Effects of Work Groups and Teams, Power and Politics on Organisation's Effectiveness and Culture - Coursework Example

Effects of work groups and teams, power and Politics on organisation's effectiveness and culture

Introduction

The main aim of an organisation is to achieve its business goals and satisfy customers to the highest possible level (Donk and Molloy, 2008). Organisational effectiveness is a concept that evaluates the level at which the company is efficient in achieving its business outcomes and enhancing production. The effectiveness of an organisation depends directly on the talent pool of the workforce, leadership ability and skills of the supervisors, hierarchical structure and design of the organisation, methods of productivity evaluation used in the business house, efficiency of organisational changes implemented, use of technology and formation of a broad Human Resource agenda for the entire workforce (Armstrong, 2006; Nankervis, Rowley and Salleh, 2016). Hence the management team working for the administration and enhancement of organisational effectiveness in a company forms strategy for maintenance of performance through a proper structure, leadership and workforce so as to ensure employee engagement, good customer feedback and highest possible performance of the organisation (Srivastava, Bartol and Locke, 2006).

The culture of an organisation refers to a system of shared values, beliefs and assumptions that governs the workforce in terms of conduct, communication and performance (Alvesson, 2012). It involves the behaviours and values of a company therefore contributing to the unique features of the society and psychology of the stakeholders associated with the organisation. It is a product of the collective influences of history, market, and strategy and management style that characterises the values, principles and beliefs of the organisational members.

Among many factors affecting the formation and maintenance of an organisation’s culture and enhancing effectiveness, the role of work groups and teams is mostly appreciated. This is because teams are formed with the help of individuals aiming a common goal. A positive faith and understanding among the team members result to the success of the team therefore contributing much to the organisation’s effectiveness. Moreover, a coercive team and work group forms the cultural structure of a company thereby motivating other teams to contribute similarly to the organisation’s effectiveness in the industry (Proença, 2010). Also, the organisational culture and effectiveness depends much upon the powers enjoyed by certain influential employees of the company and the politics formed within the workforce due to fight for this power. A negative fight spoils the culture therefore depleting the organisation’s effectiveness (Yeyati and Micco, 2007). The role played by work groups and teams as well as power and politics on forming an organisation’s cultural structure while making the company effective has been discussed in the following sections. The impact of the referred factors will be considered taking Tata Motors as a case study.

Organisation’s Effectiveness

Work Groups and Teams

A group forms with the help of two or more individuals interacting freely and sharing common goals and identity. A group forms both formally and informally based on the purpose of formation. Often the role of formal and informal groups overlap but there exists a very thin line of difference. Formal groups are formed with the aim of executing official tasks and are organisationally named as ‘teams’, while informal groups are formed as a result of commonality of mentality (Muthusamy, Wheeler and Simmons, 2005). Formal groups fulfil a number of objectives in the organisation by accomplishing complex and interdependent tasks that are impossible for individuals to complete. These groups generate creative and new business ideas as well as solutions to serious organisational problems by coordinating interdepartmental efforts and training new joiners. On the individual level, formal groups ensure individual needs of affiliation therefore developing his or her self-estimation and identity. Formal groups also provide individual employees with opportunities to share their opinions and test the same with the social reality (Moreland and Thompson, 2006).

Role of Team Work in gaining Organisational Effectiveness

When there exists smooth interaction between team members in an organisation, it improves upon the productivity of the concerned department. On the other hand, if there is a conflict between team members, it results to delay of projects resulting to overruns of cost therefore decreasing effectivity of the organisation as a whole (West, 2012). The effectiveness of an organisation based on the professional teams is often observed to be high because there exists smooth group dynamic along with mutual support that results to mutual support of the team members. As a result, strengths of individual team members, both character-wise and skill-based, can be utilised fully (Baker, et al., 2005). In an organisational team where there exists strong group dynamics, members better understand the organisational goals that make the fulfilment of both short-term and long-term strategies successfully. As a result, team members ultimately work efficiently towards the common goal of the team therefore paving way for the effectiveness of the company as a whole (Woerkom and Croon, 2009). Also the smooth getting along of the employees working within a team improves upon the overall performance of the work groups by eliminating any kind of proprietary feeling among employees. This makes them more effective in collaborating and delivering services and products of high quality to the organisation’s customers. Since employees exhibiting mutual support to team members are least bothered about their own achievements but are focussed mainly on the overall performance of the team, they contribute much to the effectiveness of the organisation than employing a workforce that is focussed on individual achievement only. Members of work teams formed of employees having collective goals and a strong team spirit, help one another in meeting deadlines therefore contributing much to the organisational success and effectiveness.

