Assignment - Team Work in Business Essay Example for Free

Assignment – Team Work in Business Essay Some management teams are bound to succeed while other are not due to a number of factors. A team, according to Adair (1986), is more than just a group with a common aim. It is a group in which the contributions of individuals are seen as complementary. Collaboration, working together, is the keynote of a team activity. Adair suggests that the test of an effective team is: â€Å"whether its members can work as a team while they are apart, contributing to a sequence of activities rather than to a common task, which requires their presence in one place and at one time. † Below is a discussion of some of the major factors that create a difference between winning and losing management teams . Management teams are usually formed by a sponsor who recognizes that reaching an organizational goal will require a group of individuals working together to provide the leadership necessary to move a company, division or unit towards the organization’s goals. It is the sponsor’s responsibility to create a ‘charter’ that establishes the management team and its primary focus. In addition, the sponsor establishes specific goals the team is to accomplish. The sponsor will also select the team leader and gain his or her commitment to lead the leadership team in defining and carrying out the needed actions. Lack of will or proper direction by the sponsor ( e. g board of directors in a company) can lead to team failure. These include physical factors such as working proximity, plant or office layout. In general, close proximity aids group identity and loyalty, and distance reduces them. Other environmental issues include the traditions of the organisation under which the management team operates, and leadership styles. Formal organisations tend to adopt formal group practices. Autocratic leadership styles prefer group activities to be directed. Small groups tend to be more cohesive than larger groups; small groups tend to encourage full participation; large groups contain greater diversity of talent. A shared understanding of the management team’s stakeholders, their expectations of the team, and the values the team embraces is essential to create the focus needed as the management team members plan and execute the actions necessary to achieve the team’s goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound goals should be established by the team’s sponsor and then broken into sub-goals by the management team. Without SMART goals, the team will lack the milestones necessary to drive action. Team leadership is the most critical success factor for the performance management team. A leader with strong performance management skills and the ability to develop others virtually guarantees a successful performance initiative. Every management team needs a leader who focuses the members of the team on the mission, purpose, and goals of the team. This individual must be committed to the team’s results and must be willing to be held accountable by the team’s sponsor and other stakeholders, for leading the team through processes that insure the team’s goals are reached. The team leader must engage each team member in the processes of the team and build a platform of mutual trust that leads to open debate, collaboration, individual commitment, and personal accountability. The most important element of successful team work is the establishment of a platform of mutual trust that enables the management team to engage in open debate and decision making that leads to commitments to action by individual members of the team. Building this trust requires an openness that allows team members to know and understand the beliefs and behaviors of all members of the team so that team actions can be structured to take advantage of each member’s uniqueness and talents. Behavioral and values assessments are powerful tools in developing an understanding how each member of the management team views themselves and responds to others in the team. An effective management team will have team members who are actively engaged in the work and focus of the team. This will require that each team member emotionally commits to actively and openly participate in the team’s processes in the pursuit of the team’s goals. The team member must willingly commit to carry out action plans to complete individual actions necessary for the team to reach their team goals. The team member must be dependable and carry the full weight of personal responsibility to complete their individual commitments by the date committed to. Engaged team members enthusiastically support each other and add value to other team members. They prepare for team processes and choose to engage others in a positive manner to find solutions to issues and challenges they individually or as a team face. They constantly seek to improve themselves for the benefit of the team and never, never, never quit. The Apollo Syndrome is a phenomenon that having too many people with a high mental abilities grouped together to solve a problem is, in many instances, detrimental to the teamwork process. Team members spend much of their time trying to persuade the team to adopt their own views as well as figuring out ways to point out weaknesses in the rest of the team’s ideas. They have difficulty reaching consensus in decisions and are focused on their own work, paying little attention to what their fellow team members agree doing. Occasionally the team will pick up on the fact they are having problems, but will then overcompensate to avoid confrontation. This leads to even more problems in making sound decisions. A knowledgeable team, skilled at group working, and with a wider range of talents is much more likely to succeed than an inexperienced group with a narrow range of talents. The work of a management team is carried out by individual members of the team. When a team has developed a plan of actions that are necessary to achieve their goals or overcome barriers, individual members must commit to carrying out specific actions which in many cases will include actions by the individual teams they in turn lead. The management team’s collaborative processes must include steps to: * Define individual actions, * Gain the commitments by individual team members to complete the actions, * Document due dates, and * Establish status reporting processes. Team goals will usually not be realized until individual commitments are completed. Management team members must embrace a discipline to complete their commitments as scheduled. They must agree to hold each other personally accountable for completing, as scheduled, the commitments each person has made to the team. Each management team member must continuously report the status of their open commitments to the team so that barriers to completion can be identified early in order to permit the management team leader and other team members the opportunity to deal with the issues before overall deadlines are impacted. 12. Identification and Removal of Barriers Barriers to team and individual progress will occur in every management team effort and must be dealt with quickly to continue progress towards the team’s goals. The team leader must continuously monitor the status of each individual’s commitments and initiate barrier removal processes where appropriate. Team-based processes for developing action plans to overcome barriers impacting individual commitments should be instilled as a part of the team’s culture. The ability for a management team to clearly state it’s goals and objectives and gain buy-in among the people they lead ( e. g. employees )along with a synergistic team that can carry out their responsibilities is vital to performance success. The vision and/or mission of the team must be accepted by all the team members and critical goals viewed as the collective responsibility of the team. If a return to profitability is a critical goal of an executive team, priorities and time commitments must be pulled from elsewhere. Focusing on results that in any way does not support the critical goal(s) of the team will lead to team failure. While a skilled management team can improve performance with very little tools and only an effective approach, with proper technology to support the team’s needs, and the proper data to drive decision making, there is almost no limit to the improvements an organization will yield. Innovating is a key aspect of teamwork and involves challenging the way things are currently being done. Technology is changing so quickly that the way you are currently performing tasks may no longer be the best way. If you are not up-to-date in your practices, your cost structure may be too high or you may no longer be delivering competitive service. Innovating is essential for all work teams. There are always better ways of doing things if you only take time to discover them. To obtain the resources – people, money, and equipment – to carry out your work, you have to ‘sell’ what you are doing to other people. Resources to implement new ideas will only be given if your team can persuade and influence people higher in the organization. Promoting to customers or clients both inside or outside the organization is also important if you are to continually deliver what people want. Many ideas don’t see the light of day because they are impractical. The Developing activity ensures that your ideas are molded and shaped to meet the needs of your customers, clients, or users. It involves listening to their needs and incorporating these in your plans. Developing will ensure that what you are trying to do is possible, given the resource constraints of your organization. Regular checks on work activities are essential to ensure that mistakes are not made. Quality audits of your products or services will ensure that your customers or clients will remain satisfied. Inspecting also covers the financial aspect of work in your team, as well as the security aspects, the safety aspects and the legal aspects. All management teams need to uphold standards and maintain effective work processes. Your car will fail if it does not have its regular service. Teams can fail too, if the team processes are not regularly checked and maintained. Maintaining ensures that quality standards are upheld and that regular reviews of team effectiveness take place. Linking is the activity that ensures all team members pull together, and makes the difference between a group of individuals and a highly effective and efficient team. It covers the linking of people, linking of tasks and leadership linking. Assignment – Team Work in Business. (2016, Nov 20).

