INTRODUCTION
The term team has
been around for as long as anyone can remember and there can be few
organizations that have not used the term in one sense or the other. It is
common to hear of management team, production team, service team or even whole
organizations being referred to as team. Many organizations today, are moving towards
“team based†approach to work. This means that working in teams is the basic
method used to get work done in these organizations. As a result, employers stress
the importance of employees working as a team and advertise for staff with the
ability to work in such a way (Richard, 2011).
Teams are increasingly becoming the
primary means for organizing work in contemporary organization. Robins and
Judge (2010), state that understanding of the nature, impact of groups and
teams and their effects is vital if the manager is to influence the behaviour
of the people in the work situation. Therefore managers must be aware of the
impact of groups and teams and their effects on organizational performance.
Mahajam (2011), states that a team is a small number of people with complementary
skills, who are committed to common purpose, a set of performance goal, and an approach
for which they hold themselves accountable. Team building and team management
is very necessary as many tasks can only be completed successfully by
cooperating with others. Good communication within a team is vital to ensure
common understanding and contribution of every person is valued and trusted.
Besides, team members have
responsibilities which include supporting, encouraging each other,
demonstrating trust and respect. Teams are more successful in implementing
complex plans, develop more creative solutions to difficult problems, they
develop the saving approach to problem solving. This is why we have a popular saying
that “two good heads are better than oneâ€. Nelson and Quick (2015) differentiates
between groups and teams by stating that all work teams are groups, but not all
groups are work team, Groups emphasize individual leadership, individual accountability,
and individual work products. Work teams emphasize shared leadership, mutual
accountability and collective work product.
Mullins (2015), agrees that a group is
essentially an assemblage of two or more persons who interact with one another,
are psychologically aware of one another, and think of themselves as a group
while a team is a group whose members influence one another towards the accomplishment
of individual work. Furthermore, members of a team are collectively responsible
for team work.
Organizations are restructuring
themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently, they have turned to
teams as a better way of using employees’ talent. Ilgen (2010) says that team
efforts are required in many organizations (example; government agencies,
aviation operations, military organizations, schools, police departments,
sports institutions and hospitals) to meet their missions and goals. Kurtz
(2015) confirm that team work is vital in business and many other areas.
Foushee (2016), in his analysis of
importance of teams, asserts that teams can perform difficult and complex
tasks, motivate their members effectively, and in some cases out perform individuals
than in the culture that is highly individualistic. Orasanu and Fisher (2011),
agree that teams can be more productive, make better decisions than
individuals. Teams can be a powerful organizational tools when organized,
designed and managed correctly (Guzzo and Dickson 2009). Ugbam, (2011) is of
the opinion that teams emerge when a number of people have common goal and
recognize that their personal success is dependent on the success of others.
Mclntyre and Salas (2014), opine that team work is a critical component of team
performance and requires an explanation of how a team behaves. They mention
four key behavioural characteristics that compose teamwork as follows:
(a) Performance monitoring
(b) Feedback
(c) Closed-loop
communication
(d) Back-up behaviours
Teams have emerged as the corner stone
of many organizations in recent time, and organizations are restructuring
themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently. Oluwole (2010) asserts
that working together as a team for common purpose is the foundation of all
successful management and also that a true team is a living, constantly
changing force in which a number of people come together to work. Robbins and
Judge (2017), are of the view that teams have the capability to quickly
assemble, deploy, refocus and disband. By this nature of team, management has
found that teams are flexible and responsive to changes than are traditional departments
or other forms of permanent groupings. Team is an important consideration in
employee recruitment and training because it encourages employees to pool their
talents and ideas to achieve more than they could achieve working as individuals
(Kreitner and Kinicki, 2014). The essence of a team is common commitment and
work teams are created for various purposes and thus face different challenges.
Manager’s can deal more effectively with those challenges when they understand
how teams differ. Sundstron, DeMeuse and Futrell (2012), list four general
types of work teams as; advice, production, action and project teams. They maintain
that each of these work teams identifies a basic purpose as thus; Advice Team-
generally make recommendations, in contrast production and action teams carry
out management decisions while project teams are involved in problem solving and
application of specialized knowledge.
Oluwole (2010) states that teams detect flaws and find
solutions to it. He further assert that teams are more successful in
implementing complex plans, develop more creative solutions to difficult
problems, they develop time saving approach to problem solving. It is of
interest to note that a good team of husband and wife will raise good children
to make a good family and also a good family will produce a good community. In
the same direction, a good team will make a good organization and a good
organizational team can be an invaluable asset to the organization and society
in general. Nzewi (2014), states that a bad team can break the internal
structure of the organization. Robbins and Judge (2010) state that successful
organizations are good at building teams and exploiting team work. They
maintain that people need to be able to work in team; they need to subordinate
their own agenda to the well being of their group. The most important
strategies or strategy for building and managing teams for optimum performances
is to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and well
understood by everyone in the organization.
Parker (2010) asserts that team building
is an organizational development strategy that is often used in organizations
to make work groups more cohesive, committed, satisfied and more productive. In
agreement to this, Onodugo and Igwe (2010) maintain that team building is one
of the key comparatives for a successful organization. To Moorhead and Griffin
(2013) team building has to do with organized members of organization working
together in a spirit of cooperation and generally has one or more of the
following goals:
·
To set team goals,
priorities, or both.
·
To examine the way a group
is working, [i.e. to examine process such as norms, decisions, decision making
and communications].
·
To examine relationships
among the people doing their work.
In building successful teams Mckee (2015)
suggests that one of the most significant thing required for success is
team-building and maintenance of leaders that can challenge, motivate, and
empower their teams. Robbins and Judge (2010) stress that whatever the debate
about a comparison between individual and group or team performance or self
managed groups, effective team working is of increasing importance in modern
organizations. It is based on this background that the researcher examined team
management as a tool for organizational performance in selected higher
institutions in Enugu State.
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