Introduction
This paper is based on the topic of teamwork in organisations. It seeks to explore the role played by teamwork in the success of organisations. Special focus is on the effects of teamwork issues in Japanese organisations. The teamwork issues which are discussed include strong and cohesive organisational culture, self-managing teams, and servant leadership.
These issues have contributed to motivation of employees, excellent relationship between management and employees, creativity, innovativeness, organisational efficiency and effectiveness, management leadership, and employees’ loyalty. It is argued that the teamwork approach by Japanese organisations has contributed to major organisational success. Teamwork can therefore be described as the ‘secret’ behind the success of Japanese organisations.
Servant Leadership
The spirit of teamwork has made Japanese organisations have what is referred to as servant leadership. According to Robert Greenleaf and Larry Spears, servant leadership involves a leadership derived from the passion to serve rather than to lead. This definition portrays a servant leader as one who does not keep things to himself or herself but one who applies efforts to reach others for them to get involved in making decisions which affect them.
Servant leadership transforms managers into leaders thus creating what is known as management leadership which is very rare in organisations. Having managers who are leaders is very crucial for organisations which aspire to attain their goals and objectives. The reason is that management leadership goes the extra mile to focus not only on the tasks to be performed but also on how they are supposed to be performed and what can be done to enhance the performance of those tasks (Mobley, Wang & Li, 2009).
Servant leaders also have high degrees of commitment to the growth and development of people and organisations. They are ever focused on the enhancement of employees’ skills and development of their organisations. Servant leaders are also committed to the establishment of communities of people within organisations which enhances cohesiveness within organisations.
Servant leadership leads to establishment of teams which work together.These teams give themselves a social identity which holds them together. The social identity leads to cooperation among the team members in all aspects which brings forth a multiplicity of ideas about how to undertake tasks thus leading to innovation in organisations (Mobley, Wang & Li, 2009).
Under the servant leadership philosophy, all members of organisations are involved in identifying organisational goals and development procedures for reaching those goals. The role of the servant leader is to facilitate the attainment of organisational goals. In organisations with servant leadership, employees are able to give their suggestions freely and are involved in decision making.
The morale, capacity and relationship between leaders and employees are greatly improved. Servant leadership enhances teamwork and employees’ performance thus creating a productive work environment. If servant leadership is adopted by leaders, employees are likely to use their skills and capabilities to their fullest.
Strong Organisational Culture
Many Japanese organisations are managed based on the human relations approach which is mainly characterised by a radical shift from mechanistic to humanistic approach in the management of organisations. The humanistic approach to management is usually associated with strong organisational culture where more emphasis is placed on improving the work environment and making employees feel appreciated. In organisations with such a culture, employees are perceived as social beings with social, psychological, and financial needs.
Such organisations also acknowledge that employees have the potential of being creative in their work. They also value the synergy found in teamwork. Consequently, supervision plays a minimal role because employees are capable of forming group norms and rules which govern their work. Organisations with a strong culture also recognise the importance of employees interacting with their managers in a friendly way without fear of victimisation.
Strong organisational culture also boosts organisational efficiency because of the internalisation of what is required of each and every employee. The sharing of values and beliefs creates a good working environment free from confusion, ambiguity or lack of understanding among the employees.
The good working environment not only increases efficiency but it also saves time because employees are able and free to consult each other without the fear of victimisation or intimidation especially by the senior managers. Employees also portray good behaviour at work because they know what is right to be done and what is not right.
Furthermore, strong organisational culture leads to cohesion among various departments of an organisation which leads to harmonisation of all organisational procedures, policies, and practices in each and every department. This cohesion leads to proper utilisation of organisational resources without sabotage. It also leads to sound, logical, and relevant polices on how to coordinate organisational activities in a manner that maximises the organisations’ chances of realising their mission and vision.
Cohesion among various organisational departments also leads to sharing of information by various departments which increases the employees’ levels of understanding of how various departments work. The sharing of information is very important because it enables employees to multitask especially at times when staffs in some departments are not available.
For example, the understanding of administration issues in an organisation by the head of accounting department may make him or her work on behalf of the head of the administration department when he or she is not present (Mathew, 2007).
Strong organisational culture enhances control, good coordination, and consistency within an organisation. The reason is that employees and management are in good terms and able to agree informally on various procedures and practices without compromising the quality of the organisational practices and objectives. Having a good understanding between employees and management saves time because employees implement the changes which they find necessary without having to wait for bureaucratic board meetings and discussions to approve even the slightest change in procedures or practices (Mathew, 2007).
