Impact of Teamwork on Organisational Problem Solving

Impact of Teamwork on Organisational Problem SolvingCan Groups and Teams be seen as the silver locoweed to solve organisational problems?Reflect unfavorablely on this issue drawing on scheme and research.IntroductionIn recent years, the effectuation of groups and police squad ups has become more commonplace in firms 78% of US workplaces usance teams (Allen and Hecht, 2004) and 72% of UK organizations get their core employees in formal teams (Kersley et al., 2013). However, scholars imbibe generally been separate about the effectiveness of teams in solving challenges in the workplace, with varying empirical results and yard. Despite their popularity, ar groups and teams always beneficial to workplaces? In observing the drawbacks of implementing teams, it is suggested that alternative factors argon equally important in solving organisational problems.This prove attempts to show that teams argon not the silver bullet for all organizations by critiquing populist theories on b enefits of teams, discussing additional problems that may arise from teams and lastly, by questioning the assumptions of this essay. Although Katzenbach and Smith (1993a, p.45) defined team as a small number of commonwealth with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, consummation goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable and workings group as a small number of citizenry working in a collaborative style with individual input and accountability, I exit use groups and teams interchangeably and not draw a greenback between the two terms for the most part of this essay. This is in thread with many writers (e.g. Allen and Hecht, 2004), who regarded them as the same and that teams are two or more raft working interdependently towards achieving a common goal.Section 1 Critiquing popular theories on benefits of teams Historical view of teams Sociotechnical systems theory (STS)The term STS was originally coined by Emery and Trist (1960 ) to describe systems which involve a complex interaction between people, machines, and the organizations external environment it was about utilizing the kind-hearted and technical aspects to make an organization more effective. STS was the basic foundation for the dominance of teams, arguing that as workers gain more autonomy over their jobs, team members mickle make greater use of their skills and judgment to better tackle organisational problems (Cohen et al., 1996). Groups were suggested as an alternative to routine Tayloristic and Fordist frameworks by reducing boredom and by allowing workers to be more involved and interested in their tasks.This works in theory, and teams may not be that autonomous or beneficial in practice. Murakami (1997) studied the introduction of teams in fourteen car plants worldwide and although teams were given well-nigh autonomy about work distribution and internal leadership, he found that managerial power in the most important areas of car prod uction remained unchallenged. doggy (1993) argued that while teams may appear to give workers more autonomy over their jobs, groups may represent a more subtle and intensive form of reign as team members can control for each one others actions through surveillance or cordial pressures. Besides that, research has indicated that in becoming group members, individuals very much lose their problem-solving facilities, become emotionally segregated and blame others for their failure (Wells, 1980 cited in Sinclair, 1992, p.616). In line with that, Naquin and Tynan (2003) agreed that teams receive joint credit for successes but often blame team failure on an individual member, leading to conflict within the group.Dunphy and Bryant (1996) argued that the implementation of self-managed teams shifts the burden of problem-solving from managers to employees, leading to intensification of work and heightened stress levels. This is in line with Rothschild and Whitt (1986) who revealed that g roups can often be a source of stress rather than satisfaction and have a negative effect on employees well-being. Neverthe little, even if nearly workers enjoy their job more through teams, in that location is no evidence that this will always lead to improved coifance. Some researchers have suggested that job performance leads to job satisfaction but not the reverse (Bagozzi, 1980). And even if it does improve individual performance, it may not necessarily lead to organisational effectiveness in solving problems (Sinclair, 1992).Belbins Team RolesAnother theory which popularized team effectiveness was Belbins model of team exercises. Belbin identified nine team roles/ contributions that are seen to be crucial for organizational effectiveness (Belbin, 1993). Each team role is considered important because it helps to provide a good balance for achieving tasks. The essential contributions are solving problems, exploring resources, coordinating tasks, imparting drive, evaluating i nformation, exploitation team members, implementing ideas, perfecting details, and providing knowledge. Some modern workplaces form teams on the terms of Belbins team profiles as they supposedly allow organizations to recognize and use others strengths to best advantage (Belbin, 2014).To a certain extent, Belbins model of teams and team roles may appear to solve certain organizational problems. For example, problems at organizations may occur collectable to ambiguity and role conflict. When thither is role ambiguity, workers are uncertain which responsibilities