KUWORNU MAWUSI FELIX

GHANA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS INDEX NUMBER: MBAE 11050219 COURSE CODE/ TITLE: GMBA 601 MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS ASSIGNMENT: INDIVIDUAL INTEGRATIVE CASE ANALYSIS CASE THE APPLICATION 0F BASIC MANAGEMENT THEORY AND CONCEPTS TOWARDS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEAM BIG SIX
LECTURER KEMS ADU-GYAN

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TABLE C0NTENTS PAGE Summary 3 Introduction 45 Analysis and Assessment 5 10 Conclusion and Recommendations 11 Reference 12 - 13

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Summary
Teams of people working together for a common purpose have been a Centre piece of social organization ever since our ancient ancestors first banded together to hunt game, raise families and defend the communities: Human history is largely a story of people working together in groups to explore, achieve, and conquer. Yet, the modern concept of work in large organizations that developed in the late 19th and 20th Centuries is largely a tale of work as a collection of individual jobs. A variety of global forces unfolding over the last two decades, however, has push organizations worldwide to restructure work around teams, to enable more rapid, flexible and adaptive responses to the unexpected. Teams influence events and solutions every day and their effectiveness is important to a wide range of institutional and organization functions. I would approach my individual reflective piece by looking at the Big Six Team and it application of basic management theory and concepts to their effective performance. The report would be introduced by defining Team Effectiveness and the Contextual factors that appear to be most significantly related to team performance. It shall then proceed to analyze the Big Six team in relation to the under listed theory and concepts namely:

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Team Development Planning Controlling Conflict Decision making Communication

Introduction
A team can be defined as: (a) Two or more individual who (b) Socially interact; (c) Possess one or more common goals; (d) Are brought together to perform organizational relevant task; (e) Exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goal, and outcomes; (f) Have different roles and responsibilities; and (g) Are together embedded in an encompassing organizational system, with boundaries and linkages to the broader system context and task environment. (Alderfer,1977; Argote & Mcgrath,1993; Hackman,1992; Hollenbeck et al.,1995; Kozlowski & Bell,2003; Kozlowski, Gully, McHugh, Salas & Cannon-Bowers,1996; Kozlowski et al,1999; Salas, Dickinson, Converse & Tannenbaum,1992). According to Cohen, Ledford and Spreitzer (1996), work team effectiveness is defined as both high performance and employee quality of work life. The

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idea draws from socio-technical theory which states that both social and technical system must be maximized for an optimally effective team. To better understand Team effectiveness, Team performance must be evaluated in terms of inter-team productivity and intra-team productivity. Four contextual factors appear to be significantly related to team performance. These are identified as: The presence of adequate resources Effective leadership A climate of trust A performance evaluation and reward system that reflects the team contribution An observation of individuals functioning within a team leads to the identification of a list characteristic which should qualify the individual as an effective team member. Such characteristics as understanding and commitment to group goals, a show of concern and interest in others, accomplishment and confrontation of conflict tactfully, embracing individual character and views are but a few of such qualities. Furtherance to the development of cohesive groups, elaboration of team work is necessary to the groups success. Members that emphasize team work acknowledge the efforts of the team, they feel responsible for what they do, and take pride in the work of other members of the group. Focus on commitment to task builds cohesiveness of the team. Building an effective team in this Age of rapidly changing technology, market driven decision making, customer sophistication and employee restlessness; leaders and managers are faced with new challenges.

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As work setting become more complex and involve increased numbers of interpersonal interactions, individual efforts has less impact. In order to increase efficiency and effectiveness, a group effort is required. The creation of teams has become a key strategy in many organizations. Team building is therefore an essential element supporting and improving the effectiveness of small groups and must be a key port of a total program of organizational change.

Analysis and Assessment

The analyses and assessment of Big Six would be done base on the Theory of Team Development by Tuckmann and the basic Management Concepts of: Planning Controlling Conflict Communication Decision Making

In relation to how best they were applied to the effectiveness of team Big Six.

Team Development Most groups go through a number of phases or stages if they exist for an extended period. It is clear, for example, that people tend to want to know something about the other members, have to develop a degree of interdependence in order

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that the group or team may achieve it task and be satisfying to its members and has to learn at some level to deal with conflict if it is to survive. The most influential Model of the development process has been that Bruce W. Tuckmann (1965). While there are various differences concerning the number of stages and their names many have adopted a version of Tuckmanns Model Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and a later addiction of Adjourning. This is how Tuckmann describe the stages in the original article: Groups initially concern themselves with orientation accomplished primary through testing. interpersonal and Such testing serves to identify the boundaries of both tasks behaviors. Coincident with testing in the

interpersonal realm is the establishment of dependency relationships with leaders, other group members, or pre-existing standards. It may be said that orientation, testing and dependence constitute the group process of forming. The second point in the sequence is characterized by conflict and polarization around interpersonal issues, with concomitant emotional responding in the task sphere. These behaviors serve as resistance to group influence and task requirement and may be labeled as storming. Resistance is overcomed in the third stage in which in-group feeling and cohesiveness develop, new standard evolve and new roles are adopted. In the task realm, intimate personal opinions are expressed. Thus, we have the stage of norming. Finally, the group attains the fourth and final stage in which interpersonal structure becomes the tools of task activities. Roles become flexible and functional, and group energy is channeled into the task. Structural issues have been resolved, and structure can now become supportive of task performance. This stage is called performing.

