The challenges in the contemporary environment and the various situations that individuals have to encounter push people to think about how it is better and more effective to handle them. While some people believe that solving problems individually is always the best idea, others highlight the importance of teams and collaboration. For instance, the chapter from the textbook states that many professionals point out that the small group is the most essential social formation due to the fact that. from early childhood, people are surrounded and influenced by them. Therefore, the following paper will examine the strengths and weaknesses of teams in various situations.
As was already mentioned, teams play a critical role in the lives of every individual. In all the different contexts, such as business, society, and personal lives, teams are a crucial component that impacts individuals’ development, the way we see the world and communicate with others. In addition, small groups give people an opportunity to look at specific issues from a different perspective and change their attitudes based on careful evaluation and argumentation. Thus, it can be stated that in all the identified contexts teams play a role in advancing people’s knowledge and making them think.
One situation that comes to mind when teamwork would be beneficial is when an organization or a company is presented with a number of choices. In this case, there is no one right decision but rather a number of different ones that can bring different benefits and drawbacks. As a result, through discussion, collaboration, and even misunderstandings, a group can find the most appropriate option and bring positive change or improvement to its organization (Tripathy, 2018). Hence, the situation with a number of possible outcomes is a great example of a case when a team is a benefit.
However, as with everything in this world, problem-solving by teams has both its strengths and weaknesses. Based on the information mentioned above, the main strength of teams in the context of problem-solving is the ability to look at the issue from different perspectives and analyze it objectively. Additionally, teams contribute to personal development because processes that happen within them enrich individual knowledge and understanding of certain things. Talking about the weaknesses, one that is obvious is a huge risk of conflicts due to differences in opinions and perceptions of problems. This weakness also leads to another one – teamwork, especially in problematic situations, is time-consuming. Individuals have to consider the opinions of everyone which takes a lot of time and consumes the energy of all members.
Oftentimes, teams that operate in different environments decide to have a participant-observer. As explained by Crossman (2019), a participant-observer is the person who becomes a part of the small group for the purpose of collecting data and understanding a problem or phenomenon in the group. The main role of this individual is to analyze the situation from an objective point of view and make conclusions about the relationships in the team, people’s beliefs and values, and the ways of improving collaboration within (Crossman, 2019). Consequently, participant-observer seems to be an essential component of groups that contribute to their effective work and problem-solving abilities.
Even though individuals are acquainted with the benefits of small groups, many of them still believe that individual work is more effective. These people are definitely right to some extent because individual problem-solving has many advantages; nevertheless, it has some significant weaknesses, too. When solving problems individually people rely on only on themselves and are not influenced by the opinions of other people which means that they act and manage the problem the way they desire – this is definitely an advantage. However, in this case, they also see the issue from their personal prism and cannot analyze everything objectively. As a result, they can be left with a negative outcome.
The same as for collaborative problem-solving, there are many situations in which an individual should be the only person who makes the decision. A prime example of that is when a specific problem is connected to this individual only and the outcomes of the decision will affect only their life. When making these choices, people should rely only on themselves without seeking help or support from group members because the situation simply does not affect them in any way. In addition, the problem should be managed individually when it needs specific expertise or knowledge from a person who has certain experience in the sphere of the problem.
Overall, it can be concluded that both teamwork and individual work have their advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, instead of choosing what is better and being in constant conflict with others about it, people have to learn to adapt to different situations and apply an approach that suits them more appropriately. At the end of the day, it is a matter of the personal preferences and personality characteristics of individuals. Therefore, the presented paper discussed and evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of teams in various situations.
References
Adams, K., Galanes, G., & Hoelscher, C. (n.d.). Communicating in Groups: Applications and Skills.
Crossman, A, (2019). What is participant observation research? ThoughtCo. Web.
Tripathy, M. (2018). Building quality teamwork to achieve excellence in business organizations.International research journal of management, IT and social sciences, 5(3), 1-7. Web.