Making Teams Work

Making Teams Work

The importance of teams is becoming more and more apparent in today's dynamic business world. Increasingly managers are searching for a means to improve production and keep their organization competitive in the global market. A lot of these managers have turned to the team as a means for achieving this improvement. Quality circles were originally looked at to fulfill this role, however they are being phased out in favor of self-managed work teams. These teams are increasingly being used to solve many of today's organizations production problems and inefficiencies, and in the process are both badly failing and greatly succeeding. So the discussion of teams is a very important one to address. Managers should be aware of the concept of teams and learn about as a means to further their organization and for when the time comes to implement a team they are prepared with the knowledge needed to build and use a team properly.

The basic interpretation of a team is "a collection of two or more individuals who interact with each other, share common beliefs, and perceive themselves as being a group." (Denton '92) Metropolitan Life Insurance Company defines a team fore specifically as "a group of people with specific roles and responsibilities, organized to work together towards common goals or objectives, in which each member depends on others to carry out responsibilities to reach those goals and objectives." (Denton) The implementation and operation of a team can either be a great success or a costly failure, both money wise and time wise. Many companies have benefited from teams, and "when teams work, there's nothing like them for turbocharging productivity." (Denton "94) There are many examples of successful implementation of teams: Federal Express and IDS boosted productivity by 40% and Boeing cut its engineering hang-ups on its new 777 passenger jet by more than half. The Ford Motor Company also has had great success with teams when producing the new Mustang prototype. Ford produced the Mustang from design concept to the finished product under budget and in record time. (Dumaine)

However, many companies and managers are put off by the very mention of the work team. Some people see teams as just another management fad, while others in management have had bad experiences with teams that have failed. As Magee points ou...

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...t must all come together to build a successful team, it can be done with proper planning and support from upper management. They must also discuss how to set up the compensation for the team, evaluation of team performance, and of individual performance. In my opinion, the benefits of increased productivity and efficiency that are seen by the organizations that properly build and successfully implement teams, far out-weigh the risks and costs of a team that fails. I would have to say that in today's competitive, globally oriented organizations, we cannot over stress the importance of teams. It seems that how much you get out of a team depends on how much you are willing to put into it, and most of what you need to put into it is some time spent doing the homework planning necessary to build the team that will take your business to the top.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Denton, D.D. (1992) Building a team. Quality Progress, October, 87-91.

2. Dumaine, B. (1994) The Trouble with Teams. Fortune, 130.

3. Magee, Y.S. (1997) Teams: avoiding the pitfalls. Public Management, 79.

4. McGarvey, R. (1996) Joining forces: 12 steps to creating winning teams.

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