TEAMWORK

Topic : Teamwork is an important component of the effective

functioning of any organisation. Choose an organization of your choice and
demonstrate through a case study approach, how teams operate and function in an
organization. Weigh up factors that promote or inhibit successful teamwork in an
organization. Discuss the characteristics of successful work teams in your essay.

Table of Content

1. Introduction 1

2. Background information on National Development Agency 1

2.1. Organisational Structure 2

2.2. Operation of NDA 2

3. Importance of Teamwork 3

4. Factors Promoting Teamwork Success 4

5. Factors Inhibiting Teamwork Success 5

6. Characteristics of Successful Teamwork 6

7. Conclusion 6

List of Sources 7

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 1. Introduction
The success of teamwork is an integral part of any organization wishing to succeed in
the global community. In order for organization to achieve any desired goals it should
know its status thus, background and the impact or importance of teamwork in an
organization. Teamwork enhances the organization to operate and function to its best
ability as well as to understand crucial issues such as factors promoting teamwork
success and the disadvantages inhibiting teamwork success. This article will review an
in depth information on National Development Agency and a diagram showing the
organizational structure. Furthermore, characteristics of successful teamwork will be
discussed in order to expose gaps on negative factors inhibiting teamwork success. The
study will reveal that NDA has been an effective teamwork in achieving their goals.

2. Background information on National Development Agency

The national development agency was established in November 1998 and is a public
entity listed under the schedule 3A of the Public Finance Management Act and it report
to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa through the minister of Social
Development and is subjected to carry out the following task, firstly to contribute
towards the eradication of poverty and its causes by granting funds to civil society
orgainsations for the purposes of implementing development projects of poor
communities and strengthening the institutional capacity of other civil society
organizations that provide services to poor communities. To promote consultation,
dialogue and sharing of development experience between civil society organizations
and relevant organs of state, debate development policy and as well as to undertake
research and publication aimed at providing the basis for development policy. The
mission and vision of National Development Agency is to see a developing society free
from poverty and to contribute to poverty eradication and the elimination of its causes
(Mokate: 2009).

2.1. Organisational Structure

The organizational structure is by nature hierarchical in the sense that it starts with the
CEO and followed by other subordinates in the structure. This type of bureaucratic
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structure is accompanied by top down decision making in an organization is groupthink
is most present or will take place. The following are the management of NDA:

Source 2009: NDA

The organization finances all the South African provinces and each and every province
the orgainsation has offices to administer the projects as well as to finance them. The
key success of this institution is that communication is vital to the in the sense that
every individual administering projects is well informed and advised before allocating
funds to any projects a community want to pursue (Mokate: 2009).
2.2. Operation of NDA
The philosophy of each and every oragnisation is to treat each and every assignment or
project as a valued work in order to succeed, is either using a custom-designed strategy
focusing on the requirements and expectations of individuals within that organization or
their organisation. In order to start seeing the results, the organisation’s teamwork
should be committed to flexible and creative approach to meet the evolving needs of
their clients or beneficiaries and that’s what the NDA was doing for the past 11 years in
the industry (Mokate: 2009).

3. Importance of Teamwork

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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. The following assignment will address issues like the importance of an
organization, operational function, factors promoting teamwork and overview of the
organizational structure. The only purpose hwy teamwork is vital to an organization is
that, it instill hard work among individuals within the organization (Wageman 1997:56).
However, without teamwork houses take long to build, government collapse and
companies are out shined by their competitors in the market and lastly without
teamwork people lose their inspiration. According to Wageman (1997:49) “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”. To gain competitive
advantage companies have to encourage teamwork 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 (Ridgeway 1993:43).

4. Factors Promoting Teamwork Success

Teamwork is a cooperative process that allows ordinary people to achieve extraordinary
results. Team has a common goal or purpose where team members can develop
effective, mutual relationships to achieve team goals. Teamwork relies upon individuals
working together in a cooperative environment to achieve common team goals through
sharing knowledge and skills. The core element of which a team is to obey is the focus
towards a common goal and a clear purpose. Teams are an integral part of many
organizations and should be incorporated as part of the delivery of company units.
Team members must be flexible enough to adapt to cooperative working environment
where goals are achieved through collaborative and social interdependence rather than
individualized, competitive goals (Scarnati 2001:8).

