Moreover, the strong correlation between confidence in peers and communication/problem understanding demonstrated that it is the confidence and ability of these co-workers that encourage members of self-managing teams to gather new information and knowledge, so that they may create useful decisions in relation to problem solving. Confidence in peers resulted in a negative, not positive, impact on organization and negotiation. This suggested that confidence in peers has a negative effect in the process of organizing the dissemination of knowledge in self-managing teams. Thus, it is imperative for team members to trust their peers and management and, in doing so, create and share new knowledge and further the organization's opportunity to offer best solutions to clients. Present research lacks the empirical evidence supporting the relationship between interpersonal trust and knowledge acquisition. Especially, academicians and practitioners are interested in studying whether "interpersonal trust" advances the follower's knowledge acquisition practices -- knowledge sharing and what the consequences are for performance in a self-managing environment. More studies need to be conducted on this in the future (Politis, 2003).
It is thus increasingly being realized that making the shift from a traditional hierarchical organization into a team structure is not simple and cut and dry. Proper planning, preparation and education are required to make empowered, self-directed work teams successful. Simkovits provides the case of a small, 75 employee low-tech manufacturer in New England, hypothetically called MANUFAC, which illustrates some of the challenges when self-managed work teams are developed without the perquisite pre-work, including the consideration of all the implications for everyone involved. The plant manager at MANUFAC, who had spent both a year learning about the concept of teams and several months working to get the organization's owners and production employees interested in this concept, led the effort. Over the course of several months, and with the best of intentions, MANUFAC switched from traditional production departments into separate product-oriented teams. Each one was made responsible for production functions for different product categories.
A year after team implementation, plant performance that was based on objective measures of productivity, efficiency and quality had somewhat improved. However, MANUFAC's plant was concerned by disagreements within and between the teams and the plant manager. There was very little inter-team communication and collaboration, which was essential for continued team learning. In addition, the original production supervisors, who were now team members, did little to assist other teams to accomplish their work.
The reason why these teams experienced problems lies in the lack of company preparation for self-directed teams. The plant manager of MANUFAC had done a good job in providing a great deal of information to the teams and positively encouraging them to learn from their mistakes. However, conflicts arose since the members of the teams did not yet have the capacity to sufficiently manage themselves. Being used to having others make their decisions for them, the teams were not proficient in either making their own group decisions or in resolving new production problems that were raised. Further, the supervisors were not trained as coaches, so they could help the teams through their difficulties. Frequently, they just stood by as the teams floundered. Trust also became an issue, because not all team members or management believed that self-directed teams could work. Some team members, and even the supervisors, actually undermined the team's work with the hope that the company's owners would revert to the previous hierarchical structure (Simkovits).
Simkovits concluded that five requirements need to be addressed while implementing self-directed teams: 1) Employees need to be made clear of the organization's mission and vision, and be able to identify their work in the context of that mission and vision; 2) teams must be adequately structured and staffed so that appropriate individuals are sharing the relevant work processes; 3) employees must be made clear of their unit's performance goals and objectives that become the basis for their daily work; 4) a system must exist for measuring and communicating team and whole unit performance so teams are able to keep track of and learn from past results and work to improve those results; and 5) the organization has to implement an appropriate team appraisal and reward system to evaluate and reinforce team performance.
However, it is not only the organizational structure and the way that these teams are implemented that lead to their success or failure. As with any new approach, some individuals will adapt more quickly and have more of the inclination and necessary personal skills required. Since self-directed teams are so very different from hierarchal work settings, the people who become team members require a new mindset. Regardless...
This type of articles which detail an actual situation are relatively scarce as the theoreticians tend to focus on demonstrating the benefits of the implementation of self-managed teams, rather than actually offering a plan based on which the implementation could be completed, or revealing a real life situation with which the readers (and especially the managers or the future managers) can identify. This novel approach makes the article a
This is a situation where each of these different skills sets and the personalitites required to carry them off can actually work well as a whole to contribute to the team's bottom line. In a self-driven organization, individual team members recognize what areas their personalities, skills and abilities can contribute most in. They will pursue those opportunities and situations which will allow them to showcase their talents and assist the
In the context of Charters Schools, distributed leadership that connects organizational features (culture, business practices, motivation etc.) provides a greater opportunity for members to learn from one another. An increased participation in decision making is another characteristic of effective organizations that may be identified in the organizational structure of Charter Schools USA. An increased participation in decision-making leads to a greater commitment to organizational goals and group strategies are
Teams provide inducement to work in a set up. Functioning as a group ensures effective and proficient performance of the jobs. This facilitates harmonization with different team members and also results in dissemination of the ideas and knowledge among them. (Teams and Teamwork) The convention of functioning in groups is more and more common in different types of organization. The members from different department are taken together to form teams
Assessment Synthesis Some of my mistrust may come from my personal timeliness, and my sense that teams can occasionally procrastinate and pull other people back. Accepting others differences is indeed difficult. (Kroeger, Thuesen & Rutledge, 2002, p. 3) I need to make the differences of others work better for both myself, and my organization. Even if I am doing a good job, I must make my internal criticism of others less
People working teams achieve goals efficiently effectively people working '. Draw theories team design effectiveness give practical examples relating organisational/work University study experience discuss statement Efficiency of team projects over individually handled projects The current research project t is focused on the discussion of the following statement: People working in teams always achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively than people working alone. In order to address it, a twofold approach is implemented
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