Psychology at Work - Building Effective Teams - Essay Example

PSYCHOLOGY AT WORK: BUILDING EFFECTIVE TEAMS Table of Contents Introduction 3 Team Building 3 Benefits of Team Building 4 IMO Model 6 Study of Team Building 8 Role of Diversity 10 Input Process Output Model 11 Introduction This essay is based on the effective team building at work place. It discusses how the organizational policies impact the way a firm builds its teams. In an organizational context the concept of team is a group of people that shares common goals, where the members perform together, builds social relationships while solving a task. This has been discussed in the light of IMO model and several team building models. Team Building Ferrara (2005) has mentioned that a team can be considered as a group of people that shares a common goal and work interdependently .The members of the team are often guided by a leader who provides the necessary information in terms of task divide and receives feedback on the work progress. Grewal (2011) added that the team members may share a common goal but it is not necessary that all of the members in a team should have the same roles and responsibilities. Hollenbeck et al (1995) pointed out that a team can be differentiated from a group of people or students in terms of their individual roles. A group of people may share same skills and qualities and they may not be interdependent to each other for meeting the common goal. A group is often formed without a leader, whereas a team needs a leader in order to ensure that the team members are following the right direction. In order for a team to be efficient and yield the desired result, the team working competencies are more important than the individual personality traits. Individual personalities of the team members may have different characteristics but the organization has to ensure whether or not those members can coexist harmoniously in a team. Then only the team as a whole can be able to yield higher productivity. The concept of emergent state identifies the team as a whole and addresses its evolution and improvement in a holistic manner. The most vital emergent states for team building are mutual trust, holistic team identity and confidence in team’s ability (Nancarrow et al, 2013) . Benefits of Team Building Team building helps a firm to efficiently organize its work flow. A complicated task can be efficiently achieved by breaking it down to smaller activities and allocating them to different members of the team. This as a result leads to proper skill utilization of the team members and the managers are able to accomplish a particular task in less time. Thus team building is quite effective in managing a work (Sutton, 2014). Gottlieb (2007) mentioned that building an effective team allows the members to achieve the goal quickly and in a resource efficient way. From the organizational perspectives, the management needs to build a strong team in order to start the activities of a firm in a time and resource effective way. Mealiea and Baltazar (2008) noted that the primary benefits of team building are reduction of errors, achieving maximum output by minimum input in a time effective way. Staggers et al. (2008) mentioned that the firms are always seeking out for new ways to achieve competitive advantage, and one of the effective ways to complete it is by increasing the production efficiency. Thus, reducing the operating cost and increasing the profitability. Sutton (2014) mentioned that achievement of an organizational task by team building leads to better achievements of the desired result. Team building is not only helpful for achieving the organizational goals but is also helpful from the view of the employees. (Ferrara, 2005) have mentioned that the employees are more motivated when they work as a team and they are interdependent on each other. Team building helps them to increase the individual skills and achieve the organizational goals in a holistic manner, where each member of the team plays its own part. Thus it can be stated that building a team helps an organization to achieve competitive advantage by increasing its efficiency. This is why most people insist on team building for achieving a desired result in a more efficient manner (Sutton, 2014). IMO Model Figure 1: IMO Model of Teamwork Source: (Hollenbeck et al, 1995) Inputs: The inputs for a team formation are in the skill identification of each member, characteristics of the team along with structures. The inputs also include the leadership development, process in charge, needed skills and individual abilities. Mediators: standards and quality of performance are mediated by the managers in the process of team execution. The time and attention required with infrastructure and resources prior to execution where their experience works as the planning and formulation guide for business (Grewal, 2011). Outputs: The results of the process like task completion, execution where the front liners are involved in actual execution of the pre-planned work. This gives the team a scope to do research and development, operations, planning, service, sales and many services with no fixed completion date. Such team formulation works best when the business wishes to launch a new product, process and design in the market. The outputs gain the benefits for business, therefore the measurements of success and failure gives the managers the scope to determine what went wrong, what else is needed and how to percolate them in the team. The teamwork models like the IMO model discussed above gives