Organizational behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Organizational behaviour - Essay Example Team-based working is not same as group-working; the latter usually refers to two or more individuals that come together to achieve a common goal or share similar interests whereas the former entails and instills synergy through collective working and striving towards achievement of a common goal and usually results in enhanced performance. Katzenbach and Smith (1993; qtd in DeCarlo, 2010) define a team as, â€Å"a small number of people with complementary subject matter expertise who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and a common approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.† Teams can be of various types such as cross-functional teams, self-managed teams, virtual teams and problem solving or project teams. Accenture uses all these structures of teams to achieve its varied goals in diversified businesses across multiple locations. From a sociological and evolutionary perspective, it is true that ‘man’ is a social being a nd cannot live in isolation for longer time and achieve his desired goals. The same holds true in terms of his/her actions and performance. On another note, as pointed out by West and Markiewicz (2004; p.2), â€Å"To live, work, and play in human society is to cooperate with others.† These reasons are sufficient to advocate team-based working in highly competitive business environment. In an ideal state, team-based working is meant to bring together different people with diverse skills, attitudes, and experiences to come together and work towards a common goal. Such working is seen as an advantage by business leaders as it fosters innovative ideas, reduces erroneous activities/work, improves emotional statuses of employees and reduces individual stress. At Accenture, complex and... This paper says that team-based working involves grouping individuals that share common goals and interests; however, at an organisational level, these groups are formed on the basis of individuals’ abilities, skill-set, and job for which they are hired or job responsibilities. To sum up, the paper approves that on one hand team-based working facilitates better outcomes in less stressful manner and helps in establishing better relationships with other employees and customers and with employees across different functions. This structure improves communication process and helps in obtaining better understanding of expectations and goals, procedures and processes, and individuals’ abilities and weaknesses. On the whole, the team’s value and assets, in terms of people, knowledge, and resources, increases greatly compared to average value of individuals of the team put together. On the other side, team-based working comes with numerous challenges such as high potential for dysfunctioning of the team in the absence of right team members, effective leadership, appropriate resources and objectives, and the right approach to teamwork. Effective coordination and communication and appropriate cooperation among team members is essential to maintain harmon y among team members and in turn achieve desired objectives. Challenges surface in terms of differences at various levels such as profession, culture, personality, attitudes, roles, self-interests, and respective functional or organisational expectations.