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A later addition of a fifth stage called Adjourning involves dissolution. dependency.

It

entails the termination of roles, the completion of tasks and reduction of

Relating the basic stages to Team Big Six, the foaming stage was characterized by members not clear on what they are supposed to do and people checking one another out. Discussions were more formal and bordered a lot on the setting of target and establishing roles. The need to move out of the forming stage was however not recognize early thereby drawing the main purpose of the group back a bit. Moving into the storming stage, the group articulated the roles and responsibilities of each member, cliques began to form, and the level of participation by some members was high while that of some was low. Basic procedures with regards to conflict resolution and communication were established. However, decision making procedures were left on assumptions. There seemed to be power play at this level too as some team members sought to exert their influence on the team. By the time the team moved into the Norming Stage, the team had gain commitment from all members on it direction and goals. Hidden agendas became open and the purpose of the Team had been well defined. Creativity creped in and some member became more motivated. base on who does what bests. Having entered the performing stage, evidence of high openness and support was visible. Team members became very motivated and some members deferred to team needs. There was very little waste and far more efficient team operation. Planning Team members could self-evaluate without a fuse and leadership roles in the team was being

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A teams process plan describes how the team will approach it work: a sequence of steps and a delegation of responsibilities. This process of deciding how to decide is making a meta-decision. Meta-decisions are more important in group decision making than in individual decision making. While an individual who has started in a wrong direction can turn around and go back to square one, a group moving in the wrong direction will have a tougher time undoing agreement and expectations among member in order to change course. The plan should therefore: i. ii. iii. iv. Specify how the team will resolve conflict Get going quickly Establish checkpoints Recycle issues as appropriate

In relation to Big Six, the activity of planning was carried out at the Forming Stage. The task target was set and role established among the members of the group. Feedback procedures were established and conflict resolution measures clearly defined. Each member made an input into the process plan which as a result made it easier for all to embrace and appreciate. Controlling Controlling is the groups decisions to impose a minimum required effort of each member in the team. It is defined as, Monitoring and evaluating individuals, groups and organizational performance to see whether the team or organization goals are being achieved. It is observed that comment in small groups tend to be directed more often (by direction of eye contact) to higher status group members than those of the lower status. It is also observed that high status usually results in a

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groups willingness to tolerate deviations on the part of a team or group member. Though a team will usually tolerate deviations from those members who are highly valued in it; my personal experience with the Big Six Team showed significant evidence to the contrary. Thus, members tolerated and treated each other with some equal measure of respect. The time frame for discussions was established. Discussions were controlled to ensure that group did not deviate from the business of the day. These measures enabled the team to concentrate on it set objectives. In all, the team was controlled by it set target and constrain placed on it by time.

Conflict It is common place for organizations today to work in teams. Whether they are leader-driven teams or self-directed teams, the hope is that productivity, creativity and results will be greater in a team environment. While this is a proven approach, any time you bring together people from different backgrounds and experiences, it is inevitable that conflict will occur. Many people view conflict as a negative, or something to be avoided. Yet conflict, differences or disagreements are a natural result of people working together. Also, without conflict, teams can become complacent and not perform at optimum levels. The challenge then becomes how should the team be prepared for this stage of their existence, and how should the team leader facilitate through it? Big Six had two main causes of conflict in its existence. These were: 1. Interdependence among team members and, 2. Inconsistent goals

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Of the two, the interdependence was the hardest to manage. However, the conflict management strategy that was established in the planning stage, that is, the laying down of ground rules and a conflict resolution process helped a lot in our navigation through this stage. With regards to the mis-alignment of goal, I experienced frequently that because each team member was coming in with experience from previous group engagement, they approached the project with different commitment, different timeline, or even with a hidden agenda of some type. In our attempt to resolve the situation, the leader pushed through a review and constant revisiting of goal statement set at the forming stage of the Team development model. Communication Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another to reach a common understanding. It is used in providing knowledge about the teams goals, how members in a group should perform a task, and standard of acceptable behavior in a group. Building good team spirit is not just a matter of organizing events; the routine work of project typically gives rise to many opportunities for human interaction (informal discussions, written messages). Each of these is an opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of the team by displaying the right attitude and saying the right things. The Big Six team employed the circle communication network with the email being the most used media due to us being workers. Other electronic media such as phones calls and text messaging were also used. The face-to-face communication posed a challenge as we were never guaranteed a full house during meeting with excuses being the order of

