. Introduction

This essay is about teams that work in an organization. This essay has three parts; introduction, main body and conclusion. The essay has discussed the factors that are important for team development and that must be considered in order to enhance effectiveness of a group or a team. Team is a group of diverse individuals who share common objectives and goals. The persons who work in a team have clear perception that their success is totally mainly dependent on success of individuals who work in a same team. There is a need of cohesion in an effective team (Joo et al., 2012).

2. Main Body

For understanding the ways of assembling team, there is a need of first creating an environment in which members of team can work in an effective way. By understanding the ways of creating effective team, the organization can get high level of success.

For successfully managing the team and to bring change within team, new team members must be recruited on regular basis. For the purpose of recruitment, the team leader should follow Belbin’s Team role theory. In accordance with this theory, the team leader should hire following kinds of people;

1. co-coordinator:  who has the responsibility of decision making
2. Implementer:  who sets goals and aims of company
3. Shaper:  who provides orientation
4. Plant:  who gives new and innovative concepts and ideas
5. resource investigator:  who is involved in research and development
6. monitor/evaluator:  who has the responsibility of evaluating
7. team worker:  who has high self esteem
8. completer-finisher:  attention to detail
9. Specialist:  expert advice/support

So, for making effective team, the team leader should analyze above mentioned features and characteristics for knowing the kind of person required for becoming the member of team (Belbin, 1981)

Source: (Squire, 2012)

There are many factors which can have significant impact on performance of team. There is a need of understanding all the factors completely in order to make the team effective as well as efficient.

Cohesiveness means sticking together. The leaders can make the groups cohesive by assuring that there is an identification of membership by members of teams. The identification of membership means all the individuals feel proud to be a part of team. This is done when the individuals think about the goals and aims of group as their personal aims and goals. The groups that have high level of cohesiveness have lower turnover. The cohesiveness of team depends on the stay of members in team. Due to high level of retention of team members in team, the cohesiveness also increases (Zacher & Rosing, 2015). The longer retention of team members in team predicts that;

• The team members give value to their whole group or organization
• They get advantages from participation in team which cannot be gained from any other group
• They have made huge investments in group so they cannot leave their membership

The team can gain many advantages through high level of cohesiveness in team;

• The satisfaction level of team members would become high
• There is more effective achievement of goals and aims of team
• Cohesiveness results in high level of communications
• There is high level of influence of team on its members (Oosterwal, 2010).

The term conformity is defined as "going along". Group conformity occurs when the participants of the group own a specific position on opposed to other team members and groups in favour of view of most of the people. This abandonment is know as conforming, which happens for a lot of reasons involving: force to compromise, emotional or logical time constraints, personal frustration, time constraints, coercion or assuming the futility of any progressive argument. Many forces are present in teams and groups for the conformation of individuals. Although, participants should do the advocacy of their positions, articulately and politely, until disapprove of those positions. None of the ideas should be dismissed till the evidence, analysis test (LIN, 2008).

There is a specific role of every individual working in a team. These roles are set and communicated effectively to all members in order to make them engaged in activities of group. There is a need of developing clear goals in the start of team making. All the norms and standards must be formed with consent of all partners. It is the role of leader to set a plan for making an agenda and to set norms of team. Norms include different standards and values that all members of group accept. There are various kinds of norms like norms related to performance and norms related to appearance. The norms regarding social arrangement see the acceptable links and there are also norms related to allocation of resources which depicts the way in which distribution of things is done (Mosser & Begun, 2014).

In 1920s and 1930s, Hawthorne researches were conducted. Their results have extensively been used for understanding the interactions between group members. According to these researches there is a high impact of norms and values of group on behaviour of members working in a group. It has also been found that in order to make effective group, money is not the only thing to be focused on.

Another factor that has an impact on decision making in teams is conflict among team members. There is a high possibility of experiencing conflict among team members. If the leader would not focus on conflict issues then this would lead to decisions which cannot be evaluated thoroughly. The team members must be integrated by making them capable of understanding and accepting of others’ ideas (Northouse, 2013). This can help the team leader in making cooperative team. In contrast to this, it is usually productive to have conflict between two different groups. Although the conflict between two different groups can be motivating for shorter period of time, but for long term it is not a good strategy to be followed (Azher, 2009).

In order to manage a group in an effective way, there is a need of strong leadership. Leadership is a process of influencing others through which on individual influence others’ behavior through his or her leadership skills. There are different directions and approaches to leadership which can be followed by leaders in order to make the team effective (Lindoerfer, 2008)

Shared leadership is very important approach that can be undertaken by a group. The function of leadership is shared by effective teams and groups. In shared leadership, there is a need of having significant communication among members of group with leader (Fahey & Herring, 2007). The members of team must be encouraged to contribute and participate effectively in team. All the members must speak and take part in decisions and discussions of team. The new and innovative ideas must be shared by each member of team. Through complete adaption of shared leadership the team in an organization can be made effective (Parker, 2009).

Another factor that has significant influence on team effectiveness is intellectual stimulation. The intellectual stimulation can be provided by leaders through motivating followers for thinking about old issues in innovative ways. The innovative ideas must be prioritized and motivated by leaders. The leaders must ask different questions from members in order to stimulate their intellect (Pope & Blyth, 2008).

In order to make effective teams, there is a strong need of inspiring employees through increasing their interest in activities and tasks of group. With the passage of time, the members of team are served as a glitter for team. With the inspiration of team members, the awareness and commitment level of individuals can be increased. This can help in achieving the purpose and goals of organization. The leader must prove to be an inspiration for his or her followers. The leader must show importance to a task in order to make employees feel the same. Similarly, if leader through communication shows that task can be achieved through strong dedication of team members or employees, then the employees will also feel the same (Quinteiro et al., 2014).

Charisma is developed by leaders when strong feelings are sensed by followers regarding identity and belief in leader. Charisma is a powerful aspect of shared leadership in organization. Charisma helps in transforming non-active followers to active leaders. When there is no dedicated leadership, then there is no chance of survival of group or team. There is a need of one charismatic leader for dominating the team in order to ensure effectiveness within team (Purvanova & Bono, 2009).

The followers must be convinced by leaders that there is more importance of long term needs then short term needs. There must be a clear distinction between long term and short term needs. Leaders have to identify those short term investments which result in long term outcomes. The employee must be given with long time in order to enhance creativity in their work. The morale of employees might be increased due to short term investments which result in long term enhanced production (Spaulding, 2008).

3. Conclusion

Teams are very important part of any organization. In this competitive business world, all the organizations have to focus on team development in order to ensure success of organization. It is not enough to just develop teams, but there is also a need of enhancing effectiveness of teams. There are different factors which must be considered by team leaders in order to influence team effectiveness. All the factors have individual importance, so proper focus must be given on all factors in order to enhance performance of team members. The most important factor is contribution of leaders in betterment of teams. So, leader must be strong enough for enhancing team performance.

References

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Squire, L., 2012. Editorial Team Update. Middle East Development Journa, 1, p.4.

Zacher, H. & Rosing, K., 2015. Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), pp.54-68.