As a result, the individual strengths of employees can be utilised for the benefit of the whole team and in a broader sense, of the organisation (Baker, Day and Salas, 2006; Tohidi, 2011). The relationship of an effective teamwork with the effectiveness of the organisation therefore leading to high firm performance can be described with the help of the following figure:

Figure 2: Relationship of Team work and Organisational Effectiveness

(Source: Delarue, 2008)

According to the above figure, the context of working of an organisation depends on the size and age of the establishment, type of industry it works in and its business strategies. This context lead to the design of production and work process of the company. The whole company is divided among several teams. Within the team there exists a proper division of responsibility and self-leadership spirit which remains in constant interaction with the human resource management team (Lawler, 2005; Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Success of each team leads to effective attitudinal outcomes leading to satisfaction of employees along with mutual trust. On the organisational level also, such effective team performance leads to structural simplicity along with reduced loss of money, human resource and time. All these positivity leads to a better operational and financial performance of the organisation in the industry as a whole (Delarue, 2008). However all the factors of a work team that contributes to organisational effectiveness needs to be developed and nourished by the leader.

Tuckman’s stages of group development

The degree to which a particular team will exhibit effective mutual cohesiveness therefore leading to organisational effectiveness depends on the process in which the team is formed. To give a positive result to the formation of a team, an ideal model of team development was proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965 (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009). According to this model, a successful team is developed through forming, storming, norming and performing. Later, in 1977, Tuckman along with Mary Ann Jenson, added an extra stage named adjourning, to his initial model therefore giving the original model a shape of five staged development structure (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009).

During the formation of a team, the members remain uncertain about their roles and therefore look outside the group for guidance. In this stage the team just learns from the organisation but is not efficient enough to contribute to the effectiveness of the organisation (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009). In the ‘Storming’ stage, buoyancy of the team members grow slowly as a result of which they gain confidence enough to ask questions to their higher authorities in the organisation. If utilised properly, teams at this stage are capable enough to give high quality production thus adding little to the effectiveness of the company (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009). While norming, the members tend to take part in the decision-making process of the team. There is an open flow of opinion within the team. It becomes self-sufficient at this stage therefore planning execution of the assigned project and targeted outcome thus making their team as well as their organisation an effective one. Groups start forming within the team (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009).

In the ‘Performing’ stage, the whole team works hard to get the assigned job done on time thus ensuring efficiency. The team is now efficient enough to solve critical problems themselves. This is the stage where employees share single-mindedness, communicate freely and effectively and become more flexible for the betterment of the organisation (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009). Having become a good performer among the whole workforce, the top management team often plans to dismantle the team and utilise the efficiency of each employee individually. Though separated, the employees add up to the effectivity to the organisation. Employees now become concerned about self-evaluation and aim at gaining hierarchical promotions thereby having maximum impact on organisational effectiveness (Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009). The five stages of team development and respective characteristics of each stage has been described schematically through the following figure:

Figure 3: Schematic Representation of Tuckman’s Model of Group Development

(Source: Cuthbertson and O’Connell, 2009)

Power and Politics

Power is the ability of an individual to force someone to perform a certain job in a particular way (Ahmad, Gilkar and Darzi, 2008). Employees gain power with rise in hierarchy in an organisation. As a result, they tend to direct other employees towards furthering their own interests without concerning about the well beings of others (Sheard, Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 2011). This in turn gives rise to politics among the subordinates in order to impress the bosses and gain relative power. Both power and politics play a very significant role in an organisation and its business. Often leadership is mistaken as power but the two share a very thin line of difference. The impact of power is evident in almost all sections of an establishment ranging from decision making to horizontal and vertical communication. Apart from powers, the workforce of an organisation also gets affected by organisational politics. Employees who are able to traverse this politics end up with high rate of productivity while employees who fail to adapt with the politics end up with low productivity. Power and politics often dismantle groups as a result of which the efficiency, both on group level and individual level gets hampered. This in turn leads to non-effectivity of the organisation as a whole.

On the other hand, positive power of a leader encourages productivity by providing employees with power of decision making and rewarding them for good performance. Moreover, positive power of the workforce helps the company in motivating others towards productivity. This results to high effectiveness of the organisation as well as high retention rate of employees. On the other hand, when organisational leaders lack employee respect, exhibit negative power on their subordinates. Such leaders force employees towards performance rather than motivating them. As a result, productivity of the workforce decreases therefore leading to low retention rate (Enshassi, et al., 2007). The influence of individual and organisational factors on the political behaviour at workplace can be described schematically with the help of the following figure:

Figure 4: Factors influencing political behaviour at workplace

(Source: Armstrong, 2006)

Politics and its influence on an organisation often threatens employees therefore giving rise to a number of issues in the company. This hampers productivity thus making the organisation ineffective in the industry. The various kinds of politics related issues that affect employee performance has been described in the following figure:

Figure 5: Employee response to organisational politics

(Source: Armstrong and Taylor, 2014)

Organisational Culture

It is the culture of an organisation that represents the predefined policies of the company that guide the employees at workplace. It is the organisational culture that suggests the ways of communication to the employees. It is the culture of an organisation that brings all employees at a common platform and extracts the best output from the workforce therefore promoting healthy competition among employees (Schein, 2016).

