Managing Teams

Ninety-one percent of organizations are significantly improving their effectiveness by using work teams. Work teams consist of a small number of people with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for pursuing a common purpose, achieving performance goals, and improving interdependent work processes. Teams are becoming more important in many industries because they help organizations respond to specific problems and challenges.

Though work teams are not the answer for every situation or organization, if the right teams are used properly and in the right set-tings, teams can dramatically improve company performance over more traditional management approaches while also instilling a sense of vitality in the workplace that is otherwise difficult to achieve.

Organizations recognize significant advantages of the use of teams. Companies are making greater use of teams because teams have been shown to improve customer satisfaction, product and service quality, speed and efficiency in product development, employee job satisfaction, and decision making. Teams help businesses increase customer satisfaction in several ways. One way is to create work teams that are trained to meet the needs of specific customers.

Organizational structures, in which management is responsible for organizational outcomes and performance, teams take direct responsibility for the quality of the products and service they produce and sell. Another reason for using teams is that teamwork often leads to increased job satisfaction. Teamwork can be more satisfying than traditional work because it gives workers a chance to improve their skills. This is often accomplished through cross-training, in which team members are taught how to do all or most of the jobs performed by the other team members. The advantage for the organization is that cross-training allows a team to function normally when one member is absent, quits, or is transferred.

Teamwork is also satisfying because work teams often receive proprietary business information that typically is available only to managers. Team members also gain job satisfaction from unique leadership responsibilities that are not typically available in traditional organizations.