Effective team and performance management. Groupwork, reflection, learning

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Leadership and Human Resource Management - Miscellaneous, grade: A, University of Sheffield, language: English, abstract: The changing workplace and the strains that are inherent in organizations as a result of the increased responsibilities and little time make work stressful. Organizational life becomes unbearable if individuals have to work independently to accomplish organizational goals. This, coupled with the increasing competition as a result of the globalized world makes it difficult for organizations to work basing on the efforts of a single individual. Work has to be completed on time and reports have to be made that define the direction of the organization. Individual effort and thinking is not so productive in this scenario necessitating the formation of groups or teams. Workplace teams have made life easy for organizations with many of them now opting to use teams to carry out most of their tasks. The advantages that teams bring to the organization cannot be overemphasized. Those organizations that are still not using teams will always be left behind in this competitive environment. The idea behind team formation is that it increases productivity and makes it easy for work to be done faster due to the contributions that are made by many people. Innovativeness and creativity in groups is high and thus people are able to share ideas that will eventually lead to a solution to a given organizational problem. However not all people work well in groups or teams and this has also been another issue when dealing with teams. Some people prefer autonomy in order to work better. On the other hand it is also good to note that as much as these teams help organizations achieve results, team formation and development is a difficult phenomenon and one that is faced with a myriad of problems. The way these are solved determines that effectiveness of the group.