Introduction
The concept of teamwork at the workplace is practiced in many organizations. A team can be described as a group of people who depend on each other for skills and resources to enable them achieve a specific objective. Managers need special skills to manage various employees in the organization to enable them collaborate on specific tasks to achieve positive results. Managers need to make all their employees resourceful to ensure their output brings positive returns to the organization.
Concept of Teams
Managers should realize that teams are formed to achieve a collective objective where all members depend on each other to achieve it. Team members need to be given freedom to make their own decisions. This approach makes all members of a team to tolerate different opinions put forward by their colleagues.
All employees in an organization have different personalities and this has an impact on the way they share ideas (Burke and Cooper 57). Managers should structure their teams to accommodate all types of personality profiles to make them diverse and competent.
Teamwork helps organizations to achieve key goals which are part of their long term strategies. Effective team managemen helps business organizations to come up with new ideas which make them stay competitive in their chosen industries. Employees who are skilled in a variety of disciplines enable firm stay ahead of its competitors because they share their knowledge and skills with each other.
Managers need to monitor their teams to ensure their activities are in line with the firm’s strategic goals (Heneman and Greenberger). A manager should not interfere needlessly in team operations as this will affect the ability of members to think on their own.
Conditions That Determine Team Success
Managers need to know that there are several conditions which determine the success of workplace teams. The design of work place teams should conform to the overall context in which the organization transacts to make team members’ contributions valid and beneficial. The organizational culture should make team members more open to acquire new skills and information from each other to enable them move forward in a positive direction.
The knowledge acquired through collaboration between team members improves their ability to make decisions which have a bearing on the firm’s operations (Evans and Lindsay 97). Therefore, managers need to encourage team members to learn from one another to enable them stay focused on their objectives. Team members need to be open with each other to build strong relationships to make their team cohesive and progressive.
Team members need to learn conflict resolution and problem solving skills for them to be well prepared to deal with any challenges which may come their way. All members within a team should be willing to compromise so as to build consensus when making crucial decisions. Open communication between members enables them to set clear goals and how they are to be achieved.
Team members should share tasks between them so that everyone is allocated a specific responsibility to ensure that each individual acquires crucial knowledge on what needs to be done. Team leaders should help members set goals and monitor their performance (Jackson, Schuler and Werner 83). Therefore, this enables members to develop standards which guide their partipation within the team.
Building a Cohesive Team
It is important for activities which are done by work teams to be well coordinated. A workplace team needs to be productive to make it achieve its goals within stipulated time limits. Members should work well with each other to achieve their expectations. Tasks to be performed by each member should be well defined and aligned to strategic goals in the organization.
It is necessary for managers to decide how much decision making power teams should have in the beginning before they begin working on specific tasks. This will ensure that decisions made by team members are practical to make them easy to implement (Parker 45). Work place teams need to accommodate different employees and their skills to make them effective.
Members of work place teams need to come up with common codes of conduct, which they all must abide by. Codes of conduct help to maintain discipline in all procedures members are involved in to ensure they are in line with organizational expectations. Workplace teams need to do tasks which are well defined to make members more focused on what they need to achieve.
Members need to prioritize on the most important issues that need to be addressed which impact on internal operations within the organization (Sims 104). It is necessary for team members to make decisions which are only influenced by facts and not personal opinions.
In conclusion, workplace teams need to have creative members to ensure that they generate new ideas which impact positively on internal operations in the firm. All members should be assessed on their abilities to determine their contribution to the team. They should also be encouraged to participate in team work as this is the only they can learn new ideas.
References
Burke, Ronald J., and Cary L. Cooper. Reinventing Human Resources Management: Challenges And New Directions. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Evans, James Robert, and William M. Lindsay. Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.
Heneman, Robert L., and David B. Greenberger. Human Resource Management in Virtual Organizations. London: Information Age Publishing, 2002.Print
Jackson, Susan E., Randall S. Schuler, and Steve Werner. Managing Human Resources. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Parker, Glenn M. Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration. New York, NY: Wiley, 2011. Print.
Sims, Ronald. Organizational Success Through Effective Human Resources Management. New York : Greenwood, 2002. Print.