Teamwork and Team Performance

 
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Executive summary
The main purpose of the study is to explore teamwork and team performance in an organization by looking
at the various types of teams, their characteristics and factors that influence their effective
performance in the context of organization. The study further used the information to analyze how team
play in a specific organization structure would affect the success in its objectives achievement. The
study identified five different types of teams which include problem solving teams; self-managed work
teams; cross-functional teams; virtual teams; and multi-team systems; and the effectiveness of these
groups were fund to depend on factors such as mutual trust, availability of resources, clarity of
goals, common purpose, clear roles, effective communication, and clear leadership which form a recipe
for team performance. The study further identified the roles which influence team performance which are
categorized as tsk roles and maintenance roles which serve to ensure objectives are achieved and teams
are sustained respectively. The results and analysis from the study have been presented in a report
format which is organized into various sections including introduction; a brief literature review,
methodology and case study findings, and a section showing conclusion and recommendations stemming from
the study.

Introduction
In the contemporary world of competition, success of organization does not rely entirely on the quality
of human resource, or how advanced the technology they use is but rather how the available resources
can be put together through interconnectedness to bring an efficient and effective organization in
achieving its strategic goals and objectives as stipulated in the mission and vision statements. As
much as an organization may boast of highly skilled manpower, but research has shown that these
qualities can only achieve much if the employees work as a team rather than individual performance (Lu,
et al, 2010).
A team is therefore defined as in the organization’s context as a small number of people with
complementary skills who come together to build a positive synergy to use in achieving a common
purpose, performance, common goals and approach for which they are mutually accountable for the success
of failure in the outcome, making it a team work.
It would be important to make a clear distinction between team and group where by the latter can be
said to be two or more individuals who come together and interact cooperatively and adaptively in
pursuit of shared valued objectives and they are individually accountable for the outcome without any
positive synergy (Huang and Han, 2008).
Moreover in teams members have clearly defined and differentiated roles and responsibilities; members
hold tasks according to their areas of expertise; and are interdependent, whereas in group scenario the
members are independent and the tasks are not differentiated. Of great importance to an organization as
far as team work is concerned is the performance of a team which is the ability of a team to
efficiently and effectively achieve the laid down objectives conclusively in the stipulated time frame
(Jeffcott & Mackenzie, 2008).
To achieve high level performance, there are certain requirements which must be available to the team,
one being sufficient resources which include financial, human and physical resources; there must be
clear team goals; effective mode of communication as well as clear defined roles of each team member.
It should be noted that in order to make a highly performing team there should be a proper procedure in
team building; which is defined as the process of developing a successful team which involves a number
of stages, a total of four in number, namely: forming, storming, norming and performing stages.
In the current market place all over the world there has been a great surge in the level of competition
which as necessitated most organizations to search for strategies for continuous quality improvement
and product positioning and repositioning to make them remain relevant in the market, or otherwise face
out-competition as used by multinationals such as General Motors, Boeing, IBM and others (He Butler,
2007).
Most organizations have realized the potential contribution teamwork bring into an organization such as
reducing operation costs, better quality products and greater productivity resulting from efficiency,
and this has provoked most organizations to build their own teams to help in realizing this course (Liu
et al, 2011). Teamwork helps to improve problem solving; enhance diversity in ideas thereby promoting
originality and creativity, because, the best way to get best idea is to have a varied number of ideas
to choose from.
Another reason which explains the growing popularity of teamwork is that the nature of problems which
arise in organization setting are complex and multidisciplinary hence a multidisciplinary approach is
the best way to find a solution, and there is increased information explosion on complex issues which
require cooperation of experts in different areas to offer solutions (Liu et al, 2011).
There are five main types of teams which are found in majority in the organization, namely: problem
solving teams; self-managed work teams; cross-functional teams; virtual teams; and multi-team systems,
where problem solving teams are teams formed to come up with solution to a specific problem, for
example quality management teams in a production company.
Characteristics of effective teams in the organization
Of great importance to the organization in realizing its objectives is the ability of the team to
effectively perform its stipulated tasks, a requirement which is influenced by various factors which
can be grouped in various categories; the context; composition; and process. In reference to context,
teams to be effective must be provided with adequate resources in terms of financial resources, human
resource, technological resource and time resource (Mathieu et al 2006).