Such a strong culture is conducive for innovation. When managers and employees of an organisation perceive each other as colleagues not as rivals, the employees view the organisation as their personal business and put all their efforts to ensure that it becomes successful. Such loyalty stimulates the employees to think of new ways of doing things which eventually leads to innovation and increased competitiveness.
Cohesive Organisational Culture
The other effect of teamwork in Japanese organisations is the creation of a cohesive organisational culture. This is a culture in which all members of an organisation have similar beliefs and values which hold them together as an organisation. These beliefs and values are implicit or explicit to the organisation.
In this kind of culture, the organisational structure does not matter but what matters most is the commitment of each member of the organisation to these beliefs and values. For example, an organisation may value hard work, cohesiveness, and teamwork and believe in transparency, faithfulness, work ethics, and morality (Sakikawa, 2012).
A cohesive organisational culture has the benefit of increasing motivation among the employees because they share common beliefs and values. When employees are highly motivated, there is minimal use of resources in their supervision which in turn increases their productivity because to them, what matters most is the welfare of the organisation but not their personal welfare.
Another benefit of cohesive organisational culture is that it facilitates the alignment of organisations for the achievement of their objectives, mission, and vision without many challenges. The reason is that employees are not only fully aware of the mission, vision, and objectives, but they also internalise them. The internalisation of organisational mission, vision and objectives by employees not only increases organisational productivity but also makes employees more motivated to accomplish the set organisational goals, targets, or objectives.
Self-managing Teams
Teamwork in Japanese organisations has also lead to creation of self-managing teams. Through self-managing teams, organisations encourage employees to work in teams instead of working independently which enables organisations to benefit from the synergy found in teams. Working in teams gives employees an opportunity to exercise their creativity, innovativeness, skills and talents. It also enables the team members to learn from the strengths and the diverse experiences of each other. When employees work in teams, they learn how to welcome positive criticism.
Teamwork is a necessary condition for employee motivation. Motivation may be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from the employees and is characterised by the need to achieve good results, passion in work, the ambition to acquire new knowledge, and the need to be successful at the workplace. Extrinsic motivation arises from things which are external to employees and include things like appreciation, rewards, increased salaries or wages, promotions, and congratulatory messages.
It may be based on performance of individual employees, team efforts or collective success of the organisation as a whole. Working in teams enables the employees to generate new ideas which are implemented by an organisation thus increasing employees’ motivation because they feel that the organisation values their input. Motivation makes it possible for employees to learn new things from each other and from outside the organisation. They also learn new ways and strategies of doing things or improving their operations at the workplace.
Teamwork also enables employees to have group norms, which are informal rules institutionalised by organisations. Norms govern the conduct of employees and constitute what is allowed and disallowed in different organisations.
The teamwork adopted by Japanese organisations ensures that employees work in teams and are allowed to micromanage their work in order to boost efficiency and effectiveness thus increasing quality in organisational internal processes. In the spirit of teamwork, the employees are also involved in making decisions regarding the products of their work with the aim of ensuring that the production of new products meets their expectations (Tjosvold & Leung, 2004).
Teamwork training exposes employees to various challenges and ways of dealing with those challenges. During the training, employees learn how to accept positive criticism from others. They also enrich each other with different ideas, views, and suggestions on how to improve their work.
The ability to come up with solutions to various challenges changes employees into transformational leaders (Schermerhorn, 2010). The reason is that teamwork enables the team members to organise their work properly through development of work plans and schedules which are in harmony with organisational tasks. Teamwork also increases flexibility among the employees because they work as per their schedule. When given the permission to be flexible, employees become motivated and maximise their talents, skills, creativity, innovativeness, and commitment to their work which increases productivity (Rivera, 2011).
References
Mathew, J. (2007). The relationship of organizational culture with productivity and quality. Employee Relations, 29(6), 677-678.
Mobley, W.H., Wang, Y., & Li, M.(2009). Advances in global leadership. Bingley: Emerald Group Pub.
Rivera, R.M. (2011). Empowering people through self-managed teams.
Sakikawa, T.(2012). Transforming Japanese workplaces. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schermerhorn, J.R. (2010). Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Tjosvold, D., & Leung, K.(2004). Leading in high growth Asia: managing relationship for teamwork and change. New Jersey: World Scientific.