Benefits and Theories of Teamwork

The assignment provides an overview of the benefits and theories of teamwork. It highlights the importance of team work in a business firm, citing its ability to increase company growth and productivity. The two main theories of team development discussed are Tuckman's Team Development Theory and The Team Syntegrity Theory. The assignment also delves into the advantages and disadvantages of these theories, concluding that team work is essential for a company's success.

Assess the benefits of teams in an
organisation of your choice, by applying
two different theories

In an organisation, teamwork is very important as if employees work in a team then
company can achieve its goals and objectives in more effective and efficient way. Teamwork
refers to the efforts made by each and every team member for achieving common aim or
objectives of a business firm (Finn, Currie and Martin, 2010). Tesco is a big retail organisation
and it does retailing of many products such as software, toys, electronics, clothing, etc. In this
essay, there will be discussion on the benefits of teams in Tesco by applying two theories of team
development along with their advantages or disadvantages.
Team work refers to work together in a group for accomplishing the target and objectives
of company. It is the backbone of a team. In Tesco, there are large number of employees and
teams working for achieving the common goals of business enterprise. If team members will
work from sharing, then they can perform better. The leaders of Tesco regularly motivate their
employees to work together in a team without arising any conflict. With the help of team work,
sales and goodwill of a business organisation gets increased. It is good for the future prospectus
of company. Performance of a single person does not include in a team. (Ivanova-Stenzel and
Kübler, 2011). For building a team, there is a big role of leader or a manager. If at workplace,
there are any kind of conflict arise, then it is the responsibility of manager to listen the problems
of two parties and then take a common satisfactory solution which will be in in favour of both
the parties. Conflict can decrease the profitability and growth of company. The main benefit of
team work is that from a team develops accurate and innovate solution to deals with any type of
problem. Trust is an important factor to work in a team. If employees are working in a team, then
there should be trust among them. The second function of teamwork is conflict management. If
there is any dispute arise among team members then in this case, it is the responsibility of
manager to resolve it. Through making healthy and harmonious relationship, team members will
understand the feelings of each other and also complete work by sharing. It is the duty of a
manager to work on maintaining a strong relationship between all employees. Commitment is the
third main function and it means that if team leader decides to do a particular work or achieve a
target within particular period then it is the responsibility of team members to work on that and
complete the same within decided time period. Another next feature of teamwork is to focus on
results. It means that after doing all the activities or implementing policies at workplace, then it
is the duty of a manager to focus on the main results (Costa, Passos and Bakker, 2014). The team
leader should believe that if a team fails, then he will also get failed and if he will succeed, then
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the whole team will gain success. All these the main functions of team work. Thus, it can be said
that trust, accountability and conflict management are necessary in a team. With the same, better
relationship can be created among team members.
There are various benefits of working in a team. All benefits are good for business and
also, for the productivity of company. The first benefit is growth as if employees will work in a
team or together without arising any conflict then productivity of business will be increased.
Second benefit is improved morale which means that from the team work, team members have a
big responsibility for making a decision and managers permit them to control on their activities
and also monitor working process in Tesco (Crowder and et. al., 2012). The manager of this firm
communicates with employees in an effective way. He/she motivates the employees to work in a
team together and from the same, their morale increases to a high extent. Third advantage is
improvement in understanding, it means that if workers will work together in a team then they
will understand each other and their feelings. Next benefit is increased innovation which refers
that in Tesco, business enterprise uses the teamwork to develop a positive and innovative
working environment. All team members find innovate ideas to complete the task or an activity
in an easy way. The other advantage is greater flexibility which means that to make the business
or its operation more flexible, employees work in a team. This cited company brings staff or
workers from various parts of the country to work on a specific project. The skills and abilities of
all employees are different from each other. The advantage of team work is that all team
members shared information and data, increasing the knowledge. A teamwork gives people to
share organisational goals and objectives. It provides people an interest by motivate other people
of a team to accomplish the shared objectives. Employees are emotional positive and better to
share their learning, responsibilities when team members are experience of the personal security
or being a part of a team. If people are working in a team, then it will be easy in accomplish
objectives and solve issues.
There are some limitations of team work. They are not fair for company and from
limitations the productivity and growth of a business firm will be decreased. The first limitation
is lack of competence. In Tesco, each and every employee put his/her opinions and thoughts in
front of management. But in most of the cases, an incompetent person always forces to express
their views because of the management pressure. The management of this organisation does not
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consider irrelevant and unexpected views of employees (Sorensen and Stanton, 2011). From this,
the morale of workers gets down.
There are two main theories of teamwork proposed by Tuckman and Belbin. In
Tuckman’s theory of teamwork, there are four main stages involved. The first stage is Forming
which is the starting phase when people are not work together and most of individuals find their
own place in company (West, 2012). The second stage is storming in which people start feeling
that they are a valuable part of team. In this stage, there is a dispute start among team members
and people start work in their own way. Third stage is norming which means that all team
members work together to ensure that how work will be done. Under this stage, members of a
team try to resolve their problems and differences. The last stage is performing where main focus
of all team members is on particular task. The advantage of this theory is that it is helpful in
bring together all people in a team and also understand the importance of each other. The
disadvantages of Tuckman's theory are, there are no guidance at the time of moving from one
stage to second (Day and et. al., 2014). The another disadvantage of this team development
theory is that it does not consider a single person, it includes all team members.
Another theory of teamwork is Belbin according to this, it is a best way to identifying the
nature or a behaviour of a team at the time of working and also their strengths and weaknesses.
This theory does not consider the personality. This theory is for measuring or determining the
performance of a team. The main theories of Belbin are Shaper, Resource investigator,
Implementer, plant, co-ordinator etc. In Tesco, there is a team who gives its best performance,
Behind the success, there is an effort of each and every team member. It is necessary to find out
the strengths and the weaknesses of each and every team member. It is generally divided in to
two main categories. Under the first category, those people are including who take interest in
work, shaper challenging, very energetic etc. In the second category involves disciplined
employees, reliable, methodical and implementer efficient and in the last category includes
worry prone, complete conscientious.
There are some advantages and disadvantages of this theory. The advantages are that
every person work together in a team with good level of understanding. (Charmaz, 2011). Every
people in this organisation work together and the manager of this company motivate its existing
employees to work in a team in an effective and efficient manner. this theory provides a base
through which a business firm can follow an approach of consistency to develop an effective or
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capable team. On the other hand, disadvantages of this theory are that it determines the
behaviour of team members at the time of working in a team. the main limitation of this theory
is that it only determines the behaviour or nature of team members not their personality.
It can be concluded from this essay that team work is important for increasing the growth
and productivity of company. In this essay studied about the main functions and benefits of a
team work. In this essay there are two main theories of team development are included. There are
some advantages and disadvantages of these two main theories.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Costa, P. L., Passos, A. M. and Bakker, A. B., 2014. Team work engagement: A model of
emergence.Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 87(2). pp.414-436.
Crain, W., 2015. Theories of development: Concepts and applications. Psychology Press.
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simulating engineering team work.IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-
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Ivanova-Stenzel, R. and Kübler, D., 2011. Gender differences in team work and team
competition. Journal of Economic Psychology. 32(5). pp.797-808.
Sorensen, L. J. and Stanton, N. A., 2011. Is SA shared or distributed in team work? An
exploratory study in an intelligence analysis task. International Journal of Industrial
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West, M. A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John
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Woodcock, M., 2017. Team development manual. Routledge.
Online
6 Benefits of Teamwork in the Workplace. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.sandler.com/blog/6-benefits-of-teamwork-in-the-workplace>. [Accessed
on 18th August, 2017].
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