Introduction to Distance
Education: Using teams at work
INTRODUCTION
When working on and discussing the College Strategic Plan, it was
emphasised that team work will be the dominant pattern of working and will be enshrined in
the inter and intra departmental relationships. It is important that before we can say we
are using teams, we should learn a bit as to why team work seems to be the most preferred
as compared to individual work. For us to be able to do this, we need to appreciate
experiences that led certain organisations to go into the team approach. As we do so we
will use experiences from the industry. Distance education is believed to have that
industrial form of operation. It can therefore share experiences with the industry.
There is a story of Ford Motor Company which is quite interesting and
is worth studying as a model for introducing work teams. The story is that, during the
1980s, the Ford Motor Company took up to 5 years to come up with a new model. This seems
to have been quite slow. Designers and engineers would work on the model specifications
and finish without involving other parties and then give specifications to manufacturers.
These specifications had no room for flexibility. Manufacturers were just to do the work.
If a problem was realised at manufacturing stage, designers and engineers would be
involved again. This time to correct a problem which could probably have been identified
during the designing stage. This ended up being too costly and some - models were never
manufactured because they had delayed and had been overtaken by time.
Ultimately the Ford Motor Company realised that it had a problem which
was adversely affecting its progress and innovations. It concluded that there was a need
to change. A change to team work was effected. The team consisted of planners, designers,
manufacturers, suppliers, sales people etc. Unit representatives were involved right from
the beginning. Assembly line workers were required to comment on possible difficulties and
make recommendations for improvements. Below is a diagram illustrating the Ford Motor
Company work team.
TEAM APPROACH TO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.
Teams went further to study cars manufactured by others and learnt
about their best features e.g. Tovota, BMW and Audi and used these to improve their own
products. They also involved the customer, by testing seats on young and old people, male
and female drivers. Ford learnt a lot about customer preferences through market study.
Through team work approach, the company;
- delegated authority down the organisational hierarchy to the ranks of workers
- teams made decisions
- management wandered around, visiting teams and listening to workers.
- personal development occurred through team work.
- customer care was always at the centre of every process.
- developed a guiding principle as, "having to achieve high productivity with less
stress."
FORMING WORK TEAMS
"Organisations are made of people working together to achieve some common
end;" (Robbins 1993:687). People are frequently required to work as teams. "A
team is a group of individuals who are working together towards a common goal,"
(Cascio 1995:261) A team has a distinct characteristic. It may comprise people drawn from
different functions, departments, or disciplines.
A team is usually set up for a specific project and members are empowered to steer, develop
the work they do and are responsible for their own successes.
Why form work teams
Work teams are formed to;
- coordinate individuals' efforts to tackle a complex task
- make the best of expertise and knowledge of everyone involved which might otherwise
remain untapped.
- raise and sustain motivation and confidence as individual team members feel
supported and involved.
- help members come up with ideas and find appropriate ways forward.
- help breakdown communication barriers, avoid unhealthy competition, rivalry and point
scoring.
- raise the level of an individual's performance and collective empowerment.
- ensure quality of the task in hand.
- bring about commitment and ownership of the task in hand.
Getting Started
After forming a team the following is required;
- call them together and start building a team, ie, let them meet and know each other.
- discuss and agree on what the team is to achieve.
- clarify the common objectives and ensure that members know their personal contribution
to the team's success.
- share experiences and identify a team leader who should function as a colleague.
- agree on reporting and other processes to be adopted for the life span of the team.
Meeting
For the team to work, it will be required to have meetings. These should always have a
purpose e.g.
- to find out how the team is doing
- review progress on the task
When the team has completed its task, its efforts should be acknowledged and be
disbanded.
Success of the team
It is the common goal that defines a team. If team members have conflicting goals, the
intentions will suffer. Successful team work goes together with knowing how to manage
tensions within a group.
Performance of the team depends on the strengths and weaknesses of members. Members
should be able to interact in order to succeed.
Teams are formed according to interdependent tasks performed. Some
teams are established as a result of staff shortage to solve problems and get things
moving. These pool resources together basing on their contribution to the product or
service to be produced. These are their efforts. According to (Newstrom etal, 1993, 148-5)
teams "... must fit together like pieces of a picture puzzle." Teams are used to
reduce long production lines. They can work at inter and intra levels.
For teams to work, right from inception, members should share information, get to know
and accept each other. When teams are formed, the following should be considered.
- objectives to be achieved should be established and agreed upon (Ford's objective was to
change operations)
- skills and knowledge required should be clear.