HL1003N Reading Twentieth Century Fiction Essay

HL1003N Reading Twentieth Century Fiction - Essay Example During the course of the evening, Gretta is reminded of a man named Michael Furey, a man who is not her husband, but whom she once loved many years ago. In the first occasion she is reminded of the town of Galway, where she had her relationship with Furey. Second, she listens to a song by Mr. DArcy which is the same song Furey sang on their long walks through the countryside. This too takes her away to different time and place. Gabriel for his part does not pay much attention to his wife. He did not really want to go to the dance and feels alienated from the people there. He doesn’t know how to talk to them and doesn’t really seem to want to talk to them. When he leaves to go back to the hotel with Gretta he thinks, â€Å"they had escaped from their lives and duties† (169). He doesn’t like it there. Only then does he see that Gretta is in a different kind of mood. Not only was she not paying attention to much of the party, but she was lost in the past†”thinking mostly of a dead man who had influenced her life so much. She finally tells Gabriel about how Furey had died as a young man after catching cold while standing outside of her window in the rain shouting up to Gretta that he did not want to live without her. After his wife has gone to bed, Gabriel thinks about his own life and about his wife; he feels like he leads a passionless existence. At first he was angry at Furey, but finally he begins to see that the passion that motivated Furey focused and encouraged a good life. He looks at his sleeping wife: â€Å"He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live† (176).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The dead are everywhere in this story. They are, for example, the subject of Gabriels speech at the dinner after the

The Case of GlaxoSmithKline Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The of GlaxoSmithKline - Case Study Example While the blockbuster strategy at GSK has been so successful in the past, it is nearing a period where it is more likely than not to become obsolete. This is as a result of a diverse number of challenges which have made blockbusters less profitable when compared to the past few decades. Among these challenges is the decline in R&D productivity where only a single compound out of nearly 13 discovered enters the market after clinical trials have been carried out and this is a big blow to pharmaceutical companies such as GSK. Moreover, because of the need to make the public aware of newly discovered drugs that enter the market, it is essential for companies to commercialize it. This takes increased funding and creates a situation where recent years have seen an increase in the costs of commercialisation for GSK in such a way that the processes of discovering, developing and launching new products have increased substantially. In addition, in recent years, patents to blockbusters have in creasingly been challenged not only by smaller pharmaceutical companies but also by governments and this has created a situation where GSK has come face to face with serious limits to the revenue potential of its products. The shorter exclusivity periods that have come about as a result of competition has seen companies develop similar yet cheaper drugs than GSK’s blockbusters which have received the approval of numerous governments across the world. This situation has increased pressures on GSK’s patent protections.