they should tackle, leading to anxiety. This may also lead to conflict if one worker believes that another is impinging on their role, putting newcomers in a difficult position as they are apprehensive of taking on tasks (Slaughter and Zicker, 2006). By clearly defining team roles using Belbins model, organizations may be able to avoid several(prenominal) of these problems.However, Belbins model has been re-examined with mixed results. For example, Fisher (1996) argued that Belbin team roles have little psychometric support and that it is unreliable to use it as the basis for team roles. Another criticism is that Belbin insinuated that there are only a limited number of ways in which people can usefully domiciliate to teams when in practice, roles are complex and varied. Imposing team roles onto people and expecting them to contribute to workplaces in a certain way may lead to stereotyping. For example, an individual who is in reality more efficient working alone may be acc utilize of being a bad employee just because they are not a team player (Sewell, 2001). Apart from that, Belbins original research mainly focused on upper-management level executives in Britain in the 1970s, consisting mostly of middle-class white men. This does not designate that Belbins theory of teams and team roles cannot be applied to other cultures, but it could be biased as the research was based on a specific demograph ic.Katzenbach and Smiths information of TeamsKatzenbach and Smith (1993a) argued that teams will always outperform individuals when teams are properly understood and supported. They suggested that the mutual accountability, commitment, and skills of team members will encourage open discussions and critical problem-solving. The better teams will move beyond individual responsibilities and pursue team performance goals like increasing work quality or responding to customers faster, reducing inefficiency problems. Storey (2007) argued that this theory adopts a unitarist view of management where employees and managers are constantly in pursuit of higher productivity, which may not always be true in practice.The main reexamine is that Katzenbach and Smith wrote from their personal work experiences (Wilson, 2013). Their research had no solid empirical evidence and while they claimed to collect information through interviews, they did not divulge how they study the data. They were also inclined to ignore public service sector or third sector examples, which could make their findings biased. Additionally, this theory played down the intrinsic qualities of organizational problems such as job satisfaction or workers feelings and personal motivations. Metcalf and Linstead (2003) argued that this approach is masculinist as it adopted a view that only emphasized better performance, with the well-fixed components such as sensitivities and feelings of members being marginalized. However, to successfully solve organizational problems, we should consider both masculinist and soft aspects as organizational problems can be related to both. Hence, this theory fails to explain why teams would be the solution to all challenges.Section 2 Problems that arise from implementing teams Social loafingSecondly, teams should not be seen as a nostrum because they may cause even more organizational problems. One of the problems that arise from teams is social loafing, colloquially known a s free riding or laziness. plainly stated, it refers to a situation in which certain members of a group exert less effort than the others (Clegg at al., 2016). Primarily, people exert less effort in groups as they feel less accountable when they know other members will compensate by exerting additional effort on their behalf (Harkins and Szymanski, 1989).Ezzamel and Wilmott (1998) observed workplace social loafing in a company they dubbed StichCo. When teams were introduced to StitchCo, the younger and more inexperienced workers with no responsibilities were less pressured to increase their wages through bonuses. They were seen to reap the advantages of a shared team bonus, working below the minimum level of efficiency while older workers overcompensated for their lack of efforts. This created resentment and conflict among those workers who were working harder.Although challenges occur when implementing team roles as discussed earlier, one way of countering social loafing is by en suring that team members have clear responsibilities and accountability. Theoretically, one would assume that social loafing would be much less likely to exist in work teams because team pressures can be a powerful source of conformance. Sewell (1998) pointed out that non-performing team members may be pressured to perform or leave through immense social pressures. Hence in some ways, conformance and tackiness can cancel out social loafing. GroupthinkNevertheless, cohesion in groups are not always beneficial to organizations as it may cause another problem Groupthink. Janis (1982) coined the term Groupthink when he studied historical situations where teams with esteemed and well-educated members make disastrous decisions, such as the Bay of Pigs incident. One key characteristic of Groupthink is when members choose to stand by decisions that the group has committed itself to, patronage evidence that these decisions are bad or disturbing the conscience of its members. Janis argued t hat the more cohesive the group, the more likely it is for each member to avoid creating disunity. It is not so much that the members are afraid of revealing their