We can possibly approve, that there are three base ideas in a basis of creation of the teams:
1. Members of a team are incorporated by the general intentions, the purposes and problems.
2. Members of a team are interdependent; they require each other help and assistance for achievement of the team and personal purposes.
3. Members of a team accept the statement, that the teamwork is more effective. Influence of a team on opinions and behaviour of people working in it is proved. For example, there was an experiment lead by Vladimir Bekhterev and described in his research work "Collective Reflexology". In 1921 Bekhterev transplanted some people in a room so that they saw each other, and asked them to draw shaped lines on a leaf of a paper. In the beginning of the experiment each person drew these lines with their own frequency, but after a while this frequency became for identical for the entire group.
Teams can be both formal, and informal. The formal team is a team, which is a part of the formalized structure of the organization.
The team, which is not a part of formal organizational structure is informal. The people who are not having any formal authority can successfully head them, however the influence of these teams on achievement of the purposes of the organization can be very high. Such teams usually aspire:
- To be small;
- To develop their own attribute which can be reflected in the name, behaviour, rituals.
- Efficiency of a command has two components:
- A degree of the realization of its purposes;
- Satisfaction which is felt by people belonging to this particular team.
Among set of the factors defining efficiency of a team there are 2 core ones: an external (the working environment, space) and an internal (feeling of the unity, ideology and motivation).
(Lyubinova, 1999, view)
Both external and internal factors are highly important, but while the working environment can be easily created, amended or changed (a building, an office, enhancing working space, adding necessary buildings or rooms etc.), internal factor is connected with human nature concurrent, perceptions and people’s inner world. Motivation is connected with our internal feelings, which instigates to action. (Hackman view from Boddy (2008)).
Green and Taylor believed that money and money reward system were the best in motivating people, but will the worker stay in a team if there is a tensed relationship with other members, if nobody respects each other even if the salary is extremely attractive?
Yes, some will stay, because of the high need in money, but only until these problems are solved. A desire to be needful as a personality is always in the first place.
“An ideology is a set of integrated beliefs, theories and doctrines that helps to direct the actions of a society (of a team in this context).” (Boddy, 2008, p.120). Ideology helps to define the purpose of a team and bring together aims of the organization and needs and desires of each member of the staff. Ideology composes the inner pervasion of each company and also influences the teams’ activity.
There are no successful unstructured organizations in our world, therefore we can structure any team depending on various criteria and the most important are:
- The preferences existing in a team (it builds on the sympathy and aversion between the team members);
- Distribution of authority in a team;
- The communications existing in a team;
There are 9 Basic Team Roles found by Meredith Belbin:
Plant- people who bring ideas.
Resource Investigator- people, who research, make the contacts and develop ideas.
Monitor Evaluator- people, who make statistical and analytical researches, pragmatic.
Shaper- people with high level of energy, make communicational links within the group.
Co-ordinator- somebody, who is respected, can control the process and see the right ways of making the efforts.
Implementer- people, who are loyal, trusted and who form the core of the driving force of the team.
Completer Finisher- somebody, who is meticulous, better than the others see the work details.
Team Worker- introduces peace and good working atmosphere to the team, supports and works with every member.
Specialist- bookish, can see the team project both in details and in general, can work independently and have his or her own opinion to the process, corrector and critic.
(Belbin, 1996, View).
A successful team usually consists of 4 to 10 members. “With fewer than 4 people a team lacks perspective, [ the range of different views and personal qualities and skills are not so wide and it is hard to part all the team-roles between a small number of members] but if the team is too large, members tend to see themselves as having little impact on team outcomes.” (Aranda, 1998, p14).
But there is no team without a team leader. The structure of authority is an interposition of members of a team depending on their ability to influence in a team and their activity. Often, notions leadership and a management are bumbled: the nature of the management is formal and fixed, and the nature of leadership - socially-psychological. Manager is nominated and therefore “his effectiveness is significantly influenced by their insight into their own work. Their performance depends on how well they understand and respond to the pressures and dilemmas of the job” (Mintzberg, 1988, p.22). Whereas the leader in a team is chosen intuitively and is revealed not so much with its personal qualities but with a system of the purposes, values and the norms, inherent in a team and on the basis that he is personifying expectations and valuable orientations of a team and being their carrier can drive a team. (Gusev, 2002, view).
“Leadership is always vital and team leadership is no exception” (Belbin, 1996, p.48).
In a real team there can be many leaders and each one has its own niche ( for instance, one leader is more interested in maintenance of good attitude between members, but another one see the accomplishment of the team purposes as a priority).
The leader acts on two basis:
-
Formal-legal, when the head acts as a link between team members and with an external world, the director of problems and the controller;
-
Psychological, when the leader acts as a motivator and pulls the staff together to reach the one aim.
The major processes proceeding in a team are:
- Processes of becoming and development of a team (Forming, Storming);
- Processes of development and realization team norms (Norming);
- Processes of development and decision-making (Performing).
- Process of adjourning
(Tuckman, Jensen view from Boddy, (2008)).
If the purpose of a team is well-defined and is accepted as an important one by all participants, the first three stages can be passed in a couple of hours. However for the majority of teams these three stages take much more time. Negotiations of emotional barriers between the members are the most important one. Good leaders use different trainings to minify the distance between the members of the staff.
When the team, having passed previous three stages, solves real problems it is Functioning. This stage can proceed long enough. New people can come to a team, and some members of group can leave it but if the level and quantity of solved problems remain constant, the team will stay. If the quantity of problems, which has to be solved increase, there comes a following stage – expansion. New people always bring some
changes to formed teams, for instance, the formation of the sub-teams, which often results in disintegration of a team and initiation of new teams on its basis.
An example of the largest (more that 3 million members), the most well-structured, hard-working and motivated team is an antheap. Ants are BORN with a purpose and without a question “why they are doing that?” they are divided into castes and into groups depending on their age and each one has its own duty. But it is not applicable to our society because each one of us is so versatile and has his unique opinion and qualities.
May be if we disconnected our senses all the people in the world could create one single team? Perhaps, it is possible. But there appears one question: Where to get the motivation? To program it?
Reference list
Aranda E., Aranda L., Conlon, K., (1998), TEAMS: Structure, Process, Culture, and Politics, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Belbin M., (1996), Management Teams, Why They Succeed of Fail, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Boddy D., (2008), MANAGEMENT, An Introduction, Pearson Education Limited, Essex.
Gusev Y., (2002), Strategiya razvitiya predpriyatij, SPBUEF, Rossiya.
Lyubinova N., (1999), Menedzment- putj k uspehu, Agropromizdat, Rossiya.
Mintzberg, H., (1989), Mintzberg on management : inside our strange world of organizations, Collier Macmillan, London.
Naumov A., (2003), Menedzment, Gardariki, Rossiya.