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The most dominant and popular factor promoting teamwork success is inter-group
competition meaning is competition among groups in the company for example a group
from Limpopo province competing with a group from Gauteng (NDA). It instill group
effectiveness and cooperation because when groups turn to compete with each other
members are most likely to conform to the rules and values that a particular team
uphold in order to reach effective teamwork. Inter-group competition it is very important
to a team in the sense that common goals and consensus will be agreed upon to create
a monotonous environment that every member will work faster on their activities.
According to Steyn and Uys (1998:201) groups experience higher productivity when
their members are competing with other groups and an increase in attraction within
members (Wageman 1997:50).
A successful teamwork subscribes to the following norms or rules

• Commitment to team success and shared goals – meaning a team is highly

focusing on delivering a quality product so in the case of NDA the aim is to
reduce poverty and its causes.
• Interdependence – the team members feel responsible towards other members
of the team and that the success of the project is based upon each team
member’s contribution.
• Interpersonal skills – the team recognizes that members have different
personalities and experiences problems at different stages.
• Open communication and positive feedback
• Appropriate team composition
• Commitment to team processes, leadership & accountability

5. Factors Inhibiting Teamwork Success

The National Development Agency experienced severe team problems which caused it
to become dysfunctional and had to be split in one department in 2004, but in the
middle of the year task was transferred to other provinces between members, as it was
perceived that some team members were not contributing. Even though agreement was
made about at the meeting and conferences as well as in the parliament by minister of
social development that duties should be transferred equally to all the provinces and
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money as well should be transferred as such in order to improve the situation,
resentment among team members escalated, why is because others were not
competent enough to do the work (Mokate 2007).
The members of the team should be tolled of their expected roles to play within the
group or teamwork and team skills seems to be a stagnating point to solving issues and
progressing. Teamwork skills include the following as stipulated by Scarnati (2001:5)
“lack of listening skills, lack of respect, sharing, helping and participation. As teams grow
larger, the skills and methods that people require grow as more ideas are expressed
freely but the problem is other teams cannot keep up with the rapid growth of teams and
often experience the following problems:
• Absence of trust – it develops from the teams unwillingness to be vulnerable
within the group and team members are often not genuinely open with one
another about mistakes and weaknesses and making it impossible to build a
foundation for trust.
• Fear of Conflict – teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered
passionate debate of ideas and instead the only solution is resort to veiled
discussions and guarded comments.
The causes of teamwork failure is group size cause large groups less productivity
and coordination losses is mostly to take place within that organization, meaning
inefficiency that result from the group member’s inability to combine their
resource in a maximally productive way. Social loafing is the other ingredient of
factors inhibiting teamwork success, thus, relaxation that people experience
when in a group and individual performance cannot be evaluated.

6. Characteristics of Successful Teamwork

Successful teamwork relies upon synergism existing between all team members
creating an environment whereby all the members are willing to contribute and
participate in order to promote and nurture a positive, effective team environment. The
following characteristics where identified as been the most popular among different
teams to success, firstly, the team must take responsibility and accept credit for its
actions as a group and not individually, as well as it must be committed to a common
purpose and goal. Teams must be provided clear expectations and adequate resources
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to accomplish its goals. Secondly, the team must be able to communicate effectively
with each other and encourage new ideas from others as well (Steyn & Uys 1998).
Members of the team must be trustworthy and put the team’s goals ahead of self-
interests. The ability to learn and appreciate the diversity of knowledge that the other
team members have to offer, and also members of the team must be creative and
unafraid to share opinions, ideas and suggestions. Thirdly, members of the team must
avoid conflicts when challenges occur and instead focus on overcoming those
challenges (Ridgeway 1993:60).

7. Conclusion
The case study on National Development Agency outlined how well the teams
performed by identifying the factors that promote and inhibit teamwork success. The
results from this thesis indicate that how the team will work effectively when every
member put an extra effort to their work. Further teamwork is all about collaborative and
cooperativeness not domination to other group members because it reduces creativity.

List of Sources
Mokate, G. 2007. Annual Report. National Development Agency, 20 February. Pretoria.
Social Development (assessed from http://www.nda.org.za on 10 March 2009).
Ridgeway, C. L. 1993. The Dynamic of Small Groups. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Scarnati, J. T. 2001. On Becoming a Team Player: Team Performance Management. An
International Journal, 7 (2): 5-10.
Steyn, A. F. and Uys, T. 1998. The Small Group: Structure and Dynamics. Sunnyside:
Konsortium.
Wageman, R. 1997. Critical Success Factors for Creating Superb Self-Managing
Teams. Organisational Dynamics, 26 (1): 49-62.