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the day. However, all communication was done in a polite manner and a very high level of decorum was expressed in every interaction. Decision Making Team decision making is a core team skill. Decisionmaking involves making a selection from among alternative courses of action. The decision making process begins with identifying and defining a problem, then generating a series of alternative solutions and evaluating them. Once a preferred alternative is selected, the team proceeds to the Action Planning Step. In a self-directing team, the team itself takes on an important decision making role in the organization. Effective team decision making implies engagement with the members of the team. Big Six had a decision making structure in place, however, this structure was not well defined and did not take into consideration the diverse team membership. Given these, the decision making process became chaotic some of the time and most often led to our inability to forge consensus for action. It accounted for delays encountered at various level of the Team development. I believe we took consensus for granted and felt it would easily come or happen. It did not.

Conclusion and Recommendations

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In conclusion, I would say that Team Big Six performed fairly well due to foundations which were laid at the Forming stage. Some of the key things which may have also contributed to the effectiveness of Big Six but may not have been mentioned in the analyses are: Frequent communication Self-evaluation without fuse Well laid down Conflict Resolution procedure

However, Big Six Teams effectiveness was not without some negatives along the way. Majorly, was the decision-making process which could not hold for long because of an undefined structure based on assumption on consensus building and our inability to acknowledge the diverse Team membership. I believe a consciousness toward these two issues of consensus building and the diverse Team membership would have helped in the design of a far more effective and well defined structure.

Reference

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Alderfer, C.P. (1977). Group and Intergroup relations. In J.R. Hackman & J.L. Suttle (Eds),Improving the quality of worklife (pp. 227-296), Palisades, CA: Good year. Argote., L & McGrath, J. E. (1993). Group process in organization. In C.L. Cooper & I.T Robertson (Eds); International Review of industrial and organization psychology (Vol. 8, pp.333 389). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cohen, S.G., Ledford, G.E., & Spreitzer, G.M. (1996). A predictive Model of self-managing work team effectiveness. Human Relations, 49(5), 653 676. Hackman, J.R. (1992). Group influence on individuals in organization. In M.D. Dunnette & L.M. Hough (Eds), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 199 -267. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press. Hollenbeck, J.R., Ilgen, D.R., Sego, D.J., Hedllund, J., Major, D.A., & Philips, J. (1995). Multilevel theory of team decision making: Decision performance in teams incorporating distributed expertise. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 292, - 316. Kozlowski, S.W.J., & Bell, B.S. (2003). Work group and teams in organization. In W.C. Borman, D.R. Ilgen, & R.J. Klimoski (Eds), Handbook of Psychology: Vol. 12. Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 333 375), London: Wiley. Kozlowski, S.W.J., Gully, S.M., McHugh, P.P., Salas, E., & Cannon Bowers, J.A. (1996). A dynamic theory of Leadership and team effectiveness: Developmental and task contingent Leader roles. In G.R. Eerris (Eds), Research in personal and human resource management. (Vol. 14, pp. 253 -305). Greenwich, CT. JAI Press. Kozlowski, S.W.J, Gully, S.M., Nason, E.R., & Smith, E.M. (1999). Developing adaptive teams: A theory of compilation and performance across levels and time: In D.R. Ilgen & E.D. Pulakos (Eds). The changing nature of work

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performance: Importance for staffing, personnel action, and development (pp. 240 292). Sam Francisco, Jossey Bass. Salas E., Dickson, T.L., Converse, S.A., & Tannenbaum, S.T. (1992). Toward an understanding of team performance and training. In R.W. Swezey & E. Salas (Eds), Teams: Their training and performance (pp.3-29). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Steve W.J. Kozlowski, Daniel R. Ilgen, (2006). Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams, Vol. 7 Number 3, pp. 77 Tuckman, Bruce W. (1965). Developing Sequence in small groups, Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384 399. Reprinted in Group Facilitation; A Research and Applications Journal Number 3, Spring 2011. Zsambok, Caroline E, Gary Klein, Molly M. Kyne, and David W. Klinger, 1992. Advanced Team Decision Making: A developmental Model, Fairborn, OH: Klein Associates Inc. National Defence University. Strategy Leadership and decision making: Consensus Team Decision Making. www.au.at.mil(www. au.at.mil/au/awc/awcgate/Strat-idr-dm/cont.html) Philips, Cynthia., Managing Team Conflict, Centre for Human System (2011). (www. Chumans.com/human-systems-resources / Managing-teamConflict.html) Team decision making (2009). www.argospress.com.

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