objections, but that they will readily accept the majority decision without scrutinizing its pros and cons.Groupthink also brings about risk shift, an illusion of invulnerability and enthusiasm for a decision that polarizes the group towards higher risk. For example, in May 2015, six banks were fined a total of $5.7 billion for manipulating foreign exchange markets. The traders appeared to reinforce each others belief that they were not going to be arrested, allowing them to knowingly break the law (King and Lawley, 2016). The concept of groupthink therefore undermines one of the main argued benefits of teams workers sharing multiple perspectives to examine effectiveness risks and to better solve problems.However, Janis argued that this does not mean all cohesive groups suffer from groupthink and that mild Groupthink ma y not necessarily influence the quality of a groups decision. Furthermore, there are ways to avoid Groupthink the team might encourage people to voice their opinions by establishing that any critique of the teams decision is encouraged or some members may be assigned to analyze all decisions in a critical way. Alternatively, the organization may set up several independent groups working on the same problem and compare the decisions reached.Section 3 Questioning the assumptions of this essayGroups vs TeamsWe will now discuss if it is possible for teams to be the silver bullet when they are defined correctly or implemented in the right settings. One of the main assumptions of this essay is that groups and teams are the same. However, Katzenbach and Smith (1993b) argued that while many workplaces claimed to use teams, in practice, teams are uncommon as most workers are in what they called working groups. Working group members mostly work independently and focus on individual performanc e whereas high performance team members focus everything on the team. Since team members rely on each other and focus on team outcome rather than individual needs, they can exploit each others strengths to better tackle challenges.So perhaps, the failure of teams found by researchers such as Hackman (1998) were due to people using the term team too loosely in the workplace, when they were in fact, the failure of working groups. Katzenbach and Smith (1993b) argued that it is important to distinct working groups and teams so that managers can make better decisions about whether, when, or how to encourage and use teams. By properly defining teams, we can learn when they should be seen as a solution to organizational problems.Size of teams and organizational context This essay also used Allen and Hechts definition of a team two or more people working interdependently towards achieving a common goal (2004). This definition is quite vague, when in workplaces, the size of a team is very im portant and should be defined harmonise to the task. For example, larger teams may be inefficient for routine tasks due to overcrowding, but they are good for complex tasks as smaller teams will not have enough resources or abilities (Clegg at al., 2016). Nevertheless, Laughlin (2011) found that high ability individuals can outperform groups composed of two, three, four or five low ability members. So while team size definitely has an effect on team performance, more research needs to be done to fully understand how antithetic factors mediate the effect of team size on effectiveness.This brings us to the next assumption of this essay groups and teams are not the silver bullet for all organizations. However, teams can be very effective if they are used in the suitable organizational context. Wright Cordery (1999) proposed conditions for teams to succeed and fail in outperforming other organizational frameworks and there is evidence that system-wide changes are better at solving or ganizational problems than individual changes (Bacon Blyton, 2000). Thus, it is critical to recognize that effective problem-solving does not magically occur simply by introducing teams time, high-altitude resources, and revamped support structures need to be in place to create a high performance team-based organization. Only then, perhaps teams can be perceived as a silver bullet to organizational problems, although creating the perfect setting for every task would be nearly impossible.Conclusion In a nutshell, this essay argued that teams are not the panacea by examining opposing views and limitations of popular theories such as STS, Belbins team roles, and Katzenbach and Smiths Wisdom of teams. It also discussed additional problems that may arise and questioned the assumptions of this essay to border the pros and cons of teams in different situations. Due to the word limit, this essay did not discuss all the challenges which would prevent teams from working effectively (e.g. r esistance to teams, leadership of teams). Nevertheless, the original essay question remains important as teams can be effective or destructive depending on how and where they are implemented, so they should not be used sweepingly across organizations. Instead, future research on teams should be done in various industrial settings to properly define teams and to examine other factors which would consider their effectiveness in problem-solving.ReferencesAllen, N.J. and Hecht, T.D., 2004. The romance of teams Toward an understanding of its psychological underpinnings and implications. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77(4), pp.439-461.Bacon, N. and Blyton, P., 2000. 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