Teamwork

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

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2. Background information on National Development Agency

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2.1.

Organisational Structure

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2.2.

Operation of NDA

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3. Importance of Teamwork

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4. Factors Promoting Teamwork Success

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5. Factors Inhibiting Teamwork Success

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6. Characteristics of Successful Teamwork

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7. Conclusion

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List of Sources

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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 2

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). 4

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.

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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.

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Interpersonal skills – the team recognizes that members have different personalities and experiences problems at different stages.

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Open communication and positive feedback

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Appropriate team composition

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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 5

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.

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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 6

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 selfinterests. 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.

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