Paper Example on Team Building, Organizational Behavior and Leadership

Question 1

Benefits of Team Building in Organizations

Nowadays, teams have become an inherent factor for any organization to function effectively. Team building is a method by which a corporation enables individuals to join together to come up with a unified team. Team building plays a vital role in an organization wishing to achieve the best out of its workforce (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Workers are required to work harder and smarter to achieve the set objective in a particular organization. Various individuals have different skills, and when these skills are incorporated together in a team, they form a high-performing department. A team comprises two relationships, the relationship among each team member, and the relationship among the whole team and individuals (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). The main aim of this essay is to explain how to come up with a performing group in an organization and the essence of a team.

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In building a high performing team, I will begin by setting the objectives of an organization, identifying the people who will be in charge of the team and developing the roles of various individuals within the team. At this stage, mutual trust is minimal, and there is a need to develop a strategy on how to select the person in charge and how he or she will be controlling the team (Zhou & Shi, 2011). Some previous studies reveal that conflict between individual team members is beneficial since it can enhance creativity. However, in some critical circumstances, uncertainty in the early stages can be risky. The next step will be testing. The selected individuals will be allowed to test the assumptions and policies developed by the leader and decide if they fit and how they conform to the power structure (Zhou & Shi, 2011).

The next process will involve norming. The process will involve incorporating individual ideas together to resolve the power ambiguities to set a conducive environment suitable for accomplishing organization objective. At this stage, team members will be aware of their roles; hence, no issues of overlapping duties (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). The next level will purposely involve addressing the items that will be hindering best performance. This stage comprises active cooperation, helping behaviour and open communication to identify the job boundary disputes and the causes of conflicts. The identified issues will be efficiently and constructively addressed cohesively. The last step will involve awarding the individual team members for work well done and outlining the lessons learned for future reference (Zhou & Shi, 2011).

Particular considerations need to be put in place for virtual teams such as if the space of the office is limited. Virtual teams co-work in this situation to minimize the real estate costs. Ability to share information in various markets with reduced travel costs and communication. If you want to Minimize the conflicts among employees to make it easier for some of them to attract and retain talents. Teams have various challenges such as establishing cohesion, cooperation within some members and ensuring that members are committed to the overall objective of a team (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006).

Conclusion

Conclusively, team building is very critical nowadays for any organization willing to achieve excellent performance. Incorporation of various individual skills within an organization can be the best strategy of addressing issues. There are multiple steps involved in team building, which include forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. There are various challenges involved in teams which include establishing cohesion within the team, cooperation within some members and ensuring that members are committed to the overall objective of a team. Organizations should put into practice the idea of teams to realize the best performance.

References

Kozlowski, S. W., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological science in the public interest, 7(3), 77-124. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x

Zhou, W., & Shi, X. (2011). Special Review Article: Culture in groups and teams: A review of three decades of research. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 11(1), 5-34. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470595811398799

Question 2

Organizational Behavior and Leadership

Work ethics takes up a substantial position in human life. Work overload can lead to psychological tension or suffering, whether for work or personal related reasons. The major problem is that stress brought about by the overwork can result in burnout. Both work overload and stress can contribute to decreased employee concern and engagement, which lead to less productivity within an organization (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017). Pressure can occur as a result of internal or external forces. External forces come from outside the corporation. They can either initiate new opportunities in the organization, which can help it grow or contribute to the collapse of the organization. Internal forces originate from within the organization due to work overload, conflict and leadership problems which can contribute to less productivity, job dissatisfaction, unmet needs, overall turnover and absenteeism (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017). The main aim of this paper is to explain the strategies which can be in place to ensure that there is no work overload and burnout.

Various factors bring about stress and burnout in an organization. One of the ways to find the causes of is establishing the individual stressors. Work demands are one of the reasons for stressors and burn out in an organization. However, unclear expectations, work overload, everyday hassles, lack of adequate management of incidences happening around the work environment can also be an issue (Williams Thomas & Smith, 2017). One of the typical job stressors is loss of a job which impacts every feature of individual lives such as health, financial, interpersonal and professional relationship. Another way to establish the causes of stressors and burnout is by identifying the group level stressors. Corrupt managing officials contribute to employees' stress by displaying less concern to employees, providing inadequate support, giving unpleasant directions, focusing on employees' negative attributes rather than concentrating on an excellent performance (Williams et al., 2017).