a theoretical idea to the managers on how a team works. Although in a real life scenario these models may not be directly implementable, but the managers can use them to break down complex team related issues in to simpler forms and solve them easily. The IMO model three different steps of team work. Thus, by breaking down the team build up process in its component parts will help the managers to identify the problem quickly and they will be able to solve them easily (Grewal, 2011). Study of Team Building Team building have been explained as a key for obtaining the best organizational output, but the effective way of building an efficient team should to be contextualized. Katzenbach and Smith (1998) observed that the performance of a team is dependent on several characters of the team which has been discussed below. Pseudo-Team: The team made up of group of individuals who do not have shared purpose. The performance and the focus for collective performance are not significant (Bjorn and Ngwenyama, 2009). A group without clear goals ,team members do not communicate ,do not work interdependently to achieve common goals. members are less likely to be satisfied, committed and effective ,there are likely to be high error rates and low effectiveness. Sutton (2014) Real Team: team members work closely and interdependently, have clear shared objectives regular and effective communication. reflect upon their performance and how it could be improved(Sutton, 2014). The team which is performing in smaller numbers with equal commitment towards a purpose, helping each other in completing skills and knowledge for better output and has established responsibility. Work teams: are stable and long lasting, having responsibility for a particular service or product. Example for work teams is assembly teams. Sutton (2014) Parallel teams: exist alongside (or parallel to) the existing organisational structure, drawing together people from different. departments or jobs to engage in problem-solving or improvement activities. Sutton (2014) Project teams: Members are drawn from many different functions so as to bring together the needed specialist knowledge and expertise. Sutton (2014) Management teams: provide direction to the business units under them, co-ordinating and integrating their efforts. Action teams: come together for a specific action and have brief performance cycles which are often repeated. From the different type of team building it can be stated that the firms need to develop an idea that can be used by the organizations to build up an effective team. Although the team structures described above shows that different teams have different motives, but it can also be stated that there are certain characteristics common to all of them. A team serves one primary objective, which is to make a joint effort to efficiently achieve the organisational goals. The role of a leader is important to the team’s success. It is the responsibility of the leader that the team is properly managed and each of the team members are given the right task based on his skills and knowledge. Thus it makes sure that the team is proficient enough to get the desired result within the right time. Role of Diversity Grewal (2011) stated that a team is made up of several members and it is mostly likely that each of the members belong to different cultural background. Owing to the rise of globalization, the individuals from different cultural backgrounds come together to work under a single roof. Thus proper cross cultural management is extremely important for the leaders. Different cultural background bears different values and beliefs. Thus when people with different values and beliefs work together then friction between team members is most likely to occur. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of the leader to guide the members in such a way so as to avoid any internal conflict. Kimble (2013) has mentioned that the team members must be made aware that they all are working for a common goal where individual differences are irrelevant. Diversity among teams is commonly found in several organizations. The diversity can be in terms of cultural background or personality traits. However, working harmoniously with team members of with different psychological profile may be difficult for others. Thus it can be stated that homogeneity in a team allows seamless workflow and the organizations can efficiently achieve their desired goals (Davis, A., 2011). Input Process Output Model The Input-Process-Output model is the most basic layout on how a firm utilizes the team’s inputs and achieve the desired results. The input of a team is the individual skills and abilities that are interdependent to each other. The number of team members also serves as an input as higher number of members is capable of achieving bigger tasks. The Process is the activities conducted by the organization in order to leverage the input of the team members. The process includes the proper guidance, leadership, communication, planning, task allocation and conflict management. The output is the result of the process conducted by the team leader. It involves desired result and employee satisfaction. The output also involves an effective learning of the employees (Loader, 2002). Reference List Davis, A., 2011. Leadership, Teamwork and Trust. 3rd ed. New York: Harper Collins. Nancarrow, S. A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P., and Roots, A. (2013). Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Human Resource Health, 11(1), pp. 19. Read More