This makes it difficult to form groups especially the self-managed teams. Therefore, measures have to be taken by leaders to allow members to take the new responsibilities. This can be achieved through training members on the ways and methods of working effectively in a team setting. This will allow them to develop the skills for decision-making and problem solving and thus increase the effectiveness of the team.

Leaders must have the ability to identify which project is effective for which team. For instance, cross-functional teams are most appropriate for projects that require innovation (Cole and Kelly 116). The members from different departments and backgrounds will provide a pool of ideas that will allow the companies come up with new products. Likewise, self-managed teams are productive in projects that require creative knowledge (Cole and Kelly 116). Identifying the best team and coming up with the members to form it is a difficult task for leaders, and thus a careful examination of the project must be done and members selected based on their competency and skills.

Decision making is a weighty challenge in teamwork. Individuals are used to making decisions about their work without having to consult others. They take control of the completion of their task and set the schedule, the means, and the tools for the same. They also solve any problems that may arise without consulting. However, in teamwork, the decision-making process must involve all members of the group (Grant 8). They have to sit down and discuss the issue before making a decision that is accepted by all members. This may affect the productivity of the team as time, and other resources are wasted, especially where it is experiencing communication breakdown and conflicts. The members may sometimes fail to reach an agreement leading to the dissolution of the team. Therefore, members have to be trained on ways of working together effectively; communicating with one another and other interpersonal skills that will ensure effectiveness in decision-making.

Conclusion

Teamwork is undoubtedly important part of any organization and has many benefits. However, where people having different ideas, opinions and coming from different background are working together, challenges are expected. This explains the many problems that exist within a team setting. The problems must be addressed for organizations to reap the full benefits of teamwork. Leaders, therefore, need to ensure that proper measures are taken to ensure the effectiveness and avoid the problems associated with groups. Leaders need to properly manage their teams to ensure the success of the organization.



























Works Cited

Cole, G A. and Kelly, P P. Management Theory and Practice. Ed. 7. Cengage EMEA. 2011.

Grant, A. Give And Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. London: Penguin Books. 2014.

Levi, D. Group Dynamics for Teams. New York: Sage Publications Inc. 2007.

Martin, J. Organizational Behavior and Management. Ed. 3. Thomson Learning. 2005.

Rockhurst college. How to Work With People: Understanding Team Dynamics. New York: National press publications. 2010.