The teams need to have a proper leadership and clear structure on how it will carry its duties and
responsibilities. The team requires some level of trust among the members for without climate of trust,
members will work with suspicion with will derail the effectiveness; to build trust there are a number
of elements which the organization should enhance such as: fairness by diving credit where and when it
is deserved; respect of one another support in terms of providing help, advice; predictability in
daily affairs; competence to enhance one’s credibility; and effective communication to keep team
members and employees informed (Mathieu et al, 2006).
Another element which will motivate team members to be effective is the culture of performance
evaluation and reward system since all human react positively when their efforts are recognized and
appreciated of rewarded. When reward is pegged on performance it provides a positive incentive for the
team members to perform better to benefit from such scheme; also proper evaluation on performance and
timely feedback informs members of strengths and weaknesses as well as areas of improvements which in
turn have a bearing on effective performance.
For example the quality of members in terms of flexibility, personality and capability will either fail
or lead to success in a team; the teams should be composed of about 10 members who are of different
areas of expertise as very big number would have implications in terms of costs and the marginal value
of each member. The effectiveness of a team also positively relates to the clarity of goals to the
team, common purpose, team efficacy, conflict levels and social loafing whereby studies show that teams
become more specific and clear goals with a common purpose, and the responsibility of each member is
clearly stated.
Creating team players by organization: approaches to be used
There are a number of approaches organizations use to create team players and each method has its own
shortcomings and strengths, however majority of organizations consider factors such as costs and the
nature of assignment or purpose whether short term or long term. Depending on the objective team
players can be trained, selected, or rewarding, but in most cases rewarding is meant to motivate a team
player to be better.
Selecting team players involves hiring team players to come and help in providing a way forward in a
problem especially on short term basis after which their services are not required. The method is good
when there is need for a quick solution which would otherwise be very detrimental if not addressed in
time, but it could be counterproductive considering the structures of different organizations which
might require the hired team to have time to familiarize themselves with the goals and how systems in
the organization works. Selecting or hiring would appear economically viable in the short run, but
might be very costly in the long run production time as the long run average costs will be higher than
the output (Mathieu et al, 2006).
Training of team players can also be called creating of team players as the organization invests in
having its own team for long term purposes which might appear expensive in the short run due to initial
capital requirements, but in the long run would be cost effective. Training team players gives a
strength to an organization as the members are well conversant with the system, organization vision and
they feel sense of ownership and part of the system which would motivate them to give quality work,
also in terms of accountability when an organization has its own team players they would be easy to
evaluate than temporary consultancies.
Finally there are members of a team or a whole team who might exist, but lack motivation to
perform its tasks diligently, and because of this it would be like there is no team since that positive
synergy would be lacking; in such a case there would be need for motivation to restore the team spirit
which can be achieved through rewards of the team players (Healey, Undre & Vincent, 2006).
The key roles of a team in achieving objectives of an organization
Several studies in the business performance have revealed a number of roles played by team members
towards their contribution to the achievement of organizations goals and objectives which include both
welfare and objective roles. One of the major roles of team is the task versus maintenance roles; this
is the role which must be performed to accomplish anything within the team (Healey, Undre & Vincent,
2006).
The task roles in one hand enables team players to define, clarify and pursue a common purpose,
performance and goal to keep the team on track, while on the other hand maintenance roles foster
supportive and constructive interpersonal relationships to help keep the team together. For a team to
be successful and perform effectively, both roles will be very critical since performance does not only
rely on task performance, but it also requires the team remains together by encouraging the members,
considering the welfare of the members (He Butler, 2007).
Task roles of a team might include the roles played by an initiator who comes up with suggestions on
new goals or ideas; information seeker or provider who clarifies key issues; coordinator who pools
together ideas or issues; orientation which keeps group headed towards its stated goals; and evaluator
who tasks group performance towards certain goals and objectives (He Butler, 2007).
On the other hand maintenance roles include those roles played by an encourager whose a gender is to
foster group solidarity; harmonizer who can mediate or seek solution to a conflict through
reconciliation or humor; the compromiser who also help in conflict resolution by meeting the parties
half way; and the gatekeeper whose role is to encourage all members to participate on any deliberation.
