Team-Based Organizations
Introduction
Team-based organizations have changed the way organizational structures and management are carried out in the 21st century. Companies such as HP Development Company, Google, and Cape Coral Hospital, Florida are all examples of organizations that focus heavily on teams. For these three examples, a close leadership structure is created and enhanced. By using teams, Abner & Agbaeze (2018) points to how organizations create flexibility and creating a structure that resembles a flat organizational framework that is intended to create employee involvement and decision making. A team-based structure groups a variety of employees together on the basis of their responsibilities and talents, enabling work processes to be handled by said groups that have a specific project and objective with a timeline established to attain goals. It gives employees more autonomy and authority to make key decisions without necessarily involving the management.
Evaluation of Organizations that Rely on Self-Managed Teams
In the three organizations above (HP, Google and Cape Coral Hospital), employees work within specialized groups that are tasked with responsibilities or projects. For a majority of their roles, the teams are all self-managed. Annosi, Monti, & Martini (2020) note that self-managed teams have some of the best performances and results based on measured outcomes such as completion of tasks within set timelines, teamwork, group spirit, and ensuring that the attainment of goals surpasses personal interests and desires. For these teams, employees share the responsibilities link to management of tasks. Because employees have the authority to make decisions that are typically left for supervisors and managers in the traditional structure, the involvement levels are very high compared to other organizational structures. Employees are able to establish performance standards, goals and milestones, independent of any management. Team-based organizations, therefore, are able to make every team member understand management and come up with approaches to meet the requirement of carrying both the role of a supervisor and an employee.
For team-based companies, there is an advantage of better communication in the organization. For example, Cape Coral Hospital’s lack of line level managers has enabled a better flow of information between employees, thus creating effectiveness when performing various tasks. The organization that use team-based structure also enjoy the benefits of a lack of several layers that employees use in the traditional structure in order to convey or receive information and implement new policies and ideas. Additionally, Wei & Miraglia (2017) found that team-based organizations resolve issues faster compared to traditional organizational structures. The improved communication between employees in various teams means that there is a faster rate of transfer of information, which in turn yields quicker responsiveness.
Another notable benefit that team-based organizations enjoy is an empowered and flexible workforce. A majority of traditional organizational structures are very limiting and do not motivate employees to do anything beyond their duties and responsibilities. However, team-based companies are able to achieve employee empowerment and motivation because of the ability to learn on the job and maximize sills. Their motivation levels remain high because of a challenging environment and trust created through such empowering structures. Ideally, team-based organizations are better at implementing change and in making managerial maneuvers as employees are a part and parcel of the decision-making process.
Despite the aforementioned advantages, it is important to note that team-based organizations may suffer when some employees do not fit well in teams. Additionally, under-performing workers are likely to hide behind the performance of a team. Not every employee is suited to work in a team. Some perform really well where individual brilliance and effort are noticed and appreciated. As a result, being part of a group that does not recognize individual efforts can be demoralizing. Additionally, some workers do not care for good performance and are happy to ride on the wave of a team’s effort. A lack of effort is therefore rewarded through the team spirit. Such characters are likely to infect the trust and understanding that a team has set for itself and its members. In the end, these teams may be discouraged to do better, thus preferring going back to a more supervised system.
Effectiveness of Team Leadership and Ways to Optimize Operations
Team leadership complements a team-based organizational structure. Tea leadership fosters mutual accountability for results and employee behavior. By having all team members as leaders, organizations are able to institutionalize accountability. It is also easier to ensure that every team member is committed to ensuring top performance at every level and for every task. The structure creates cohesion through open communication and involvement in the workplace. The effectiveness of team leadership is also seen through faster assimilation through increased understanding of requirements and shared accountability. Players in a team-based organization have a faster capability to identify primary strengths and know how to best build on these strengths to contribute to better outcomes for the organization and attain higher satisfaction levels and team success.
Team-based organizations operate in primary units that are made up of a collection of employees sharing responsibilities for specific outcomes in a department or an organization. To optimize operations in team-based organizations, it is required that employees be group according to their fits, this does not necessarily mean those with similar personality traits but rather individuals with personal differences yet understand how to fit together in a team. The traditional organizational structure places employees at the very bottom of the hierarchy of leadership, management, and decision making. In the vertical approach, there is reduced effectiveness of team leadership due to the barriers created by layers of different structures (Tripathy, 2018). Grouping people together by roles and responsibilities, while factoring in how well an individual fits a role and a team, is the most effective way to optimize performance. Other ways include holding lively and more engaging meetings, brainstorming ideas, focus meetings, strategy formulation conferences, training, and a combination of one or more of these suggestions. Additionally, information sharing, coordination of tactical operations, and strategic decision making and dialogue must be conducted to improve outcomes at the team as well as the organizational level.
References
Abner, I. P., & Agbaeze, E. K. (2018). Team Based Management Approach and Organisational
Performance. European Journal of Social Sciences, 56(1), 29-36.
Annosi, M. C., Monti, A., & Martini, A. (2020). Individual learning goal orientations in self‐
managed team‐based organizations: A study on individual and contextual variables. Creativity and Innovation Management, 29(3), 528-545.
Tripathy, M. (2018). Building quality teamwork to achieve excellence in business
organizations. International research journal of management, IT and social sciences, 5(3), 1-7.
Wei, Y., & Miraglia, S. (2017). Organizational culture and knowledge transfer in project-based
organizations: Theoretical insights from a Chinese construction firm. International Journal of Project Management, 35(4), 571-585.