Another way to diagnose the cause of stress and burnout is by observing the organizational level stressors. Corporations' principles can also be a stressor. An organization that creates a lot of pressure to employees leads to fear among employees concerning performing to the required standards, and this can raise the stress response (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017). The last but not least means to identify the causes of stress and burnout is by observing extra-organizational stressors. These factors come from outside the corporation. For example, struggles related to the balancing family life, school and career issues are stressful. Individuals with low economic status have high stress and burnout (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017).

I will incorporate various measures to ensure that employees do not suffer from mental and physical well-being. Such actions will include adequate staffing to address workload. Some managers distribute a large amount of work along with few employees, which results in workload and finally stress. I will also develop an active schedule that will monitor the employee shifts to ensure that each worker has enough time to rest. Creating a conducive environment by providing sound lighting system, installing air conditioners and other workplace aspects that can alleviate employee fatigue.

In conclusion, the work environment is a very critical factor that can help realize either high or less productivity. There are various ways to diagnose the causes of stress, which include establishing the individual level, group level, organizational level and extra corporate level stressors. Managers should develop schedules and staffing mechanism that will help to shift employees to avoid unnecessary fatigue.

References

Fernandez, S., & Rainey, H. G. (2017). Managing successful organizational change in the public sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315095097/chapters/10.4324/9781315095097-2

Williams, G., Thomas, K., & Smith, A. P. (2017). Stress and well-being of university staff: An investigation using the Demands-Resources-Individual Effects (DRIVE) model and Well-being Process Questionnaire (WPQ). Psychology, 8(12), 1919. Retrieved from http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=79638

Question 3

Organizational Behavior and Leadership

Organizations are formed by various teams that assist in achieving corporations' objectives and meet their projections. While people strive to maintain high productivity, teams play a vital role in ensuring a constant level of accomplishment within the corporation as a whole (Allmendinger Hackman & Lehman, 1996). Basing on organization structure, there could be temporary teams, permanent teams, workforce teams, committees, self-managed teams, cross-functional teams, virtual teams and task force teams. Each kind of team has a different team structure. The design of each team is very critical to help in achieving the desired outcome at the end. It enhances performance through cooperation and open communication to address issues that hinder the progress (Allmendinger et al., 1996). The main aim of this essay is to discuss the condition of effective teams basing on Hackman's five conditions.

The latest team experience that I would like to explain as an example is the current active formation of a football team to play a match. The team was divided into three groups, two comprising four members and one three members. There were mutual respect and cooperation among the teams which made the team to achieve excellent performance. Each team was performing a specific role without negative criticism. The teams cooperated with each other to ensure the accomplishment of each team objective and the general objective, which was to win at the end of the last minute.

Heckman's five conditions, compelling direction and the real team were effective in realizing the overall achievement. There was a system with clear duties and roles given to each team member which guided the team to work in the same direction. The team had a solid structure such as vision and mission statement, guiding principles and core values which acted as a building block for developing a capable team. The team also had active coaching and supportive organization which provided right processes, tools and systems to back their team. The effective coaching mechanism from the coach encouraged teamwork.

The team performance was measured by comparing the team results to the overall organization. This is done to establish if the team outcome conforms to the general aim of the organization. Examine if the process used by the team was active at every step. Measuring both individual and team performance can assist evaluate team performance. This is mainly to evaluate if each team and each individual in every team performed his assigned task and come up with strategies to address the same in future.

Inconclusion, Organizations are formed by various teams that assist in achieving the company's objectives and meet their projections. While people strive to maintain high productivity, teams play a vital role in ensuring a constant level of accomplishment within the corporation as a whole. The design of a team is a critical factor for any organization willing to achieve excellent performance. The Heckm...