StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Challenges in Groups and Teams - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Teams and groups are faced with numerous challenges involving conflict situations and importance to achieve consensus, changing mindset and interpersonal relationships, religious and age differences, cultural values and different career goals…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.1% of users find it useful
Challenges in Groups and Teams
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Challenges in Groups and Teams"

Running Head Addressing the Challenges of Groups and Teams Addressing the Challenges of Groups and Teams Teams and groups are facedwith numerous challenges involving conflict situations and importance to achieve consensus, changing mindset and interpersonal relationships, religious and age differences, cultural values and different career goals. These challenges prevent teams to achieve desired goals and process to maturity stage. Collaborative (C) decision making takes a step in the direction of participation by way of consultation, and involves asking either certain individuals or, more generally, a group for their input.

The manager solicits a recommendation from individuals or the group, but still makes the final decision. Empowered decision making completes the continuum. It is full participation, and entails empowering either an individual or a group to make final decisions. The particular people involved in a given communication episode can make the critical difference in whatever understandings result. Personal qualities and background factors influence the interpretations and meanings created by sources and perceivers.

There are different key factors to consider with each decision-making style, and different levels of commitment to decisions that can be expected to result from each approach. The challenges can be overcome with the help of training and leadership support, planned intervention and positive climate and morale. The three stages: preparation, training and implementation and practical usage will help a team leader to overcome challenges in teamwork and create a dynamic team. Challenges in Groups and TeamsTeams involve in complex communication and interaction issues influenced by internal and external factors such as expertise of team members, communication skills, project structure and leadership, etc.

These factors are unquestionably too numerous for anyone to catalog even just the most important ones. In this case challenges in teams and groups include conflict situations and importance to achieve consensus, changing mindset and interpersonal relationships, religious and age differences, cultural values and different career goals. The challenges mentioned above prevent effective performance and team dynamics. Participative decision making is not so much one style of decision making as it is one end of a continuum of possibilities.

So much potential for miscommunication could be thwarted with more effective listening. Studies have shown that a large percentage of people listen less effectively than they believe, and many in fact are poor listeners. Everyone has experience with "power" in human relations. Power, most simply, is the ability to influence (Hanlan 2004). This ability, in turn, depends on the presence and manipulation of certain resources: outcomes that are attractive, outcomes that are unattractive, information, beliefs in the legitimacy of "hierarchy," expertise, affection, love, liking, approval, respect, trust, admiration, and so on.

As such, almost every form of interpersonal behavior involves the resources connected, however blatantly or subtly, to power: Effectiveness, as it applies to relationships, refers to an ongoing ability to draw upon the resources of the relationship to accomplish goals while enhancing or maintaining the strength of the relationship. Trust is the bedrock of any strong interpersonal relationship. And importantly, trust is shaped largely by communication (Buchholz and Roth, 1987). Conflicts and changing mindset, poor interpersonal relationships and religious and age differences lead to the biggest challenge facing team members who hope to develop shared vision, at any level: reconciling the need for one coherent "statement" of vision, with the requirement that, in effect, it reflects the individual "voices" of many.

Communication is the key to doing this. And it must start with the leader (Katzenbach and Smith 2002). The team leader should initiate the integration of visions by expressing, as clearly as possible, his or her own vision for the group or organization, along with how it serves the purposes of the organization and the interests of everyone in it. The worthiness of this statement as a vision, and its accuracy in serving purposes and interests, must be assessed, from the perspective of the people whose efforts will achieve or not achieve it.

This assessment may be formal or informal, but it must be done publicly if commitment is the objective. And it must be coupled with a sincere, demonstrated interest on the leader's part in collaboratively evolving a vision that everyone can appreciate. This sincerity means inviting and being responsive to suggested improvements and modifications to the basic vision. Above all it means that the vision cannot be imposed. It must be evolved -- adapted and adopted (LaFasto and Larsen 2001). PlanIn order to overcome these challenges, team leader should create a positive culture and support effective communication in his/her team.

This can be achieved by special training programs for team members aimed to develop communication and listening skill. The plan will consist of three stages: preparation, training and practical usage. I. Preparation a. problem identification and analysis of communication difficulties; analysis of the sources of conflict, b. program development II. Training and implementation a. indirect communication and cultural diversity programs, shared vision and development of trust between team members (it is possible to use role-play and dialogues, etc); b.

optimized working conditions, c. team (project) goals identification d. planned intervention (in order to prevent conflict situations)III. Practical stage a. Control and corrective actions Once the vision statement is clearly expressed to everyone's satisfaction -- once the group sees the total picture of what it wants to or needs to become -- then the leader must ensure that the group decides, owns, "how" the vision will be realized, and that implementation is left up to them. This is what will truly solidify the group's ownership of and commitment to the jointly created vision, when people "make it happen" from methods of their choosing.

