Over the last years, there is an urgent need for any organization in cooperation and collaboration within its staff. Many organizations expand the scope of their activities, trying to be competitive of the world market. The rapid growth of digital technologies and technological processes demand integration. Nowadays, the information sharing acquires global character.
In the era of the strongest world competition, teamwork is the factor that predetermines the success of any organization. Teamwork plays an important role in the achievement of the positive results of the organization and promotes the maintenance of the competitive strengths of the company. Teamwork is that tool that reduces the level of hostility between people.
For the contemporary economy, changes are the natural occurrence. Simultaneously with organizational changes, there is a need for adaptation for those people who have to work in the newly formed groups and to interact under new conditions. That is why the building of the effective team to a large extent predetermines the success of the organizations activity.
Team building is the intense process aiming the improvement and the increasing of the effectiveness of a team (Types of Interventions, n.d.). The priority areas of team building are “diagnosis, task accomplishments, team relationships, team and organization processes” (Types of Interventions, n.d.,p.2).
Apart from the recognition of the benefits of teamwork, their potential opportunities are not used to the full extent. One of the reasons of this phenomenon is the fact that managers neglect the role of a team and do not realize how to use it effectively.
The notion team may be defined as a group of several persons acting together during a work performance or any activity. In other words, it is a group of individuals who split working functions among each other, and who are responsible for the achievement of specific results. The members of the team are interdependent in their activity. It is possible to distinguish several important features that are adherent to teams. The first one is interdependence, which implies that every member of a team makes a contribution to work. All the members depend upon each other and share information with each other. Moreover, a team is characterized with sharing responsibility and outcome orientation.
It is possible to distinguish between two main types of teams such as cross-functional and intact teams. A cross-functional team consists of the representatives of different departments of the same organization. They may be professionals who specialize in various spheres of activity. “Personnel from different areas such as engineering, marketing, logistics, and production unite during product design and development to form cross functional teams” (Deshpande, 2013, p.28).
The existence of the teams of this type is stipulated by the presence of one concrete task. The team exists until this task is completed. For the members of this team the work over this task is of secondary importance relatively to their main activity.
The intact team is a production department or a long-term working group that produces a definite product or renders various services. Some developed intact teams may function as small enterprises. Each team establishes its own goals.
The contemporary business environment is characterized with the limitations of resources and the budget curtailment. Under such circumstances, the effective teams are the key factor for the transitional difficulties reduction and for the achievement of the organizational success. The use of teamwork leads to the significant quality improvement of the labor force.
References
Deshpande, A. (2013). Development and Consequences of Cross Functional Team Performance in the Concurrent Engineering Context: An Integrated Framework.Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 14(4), 24-36. Web.
Types of Interventions. (n.d.). Web.