Team effectiveness

Team effectiveness (also referred to as group effectiveness) is the capacity a team has to accomplish the goals or objectives administered by an authorized personnel or the organization. A team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, share responsibility for outcomes, and view themselves as a unit embedded in an institutional or organizational system which operates within the established boundaries of that system. Teams and groups have established a synonymous relationship within the confines of processes and research relating to their effectiveness (i.e. group cohesiveness, teamwork) while still maintaining their independence as two separate units, as groups and their members are independent of each other's role, skill, knowledge or purpose versus teams and their members, who are interdependent upon each other's role, skill, knowledge and purpose. There are six different team effectiveness models including Rubin, Plovnick, and Fry's GRPI model, the Katzenbach and Smith model, the T7 model, the LaFasto and Larson model, the Hackman model and the Lencioni model. The evaluation of how effective a team is, is achieved with the aid of a variety of components derived from research and theories that help in creating a description of the multifaceted nature of team effectiveness. According to Hackman (1987), team effectiveness can be defined in terms of three criteria: In order for these criteria to be assessed appropriately, an evaluation of team effectiveness should be conducted, which involves both a measure of the teams’ final task performance as well as criteria with which to assess intragroup process. The three major intragroup process constructs examined are intra-group conflict, team cohesion, and team-efficacy. Intra-group conflict is an integral part of the process a team undergoes and the effectiveness of the unit that was formed. Previous research has differentiated two components of intra-group conflict: Team cohesion is viewed as ‘‘a general indicator of synergistic group interaction—or process’’. Furthermore, cohesion has been linked to greater coordination during team-tasks as well as improved satisfaction, productivity, and group interactions. Team efficacy refers to team members’ perceptions of task-specific team competence. This construct is thought to create a sense of confidence within the team that enables the group to persevere when faced with hardship.According to Hackman (2002), there are also 5 conditions that research has shown to optimize the effectiveness of the team: The Aristotle project, a multi-year initiative by Google Inc. aimed at defining the characteristics of an ideal team in the workplace, has found somewhat similar conditions for group effectiveness. They found that by far, most important factor is psychological safety. The other key factors in productivity are dependability, structure and clarity, personal meaning, and each team member feeling like they have an impact. Work teams (also referred to as production and service teams) are continuing work units responsible for producing goods or providing services for the organization. Their membership is typically stable, usually full-time, and well-defined. These teams are traditionally directed by a supervisor who mandates what work is done, who does it, and in what manner is it executed. Work teams are effectively used in manufacturing sectors such as mining and apparel and service based sectors such as accounting which utilize audit teams. Self-managed work teams (also referred to as autonomous work groups) allow their members to make a greater contribution at work and constitute a significant competitive advantage for the organization. These work teams determine how they will accomplish the objectives they are mandated to achieve and decide what route they will take to complete the current assignment. Self-managed work teams are granted the responsibility of planning, scheduling, organizing, directing, controlling and evaluating their own work process. They also select their own members and evaluate the members' performance. Self-managed work teams have been favored for their effectiveness over traditionally managed teams due their ability to enhance productivity, costs, customer service, quality, and safety. Self-managed work teams do not always have positive results, however. These teams can be expensive to start, have the potential for the greatest conflict, and are often difficult to monitor the progress of. The move to self-managed work teams at Levi Strauss & Co. in the 1990s pitted highly skilled and efficient workers against their slower counterparts, who the faster workers did not feel were sufficiently contributing to the team.