Team_Work

Compare and contrast paper Comm. 105 John Waldron University of Phoenix Eric DeMore On Tuesday, June 17 2008, the Boston Celtics won their seventeenth NBA title, and their first since the 1985-86 seasons. This twenty two year drought represents the longest time the Celtics have gone without wining the championship since their first during the 1956-57 season. That they won it in commanding fashion against their long time playoff rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers no doubt made the victory even sweeter. It was the perfect cap to a season during which the Celtics had the best record in the NBA. A very convincing argument can easily be made that the best team in the NBA won its highest honor. Watching the series, it was easy to see it was a team victory. Watching the team in action, it was easy to see the part effective communication played in achieving a goal the Celtic organization set months before. Effective communication, in whatever field of endeavor, whether it be sports, politics, or business, is essential if the featured organization is going to reach its goals. While the advantages of team work are blatantly obvious in the sporting world, many people, many managers in the business world, eschew working in teams as a waste of time and resources and a threat to their own position and authority. In reality, the opposite is true. Rather than wasting time and resources, working as a team maximizes effort and makes the greatest use of available resources. N Ravindran in his article titled Team Building Revisited in the Dec-Jan 2008 issue of Today’s Manager stated, “Team building is a proven method for blending the talents, skills, and inherent creativity of diverse peoples.” He also stated, “Team member seem to understand that it’s a lot easier to support your team member when you have a good relationship. This kind of relationship building is open and involves direct communication, frequent praising of each others’ contributions, and mutual support.” As any organization’s greatest resource is its members, working in teams allows a skilled manager to use those members to the greatest effect. If one person focuses on the goal, even if that person is as diligent and dedicated as possible, that goal is only being assailed from one direction. If the efforts of two or three people are focused on that same goal, the work can be divided and the goal can be achieved more rapidly. Additionally, each team member’s experiences can impact that goal in different ways. If a manager wants to make the most effective use of his team members, it behooves him to get to know them. This is not to say he should intrude into their personal lives. Rather the effective manager takes time to become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of his team members. He familiarizes his self with their personnel files, in particular those parts having to do with their education and experience. By so doing he enables his self to make the best, most effective use of his greatest resource, his team members. A wise manager knowing the strength and weaknesses of his team members will place them in situations that accentuate their strengths, while minimizing their weaknesses. For example, a team member who is innovative and able to make cognitive leaps with negligible information, but who at the same time is seriously lacking in fiscal ability would not be charged with finding financing for the project. He would instead be placed in a position where his particular talents would come into play and the entire team could benefit. Obviously if this team of individuals with disparate personalities and an assortment of talents, abilities, and experiences are going to work toward a single goal, that goal must be clearly and definitively delineated. Returning for a moment to the example involving the Celtics; doubtless sometime before the beginning of the season, most likely at the end of the 2006-07 season, the Celtic coaching staff and management set the goal to win the NBA championship. With that goal in mind, and set as a standard to guide them, they noted where the team was strong, looked at where it was weak and moved to bolster those strengths and eliminate the weaknesses. When they approached the draft and free agency, having studied the team’s strengths and weaknesses, they then sought players and perhaps additional assistant coaches whose talents and experience would allow them to over come the weaknesses that prevented the team from making it to that level the previous season, while bolstering the strengths they could play on in the coming season. In a like manner in the business world, a manager sets a goal, a project to be completed. Then looking at the team members he has he can put those team members in positions, and give them responsibilities that will maximize everyone’s productivity while minimizing the effect of the weaknesses everyone possesses. The thread which binds a successful team together, and permeates every aspect of their working collectively, is effective communication. One of the most effective yet most ill used methods of team communication is the meeting. An employee sits in his office in the mid afternoon working on some facet of the target project when a knock on the door derails his train of thought and sends it careening down unproductive paths. Somewhat frustrated at the interruption, the employee bids the person knocking enter and is thereafter informed it is time for the bi-weekly meeting to discuss progress. With a roll of his eyes and a barely audible groan, the employee pushes his chair back from his desk and walks dejected to what he fully anticipates will be another waste of time. This employee could be any employee, male or female, from any company when faced with the prospect of another in a long line of meetings. Most employees learning they are going to be subjected to another meeting greet the news with an attitude of resigned acceptance, hoping the meeting will be as short and painless as possible. N Ravindran in his article titled Team Building Revisited in the Dec-Jan 2008 issue of Today’s Manager Work together effectively. Meetings are one of the most powerful tools for communication in companies, second only to organizational grapevines.” When people come together in a meeting, they disseminate a great deal of information. Meetings facilitate an exchange of ideas allowing all members in attendance to interact and interject their own points of view. Notwithstanding the effectiveness of meetings, most employees look at them with a certain amount of dread and trembling. Meetings are often viewed as an ineffective waste, which take up too much or to little time, and as an exercise in futility as nothing is ever decided or accomplished. Effective meetings are powerful tools managers can use to allow all team members feel they are contributing to the completion of the target project. Well managed and well organized meetings become arenas where ideas can be exchanged and goals can be evaluated and if necessary modified. Meetings can also be forums where productive conflict can be used as a means to overcome and circumvent obstacles that hinder the progress toward goal accomplishment. Many people view conflict as a completely negative and undesirable experience. Wise managers however understand that conflict in a controlled setting can be beneficial. Not conflict in the sense of a physical or verbal confrontation. Rather conflict in the sense of opposing ideas or strategies discussed and evaluated to discover which the better alternative is. In their article titled The Importance of Conflict in Work Team Effectiveness, Michael A Esquivel and Brian H. Kleiner state, “While conflict can be viewed as negative, it has important implications in increasing the effectiveness of a team’s decision making processes. In other words, conflict is a valuable tool a manager can utilize to bring out the best in his team members. Obviously this conflict cannot be allowed to become personal. It cannot be allowed to develop into an attack by one team member against another’s personality, abilities, or even that team member’s ideas. The conflict has to be not so much controlled as channeled in a positive direction. This type of conflict referred to by Esquivel and Kleiner as Type C conflict, “focuses on substantive issue related differences of opinion that tend to improve team effectiveness. To put it differently, this type of conflict is directed at the issues being discussed and resolving those issues rather than being directed at the person or persons putting forward those issues. Rather than creating an atmosphere of bruised egos and stifled creativity, this type of conflict creates an environment where team members are motivated to find solutions. It serves to cement the team into a cohesive unit rather than divide it into disparate parts where each person seeks his or her own ends rather than those of the team. Whatever the means, effective communication is integral to the success of any team driven objective. The use of the computer, the internet, and wired and wireless technology alike has opened new vistas of communication giving team member access to information and each other that when the Boston Celtics won their last championship would have been the stuff of science fiction. While most often associated with teen agers and their friends, instant messaging can also be an effective communication’s tool especially if team members working on the same project are in different locations. Unlike regular e-mail which requires the reader to open the message to read and respond to it; instant messaging is as the name implies, instant. If a team member working on a project on the east coast is hit with sudden inspiration, using instant messaging he can contact his team member on the west coast and they can “instantly” discuss the idea and how it could impact their project. Instant messaging of course serves every bit as well for team members across the corridor from each other as it does for those across the country. The advantages of working in teams are clear. It provides opportunities for everyone involved to make a contribution and feel part of the end success. With effective communication through the use of well organized productive meetings and other means of exchanging information, organizations who work in teams will find their productivity increased and their employee satisfaction heightened. References N Ravindran : Team Building Revisited Dec-Jan 2008 issue of Today’s Manager The Importance of Conflict in Work Team Effectiveness, Michael A Esquivel and Brian H. Kleiner