Teams and Interdependence, Essay Example

The authors (Colquitt, LePine & Wesson, 2010)  highlight the fact in the beginning of Chapter 9 that almost all American companies use or are currently planning to use teams. This indicates that working in teams and exchanging experience, knowledge, and collaborating would increase individuals’ performance. Indeed, Figure 9-1 shows that the team characteristics and processes together create the team performance. The chapter describes five different categories of teams: work, management, parallel, project, and action. These teams differ in purpose, lifespan, and member involvement.

Teams can develop two different ways: in a predictable sequence or in less linear order. While all managers wish that all newly created teams would go through the sequence of forming, storming, norming, and performing, in some cases, in the middle of the formation process, some kind of inertia happens. Change is needed, and a consensus among team members is created to complete the project.

The authors also highlight that there is an interdependence in team processes, tasks, outcomes and goals. It is evident that in a research team that is working on developing a new drug, every person’s knowledge is needed. All members are dependent on other members’ expertise, attitude, productivity, and knowledge. If a member of the team fails to exclude ineffective drug variations in the beginning, the performance of the whole team will be affected, and chances are that the process will take longer.

Teamwork processes are important in order to work together towards common goals. Teamwork processes are made up of a sequence of transition and action processes. The effectiveness of the team is also determined by cohesion among members, potency (belief in team capabilities), and mental models (common understanding). Working towards the same goal and having the same beliefs would increase all the above qualities of teamwork.

The main takeaway of this chapter is that there is a strong correlation between teamwork processes and team commitment. This indicates that – indirectly – team processes have an influence on organizational performance.