Teams are increasingly popular as an approach to organizing and managing work. Identify and discuss the motivational benefits and disadvantages of using teams in organizations.

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“Teams are increasingly popular as an approach to organizing and managing work. Identify and discuss the motivational benefits and disadvantages of using teams in organizations.”

ZAVED MANNAN

MBA 501

Student ID: 11320053

Charles Sturt University

Introduction: Organizations are discovering that teamwork help them gain speed, shed unnecessary work and consistently deliver eye popping gains in productivity and job satisfaction. It is necessary to  organize interdependent work functions and business processes into teams and challenge team members to reach important business objectives like quality or customer service. It is important to give teams autonomy to get things done and team members an opportunity to develop and grow. Executives vigorously pursuing productivity and quality objectives have concluded that they have over structured things. By merging previously specialized job functions within work teams, they are gaining both efficiency and effectiveness. Teams are increasingly popular as a standard operating procedure to organize and managing work. But managing a team to successful completion can be challenge. There is no easy formula for managing people on teams. Ultimately our management strategies are based on an understanding of people and of what makes them tick. To manage the members of team, manager must understand the fundamental nature of human behavior and appreciate other people’s motivation. Since management is concerned with getting others to perform tasks, a careful study of motivation is required. This paper will identify and discuss the motivational benefits and disadvantages of using teams in organizations.

Teams Defined: Every member of an organization is a member of a smaller team or a different number of teams and one can view an organization as a collection of teams. Every member of the organization plays a number of roles within both the organization and each team to which he or she belongs.

McKinsey consultants Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith describe a team as: A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”      (Katzenback & Smith 1993).

The important elements of this definition are complementary skills, common purpose and mutual accountability. Without these elements, a team may be little more than a loose collection of individuals with nothing more in common than employment by the same company. Bartol et al defines team as “Temporary or an ongoing task group of members working to identify problems, form a consensus about action and implement actions needed on a task or organizational area.” (Bartol at al. 2008).

Teamwork Trends: The American society for training and development asked several hundred human resource executives about teamwork results. Their responses show:

  • Productivity “improved” or “significantly improved” in 77% of the companies.
  • Quality improvements due to teamwork were reported in 72% of the companies.
  • Waste was reduced in 55% of the firms.
  • Job satisfaction has improved in 65% of the organizations.
  • Enhanced customer service was enjoyed by 57% of the companies.

Additional results reported include more efficient production scheduling and goal setting and increased ability of team-linked employees to resolve their own disputes (Wellings & George 1991).

Executives surveyed in an industry week survey were equally positive about the benefits of teams. When asked to list the top benefit, improved quality (reported by 30%) headed the list, followed by improved productivity (24%), increased morale (21%), and fewer layers of management (14%) (Wellings & Wilson 1990).

Reports and statistics published by individual companies support these generalized survey findings. At General Mills productivity in plants using teams is as much as 40% higher than in their traditional plants (Dumaine 1990). The division of 3M that organized around cross-functional teams to develop new products in one of the company’s most innovative and fastest growing (Wellings at al. 1990). Teams at one of Ingersoll-Rand’s manufacturing plants reduced scrap in one operation from 15% to 3% and in another, from 40% to 3%   (Bingham 1991).

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Motivation Defined: Motivation is defined as an inner state or force that energizes, activates or moves and directs or channels behavior towards goals. Motivation includes drives, desires, needs, wishes and similar forces. Bartol et al. defines motivation as “Motivation is the force that energizes or gives direction to behavior.” (Bartol at al. 2008).

A study of motivation theories enables us to understand people and their actions and in a business organization environment it enables us to understand, for example, why certain people work hard or commit themselves to organizational goals and generally work well within a team.

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