- work norms should be established and members should recognise and observe them and not
break them, these should be aligned with those of the organisation.
- individual roles should be established to help members act on assignments to achieve
their goals.
- each member should be ready to perform to their best to save the team pride.
- each member must feel committed to the team, poor relationship can blur the team spirit.
- mechanisms should be established to take care of possible team conflicts and
disturbances, too much controversy and conflict can lead to hostility and
eventually break up the team, (Northcraft etal, 1990).
- room for leadership to monitor operations and resolve conflicts and disturbances to
re-establish cooperation should be made. When conflicts are resolved, cooperation is
re-established and norms re-emerge, tensions that may threaten the team are eliminated.
Conflicts should not necessarily be taken to be negative. Constructively used, they can
produce a
dynamic group which can make better decisions and therefore generally
productive. Teams output synergicallv depends on how each member does work in concert
with team mates (Robbins, 1993).
Team members should have a clear idea of their roles, their duties and responsibilities
in the organisation and how they contribute to the team. This should happen through;
As such;
- roles assigned to the team members should. reflect their strengths and interests.
- roles given to members should help them contribute to the fulfilment of a team,
organisational and individual objectives.
- the team should, once identified work towards solving its problems.
- teams should help new employees to settle in the organisation.
- teams should strike an appropriate balance among similarities and differences of their
members.
For each team to be effective, time for coordinating activities, developing thoughts,
monitoring progress and for regular meetings is important
Performance of teams need to be monitored regularly and feedback be provided.
Teams use high interaction among members to increase thrust and promote innovation and
creativity should be encouraged. These teams are useful in;
- making better decisions than individuals.
- helping each other gain confidence and can discipline other members.
- helping to prevent communication lines from being too steep (we said the College should
have a flat structure)
Team work helps workers increase their range of skills and to have more control over
their work by making decisions.
Robbins (1993) argues that teams make 2 + 2 = 5. However, he further
argues that if not well controlled they are capable of making 2 + 2 = 3. According to
Cascio (1995 : 65), "Firms have found that only through work team can they execute
newly adopted strategies stressing better quality, innovation, cost control or
speed."
To work as a team people should be able to:-
- ask
- offer help without being asked
- accept suggestions from other members
- take into considerations the needs, motivations, and skills of other team members when
offering help or advice
- work with other team members to solve a problem
- recognise and consider the ideas of others
According to Cascio (1993), teams should not be taken for granted. Before jumping on
the team bandwagon, the following questions among others should be answered.
- are the teams appropriate for the work to be done?
- what business results will be derived from the teams?
- how will those results be measured?
- can boundaries be placed on managerial versus team authority?
- how will the product be used?
GROUPWORK
- Consider an individual developing materials on his/her own and give your own views.
- Studying features of other cars how does this relate to course writing?
- Involvement of the customer - How would you do it in course writing?
- Like the Ford Motor Company would, it be necessary for you to do a market study, and not
only for what is available but how you would benefit from it?
- What is your common goal?
- Briefly explain why you considered use of teams in your organisation. Is it the same
reason as the Ford Motor Company?
- How would teams reduce long production lines in your organisation?
- What is your objective in introducing teams in your organisation.
- Do you agree that teams help speed up work? Explain.
- Look at how we have been developing our workbooks' are there any similarities with Ford
Motor Company? Remember Ford created some models which were never manufactured because of
the delays in time.
- How would you form teams for your work?
CONCLUSION
We have examined an example of how teams came to be used at work. This
is the example of the Ford Motor Company during the 1980s. What we now need to do is to
relate this example to our own situation and see how we can improve on it. Like
Ford, we need to study materials produced by other organisations and improve on ours to
beat those other institutions. We need to aim high in designing our materials. This is a
competitive world.
REFERENCES
1. Betts, PW (1993): Supervisory Management, Pitman Publishing, London
2. Cascio, WF (1993): Managing Human Resources, Productivity, Quality of work life,
Profits, McGraw-Hill, USA
3. Newstrom, JW, Davis K, (1993).. Organisational Behavior, Human Behavior at work,
McGraw-Hill, New York
4. Northcraft, GB, Neale, MA (1990): Organisational Behavior a management challenge
5. Robbins, SP, (1993): Organisational Behavior, Prentice Hall International, London
6. Schonberger Rj, Knod (JR) EN, (1991 ' ): Operations Management: Improving Customer
Service.
7. Weihrich, H, Koontz, H (1993): Management, A global perspective, McGraw-Hill, London
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