Team Building Processes in the United States and Asia
There arises a time in every industry that it becomes necessary for a manger to institute a renovation in the design or functioning of an organization in order to become more effective at achieving goals. This is termed organizational change. While varying degrees of change can occur for a variety of positive and negative reasons, it is implicitly understood that a controlled change is more likely to produce beneficial results than an uncontrolled change. There are a variety of methods available for a manager to choose from once he or she has decided to implement organizational change. One particular strategy is that of organizational development (OD).
Founder of the Organization Development Network, Richard Beckhard, defines OD as: a planned effort, organization-wide, managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health, through planned interventions in the organization's ?processes' using behavioral science knowledge (Smith, 1998). Ultimately the goal of OD is to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of the organization so that it can better adapt to new technologies, markets, and challenges.
Although there is a multitude of OD strategies available, one of the most common is team building. Hellriegel et. al., define team building as a process that develops the ability of team members to collaborate effectively so they can perform the tasks assigned to them (2005).
In the U.S., teams are quickly assembled for a purpose that tends to be immensely variable. It is common for teams to be oriented toward short-term goals. Asian team goals are comparatively long-ter ...