High Performance Teams
Whether through sports, business, or family, nearly everyone has at one time or another has been part of a team. Teams are every where and if one plans on succeeding in business in today's workforce, they need to get used to it as it appears that teams are here to stay. Not every team though is productive. Very often teams end up performing poorly or result in internal conflict that gets out oh hand to the point that nothing gets done. Organizations both small and large recognize the benefits of good teamwork. In fact, the amount of money spent on education related to learn how to perform well as a team has likely never been higher. It takes a special group of individuals in a unique environment to work well enough together to be considered a high performance team.
Generally, high performance teams are created with a specific mission or purpose in mind (Argyris, 1965).These groups are empowered to make decisions and establish their objectives while remaining focused on the task. It is important to understand that each member of a high performance team has to be motivated, responsible, innovative, and responsive in order for the team to operate well (Argyris, 1965). Each member of the team needs to have a clear vision of the team's goals. The teams goals also need to align with the personal goals of the members as well as the goals of the organization. The group both as a whole and individually need to have a shared understanding of each team members' roles. High performance teams tend to work on challenging tasks, therefore individual accountability and equality in workload must be a priority of every team member.
Typically in America, individual achievement is the goal of many. In reality though, supervisors must depend on the coop ...