In a nutshell it should be noted that all these roles are very crucial if the organization is to have
productive teams which are highly sustainable, effective and very efficient in their objectives
(Atkinson, Jackson, & Rawlin, 2007).

Objectives of the study
• The study objective will be to describe various types of teamwork and team performance in an
organization; and evaluate performance of various types of teams towards organization’s success;
• The study will also perform organization analysis by using the principle of teamwork and team
performance on the overall level of organization in order to help in increasing the efficiency level of
the company.
Literature review
In this section, a body of literature on the teamwork and teamwork performance is reviewed to bring a
more insight on their roles by looking at the findings of the past studies and doing critical analysis
on strengths and weaknesses of such findings.
Several empirical scholars have come up with studies on teamwork in organizations and performance
which permits the careful monitoring and provides an insight on the roe of teamwork in the
organization’s performance; in some empirical studies teamwork has been defined in terms of its
context, a social system that is embedded in an organization; in terms of identity, that is members of
a team are perceived by others and themselves to be members; and in terms of the purpose, that is team
members work together for a common goal (Han, Lee & Seo, 2008).
The studies show that assessment of team performance can be conducted in terms of effectiveness and
efficiency; whereby effectiveness is the degree to which team meet its targets of the outcome in terms
of quality and quantity, whereas efficiency is the ability of a team to perform within the budget in
meeting its objectives. Empirical evidence shows that the various factors which affect team
effectiveness include communication, coordination expertise, cohesion, trust, and mutual support which
must be enhanced in an organization’s culture to foster performance.
For instance He Butler, (2007) and Lu et al, (2010) found that lack of effective communication or the
presence of misunderstanding in an organization between various stakeholders in a project posed a big
threat to the success of such undertakings. The study further explains that it is not just about
exchange of information, but ensuring the information reaches the right person at the right point in
time and it is not distorted goal (Han, Lee & Seo, 2008).
Moreover communication provides the basis for other factors which influence the performance of teams
such as coordinating of team knowledge and efforts, and to understand the collective mission of the
entire organization as well as facilitation of trust among the members of a team (Atkinson, Jack &
Rawlin, 2007). Studies on the features of effective teams reveal that organizations with common vision;
adequate resources; mutual trust; and clear roles and leadership structure are better more likely to
achieve their goals in terms of goal achievement.
Coordination and proper management of teamwork challenges would increase chances of sustainability and
task accomplishment, hence the importance of task and maintenance roles of team in an organization
(Atkinson, Jackson, & Rawlin, 2007). The study in this case would use secondary data to provide more
information on the importance of teamwork and team performance in making organization to improve
service delivery in effective and efficient manner (Hooper, Coughlan & Mullen, 2008).
Methodology of the study
The study will be conducted using secondary data which would be obtained from various sources such as
published journals; company records, past meetings and/or memos obtained from websites of the
Organization. The data which will be obtained in quality form will be critically analyzed in relation
to supportive empirical evidence and presented in report form with reference to the company’s case
study.
Teamwork and teamwork performance case study
Description of the organization structure
The study focuses on an organization with an organization structure which is headed by a company Chief
executive officer who is the overall team leader responsible for (1) establishing direction which
include developing a vision of the future which in most cases is a far or distant future; the CEO
provides leadership by coming up with proper strategies the needed changes or adjustments to achieve
the vision.(2) as a leader the CEO is responsible for aligning people through effective communication
to other team members in the various departments in the organization to all those whose cooperation may
be needed so as to influence team creations.
They are chief financial officer; operations manager; operations support manager; strategy,
program and commercial director; quality, health, safety and environment manager, the communication
goes further down the organizations structure to respective managers and teams in the respective
departments which include the engineering team, the commercial team and the quality assurance team (3)
The company CEO is further tasked with a role to motivate and inspire people in the organization
throughout the entire organization structure to ensure the workers and teams are energized to overcome
major external environmental challenges, both internal and external environmental challenges such as
resource challenges and political barriers (Mathieu et al 2006).