ReferencesBuchholz, S. Roth, Th. (1987). Creating the High Performance Team. Wiley. Hanlan, M. (2004). High Performance Teams: How to Make Them Work. Praeger Publishers. Katzenbach, J. R., Smith, D. K. (2003). The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization. Harpercollins Trade Sales Dept. LaFasto, F., Larsen, C. (2001). When Teams Work Best. Sage Publications.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Challenges in Groups and Teams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1515668-addressing-the-challenges-of-groups-and-teams
(Challenges in Groups and Teams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1515668-addressing-the-challenges-of-groups-and-teams.
“Challenges in Groups and Teams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1515668-addressing-the-challenges-of-groups-and-teams.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Challenges in Groups and Teams

Challenge of Groups and Teams Paper

Challenge of groups and teams Paper and Section # of Challenge of groups and teams PaperDeveloping communication is the element of collaboration and working together which is the focal point of a group or teams overall objective.... Developing communication is the element of collaboration and working together which is the focal point of a group or teams overall objective.... The team building tool kit: tips and tactics for effective workplace teams: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Addressing Challenges of Groups and Teams

By proposition, a corporation's aptitude to discover which is, to develop its results with enhanced information as well as insight, is the entire act is which is reliant upon the aptitude of its groups and teams to discover.... groups and teams, in general known as the work groups that tend to ted to subsist inside the framework of a bigger corporation along with sharing the liability for a group or team work and services, that are designed to achieve desired results....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Addressing Challenges of Groups and Teams Paper / Team discussion and Individual Paper

The managers and supervisors of the company could change the way employees interact with each other by instituting teams.... The team in this case would be informal teams.... These informal teams can incorporate the team leader position with a rotating mechanism that allows for the switch of team leadership to occur at predetermined time intervals....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Cultural Diversity for Organizations

Past intergroup conflicts present a backdrop on how two groups will interact today.... The more stretched and damaging the past conflict is the more negative perceived prejudices and threats attitudes will exist between the two interacting groups (Guilherme, Méndez, & Glaser 2010).... Thirdly, the type and frequency of contact between two culturally different groups contributes to feelings of trust or mistrust, security or insecurity and familiarity or unfamiliarity....
4 Pages (1000 words) Assignment

Spaghetti Challenge in Team Work and Collaboration

The groups were given similar instructions, materials and time for the activity and the results are hence applicable to the real world team work in any… An analogy is a comparison of two things; the spaghetti task as described in the presentation has the instructions, the constraints, the penalties and thee bonuses....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Selecting Youth Ministry Team

Normally, there are strengths and… Even though teams can achieve tremendous results within shorter a time in comparison to individuals, it takes time for groups to stabilize.... When it comes to the recruit of teams especially religious related, the challenge is often more complex than is the case with other organizations.... In the past there have numerous theories and models used in trying to explain how teams grow into maturity.... The first mistake often made by organizations when it comes to developing teams, especially voluntary teams, is assumption that the individuals will flock as soon the announcement is made1....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Challenges of Managing Groups or Teams in a Criminal Justice Organization

"Challenges of Managing Groups or teams in a Criminal Justice Organization" paper briefly analyses the challenges faced by Criminal Justice Organizations in managing groups or teams at present and the possible challenges they may face in the next 5 years.... Investigating teams or groups are essential for most of the inquiries of criminal activities.... “A teams strength depends on the commonality of purpose and interconnectivity between individual members, whereas a groups strength may come from sheer volume or willingness to carry out a single leaders commands” (What is the Difference Between a Team and a Group?...
7 Pages (1750 words) Coursework

Team Challenges

hellip; teams are formed in order to get the tasks accomplished more efficiently and swiftly in hospitality industry.... Walker and Miller (2008) point to the fact that strong teams can produce incredible results, while weak teams can be extremely disastrous to the organisation, individuals, and also to the customers.... The paper "Team challenges" studies a team with different types of issues such as internal conflicts, leadership issues and role clarity....
7 Pages (1750 words) Case Study
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us