Forging High-Performance Teams

Eric H. Kessler

Chapter Chapter Nine in Management Theory in Action, 2010, pp 179-199 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Chapter nine examines management theories about teamwork and the management skill of creating the conditions for high-performance teams to flourish. In the modern workplace organizations are forming workgroups, often labeling them as “teams,” with an exceedingly high frequency. The lure of teams is partly a result of a rapidly evolving, highly competitive, and increasingly interdependent business context that is demanding greater flexibility and responsiveness of organizations. Groups are often used because they are seen as promising vehicles for responding to these demands. As a result employees are spending more and more of their time working together to complete assigned tasks. The sad irony of this is that few of these groups are managed appropriately so that they truly become teams. Let us be very clear about this, a group and a team are not the same thing. A group is a collection of two or more people who come together for a shared purpose. A team is a special type of group that actually achieves synergy, with its whole greater than the sum of its parts. This type of teamwork requires the proper environment that creates the conditions for this process to occur. Although there is no magic formula for forging productive teams, adherence to sound principles and practices will increase the potential for achieving synergistic results.

Keywords: Work Team; Free Rider; Management Theory; Informal Group; Role Overload (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-10602-4_10

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230106024_10

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