Teamwork activities and channels between various departments
In the organization, the various teams include the engineering team which is in the operations
department responsible for production of goods in the right time, quantity and quality, the operation
team receives resources from the financial manager who gets directive from the chief financial officer;
the operation team will communicate with the engineering team which ensures the machines and plant
operation is in good condition; the engineering team communicates with the quality control department
who further communicate with the production to perform production (Mathieu et al 2006).
After production the feedback is conveyed through the same channel back to the operations manager who
will communicate with the Operations Support Manager (OSM). The OSM will communicate to the warehouse
supervisor to deliver to inputs or collect the products, the warehouse supervisor will communicate to
the logistics and transport officer to get the goods delivered, who in turn contacts the facilities
team leader; the facilities team leader will communicate with the procurement supervisor.
The feedback is conveyed back to the OPM who informs the strategy, programs and commercial director to
contact the commercial team who will design marketing strategies before communicating with the sales
team. In the operations of organization, there must be a department responsible for ensuring that the
activities do not go beyond the environment quality and health standards; hence environmental quality
assurance team who ensures the product quality and standards is met. It should be noted that the
performance of all teams depend on the availability of financial resources hence the financial
department will have effect on the performance of all the departments (Hooper, Coughlan & Mullen,
2008).
Team performance used by various teams in the organization
The process of assessing team performance is an integral part of company success and there is increased
demand for monitoring and assessment of performance of teams as the best means to attain feedback on
investments. One of the methods used by the organization is monitoring and follow-up of teams to ensure
the outcome is desirable in line with the organizations goals and objectives (Mathieu et al 2006).
Evaluation through follow-up involves evaluating the various teams to ascertain if they followed the
laid down procedures and processes in performing the tasks assigned; another method used is the output
where by when the team meets its target or objective it therefore means the performance is superb,
otherwise there would be need for the critical investigation or analysis of the team structure to come
up with the problem which affects the performance goal (Han, Lee & Seo, 2008).
In the organization performance is enhanced through strong interdependence between the different
departmental teams where by the output in one team is the input of another, this level of
interdependence works in providing checks and balances among various teams to maintain high quality
performance.
Individual, teamwork characteristics and application in the organization
From the organization’s structure the various teams available in the organization can be classified as
self- managed teams which include the engineering teams, sales teams, production teams, commercial
teams, quality assurance team which work in respective areas of competences to bring about achievement
of a common goal. Each team has unique activities and their success depends on effective communication,
coordination, mutual trust and proper motivation and reward scheme (Mathieu et al 2006).
The advantage of having teams in respective departments is that it increases efficiency due to relevant
expertise among members and also the outcome is most likely desirable. In an organization there need to
be tradeoffs between use of team and use of individual performance, this is because some tasks are
economical and yield best results when performed individually for example in cases where it takes
unnecessarily long time to reach a solution, it would be more economical to provide leadership and make
individual effort to help the organization move forward goal (Han, Lee & Seo, 2008).
The top executive should consider when individual performance would be better than teamwork by
considering factors such as costs, urgency as some group processes take longer process, the
availability of resources to meet the group process or individual processes so that the chosen method
should be as of higher opportunity cost.
In the case study, the organization uses a blend of both individual and teamwork for instance the
organization has a both team leaders and managers where by managers perform management roles such as
planning, budgeting, staffing and control, while on the other hand team leader performs leadership
roles such as motivating the staff and performing within the budget.; therefore for the success of
organization there should be individual and team performance and accountability (Mathieu et al, 2006)
(Mathieu et al 2006).

Conclusions and recommendations
Teamwork is a new approach which has been widely used by organizations to tap in to the various
competencies of the human resource base to maximize their potential output at the lowest costs
possible. Production is most effective when members of the organization are actively involved in the
operations in a coordinated manner to harness a synergy for proper performance.
The study has come up with evidence to show how important the mechanism is in the life of any company
in terms of market competitiveness and growth strategy. It is therefore important for managers and
employees to enhance teamwork and team spirit to fully benefit from the positive outcomes which result
from the team cooperation. To be effective, the management should have attitude change from management
roles to leadership roles, the managers should be leaders and make themselves reachable by the
employees for any kind of guidance required.
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