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Introduction

...UNIT 22... MANAGING TEAMS BTEC BUSINESS MRS R.J.ATKINS ...B12... Contents Page Introduction - 3 - What are Teams? - 4 - Types of Teams: - 4 - Key Features of a Team: - 5 - Strategic Aims & Objectives of BMW: - 6 - Keys Ways in which BMW use teams to help meet their Strategic Aims and Objectives - 6 - The way BMW used high achieving teams to help accomplish the strategic aims and objectives of the company. - 7 - Tuckman's Theory - 9 - Recruitment & Selection - 10 - Belbin's Theory - 11 - What is Task & Process - 12 - Qualities of Effective Team Members - 13 - Qualities of an Effective Team - 14 - Leadership - 16 - Leadership Styles - 16 - Interview with Louis Strover - 17 - What Skills are required? - 18 - Effects on Having a Leader with Weak Interpersonal Skills - 19 - Recommendations - 21 - The Importance of Interpersonal Skills to Achieve Targets - 22 - Bibliography - 24 - Unit 22: Managing Teams Introduction The private limited company BMW was officially founded as a public company in 1922, but traces its origins to the pioneering days of German aviation all the way back to 1913. Two of these pioneering men, Karl Rapp and Gustav Otto, are credited by BMW as the founding fathers. However, BMW owes its actual founding by three men known as Josef Popp, Max Friz, and Camillo Castiglioni. These men brought BMW through many turbulent times in the company's early life, as well as taking the company public in 1922 to form BMW AG. Beginning with aircraft engines, BMW produced a variety of products in its early years, eventually moving to motorcycle production in 1923 and automobiles in 1929. BMW are a large business with the headquarters based in Germany and another 15 plants spread between Europe, America, South Africa and Far East Asia (China). ...read more.

Middle

Without members being highly skilled or having qualities the team will be unsuccessful due to the lack of inequalities in the team. For an effective team member they should be able to: * Communicate with one another - members should be able to communicate with one another by being able to speak to other members respectfully and give their views on what needs to be done and what they feel is wrong they should be able to speak to put their point across * Have great listening skills - teams need members who can listen actively and take in all the information and understand points given by others. Members need to learn how to listen first before speaking as this reduces the amount of debating within a team. * Take instructions from team leader - each individual member should be able to take instructions from their leaders as this keeps the work effective and everyone on task. Without following instructions it can leave a team in a critical position. * Respect each other - members should treat each other respectfully with courtesy and consideration at all times. Members nee to learn how to look out for each other by providing the right support to get the work done if members are need of help. Most importantly members should be able to have fun while working but to a certain extent. * Show commitment - members need to be committed to the team in what they do and how they do things. They need to show up on time everyday with their full concentration on the work and give the work their best effort and should encourage other team members to do the same. * Functions as an Active Participant - members always come prepared and are engaged in their work. They show up for team meetings and share their thoughts and ideas and take in others ideas as well. ...read more.

Conclusion

Relating back to the case study "The teams can make production decisions, have job rotation schemes, and put the responsibility for achieving plant wide targets in the hands of those teams." Here it shows that working as a team can help a team come to decisions, this is in someway solving problems as the teams will be together analysing problems and try to fix them. Communication is also an important skill to have as communicating allows the workforce to get along with each other without any disputes and staff will have fun to a certain extent whilst their working making the day go quicker. A drawback to this is that too much communication may result in production delays as it may take longer for information to filter through to the right persons. The way in which communication is conveyed can be a problem if workers feel they are not involved in decisions or problem solving issues relating to their work. This can prevent staff from doing their job properly. This is what was said in the case study of BMW "Each team therefore has more stake in the way the business develops rather than a hierarchical system where workers feel alienated from decision making, stifling initiative and leading to a dependency culture." Here it shows that without communication staff will feel they are alone in their work place with nobody to get along with, because of this will not find that the job is right for them resulting in them to leave. So having communication skills is important to achieve targets such as producing more products in a year. These interpersonal skills are the most important in a business in order to achieve set targets. Without these skills the teams in the business will not be as effective as they would if they had the skills. Having these skills raises the performance of a team and of an individual. There most useful when meeting targets such as survival, growth, maximising profit etc as without the teams producing there is no goods or services to sell and without that there is no business. ...read more.

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