Case Study Analysis – Tata Motors

It has been observed that work teams and groups as well as power and politics have a significant influence on the culture of many multinational companies, Tata Motors being one of them. Tata Motors Limited, established in 1945, is currently the largest automobile manufacturer of India. As far as the culture of Tata Motors is concerned, it is observed that the top management has divided the entire workforce into several teams based on departmental job responsibility and functionalities (Mitra, 2011). The members of a group share a number of common factors that differentiates them from the crowd. The member of an organisational group shares a definable membership that makes them conscious about their individual roles in the group. They are interdependent and interact based upon a shared purpose. This enables the entire workforce of Tata Motors to work as a single unit irrespective of cultural differences. Each team is formed based on the unique responsibilities bestowed on the leader and his subordinates (Korner, et al., 2015). Within each team, there exists several groups that are formed informally. At Tata Motors, the leader acts as a helper to the team members where every member has active participation in discussions and are answerable to the authority for outcome related issues.

They also share active role in decision making processes of the team (Mallik, et al., 2013). The structure of the entire workforce of Tata Motors based on job related hierarchy, departmental teams and informal groups are shown below:

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of informal groups within formal teams of an organisation

(Source: E Books, 2016)

It has also been observed while studying the organisational culture of Tata Motors that within each team, the job responsibility is divided in such a way that every member has a unique role in the work process. There exists a resources investor who uses his or her inquisitive nature to add knowledge to the team. Also, there is a group of team workers who help other members to gel with the help of their versatility of work and complete it on behalf of the team. Along with it, each team has a coordinator who focusses on the objectives of the team while drawing the members to a common point and delegating the assigned job properly. The members who act as the plant of the team are highly creative and help the leader to solve critical problems for the team. Moreover, there is a monitor evaluator who fights with the authority to provide impartial judgement to the other team members. Apart from them, there exist specialists with in-depth knowledge about some important field. Also, there is a shaper and implementer in the team who ensures that the team never lose focus and plans and carries out workable strategies in the team respectively. The leader himself acts as the completer as the team who gives the finishing touch to the team therefore correcting minor errors and maintaining quality (Belbin, 2016). In other words, it is observed that the company follows the ideal structure of team formation as proposed by Belbin.

Apart from teams and groups the culture of Tata Motors has been slightly observed to have influenced by individual politics and influential power of employees. Origination of politics in the workforce has often resulted to disruption of harmony among the employee groups therefore hampering workplace cooperation. This in turn has lowered team productivity. Also, discussion of political issues often distract employees from work. In the worst scenario, political difference leads to difference of opinion both among teams and groups. This gives rise to feuds which in turn lowers overall performance of the workforce. Even there is evidence that managers having different political views than their subordinates often tend to take adverse decisions against them therefore negatively affecting the career of the employees (Rogger, 2014). As a result, it is clear that all the factors that affect productivity of departmental teams and groups in an organisation may have similar influence on the productivity of Tata Motor as these factors have on various other organisations. However, there is little evidence of the workforce of Tata Motors to be affected by organisational politics and fight for power (Chandra, 2008). Still keeping the possibility of the workforce being adversely affected by power and politics in mind, the top management can ensure that the culture is so designed that there remains no chance of the employees being influenced by the power of organisational politics.

Conclusion

Organisations work with the aim of achieving business goals and satisfying customers to the highest possible level. This achievement can only be evaluated with the help of a proper organisational effectiveness framework. Hence the management team working for the administration and enhancement of organisational effectiveness in a company forms strategy for maintenance of performance through a proper structure, leadership and workforce so as to ensure employee engagement, good customer feedback and highest possible performance of the organisation (De Hoogh and Den Hartog, 2008). The success of an organisation also depends on the culture of the workplace. It involves the behaviours and values of company therefore contributing to the unique features of the society and psychology of the publics associated with the organisation (Trimi and Galanxhi-Janaqi, 2008). The effectiveness of an organisation depends mainly on the performance of the teams and the powers enjoyed by the employees. Also the smooth getting along of the employees working within a team improves upon the overall performance of the work groups by eliminating any kind of proprietary feeling among employees. Moreover, employees who are able to traverse organisational politics end up with high rate of productivity. Both these indications of organisational effectiveness have been observed in the organisational culture of Tata Motors.

Reference List

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