EFFECTS OF TEAM EFFORTS ON THE REALIZATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

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EFFECTS OF TEAM EFFORTS ON THE REALIZATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Team can be described as a group of people who work together to achieve the same goals and objectives for the good of the service users and organizations in order to deliver a good quality of service. Team building, planning events and activities have the potential to bring the people you employed to a strong sense of direction, workable plans and solutions, a powerful feeling of belonging with and on the team and clear strategic customer-focused values. Poor team building and planning sessions bring disillusionment, low morale and negative motivation of the entire organization. They fail to deliver the results expected. Organizations flounder with little strategic direction. Everyone works hard, but, usually on the wrong tasks and goals. Employees take baby steps toward accomplishing key action items and nothing important is finished (Husain, 2011).

Team work is the ability to work together towards a common vision. Teamwork is a fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. Collective action is widely recognized as a positive force for teamwork in any organization or institution to succeed. Teams enable individuals to empower themselves and to increase benefits from cooperative work engaged on as a group. Getting together with others also can allow individuals to better understand the importance of teamwork and how the organization operate as well as promote the culture of teamwork success. Without teamwork houses take long to build, government collapse and companies are outshined by their competitors in the market and lastly without teamwork people lose their inspiration (Husain, 2011). According to Wageman (1997) “company’s teamwork is the only way anything gets accomplished with quality and efficiency and a major reason why economic growth is under control and company’s success is scrutinized by top management to achieve the desired goals”. 

McShone (1998) said that teams are replacing individuals as the basic building blocks of organization - French language television programs has shifted to team-based projects and giving more recognition to teams than to individuals. Companies are not just looking for technical ability but looking for people who can work on teams and solve problems.

According to Steiner (1972) teams and teamwork are not novel concepts; teams and team thinking have been around for years at companies such as Procter and Gamble; and Botany. In the 1980s the manufacturing and auto industries embraced a new team-oriented approach when United States firms retooled to combat Japanese competitor who were quickly gaining market share. Brown et al (1996) examined that managers discovered the large body of research indicating that teams can be more than the tradition corporate structure for making decisions quickly and efficiently. He further said that teams needed for the restructuring and reengineering processes of the future giving instances that simple changes like encouraging input and feedbacks from workers on the line make dramatic improvements.

Even from time of creation, God applied the concept of teamwork when he said, ‘‘Let us make man in our own image’’ (Genesis1:26, KJV). This statement brings out the fact that God in the creation process work with other heavenly beings hence the essence of team in bringing productivity, ‘Man’.

Hence companies have to encourage teamwork in order to gain competitive advantage because its base where new ideas come from. To employees teamwork is seen as constituting a larger group of people than what job position describes. The essence of teamwork is that workload is reduced and broken into pieces of work for everyone to take part. The backward development in organizations today can be attributed to inadequate teamwork among workers in an organization which in the long run affects the performance of the organization. Huge amount of money is also lost due to teamwork inadequacies which to say the least, drains the organization’s meager resources with its far-reaching and attendant consequences on the development of the organization.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their hard work. For if one of them should fall, the other one can raise his partner up. But how will it be with just the one who falls when there is not another to raise him up?" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, KJV). This implies that teamwork can accomplish what the individual cannot do on his or her own. Teamwork is defined as "a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable."

(Katzenbach and Smith, 1993)

In today's society, there have been so much emphasis on pride and personal achievement at work place; where by the concept of teamwork seems to be overlooked by managers and employees, due to this management sees less essence of teamwork as a major tool of performance which has lead them to poor performance and productivity in the industry market. Therefore the study seeks to identify the impact teamwork has on organizational performance.

 1.3 Objectives of the Study

1.             To identify the factors associated with teamwork?

2.             To identify the positive or negative effects of teamwork on employees?

3.             To examine the impact of teamwork on organization performance?