Organizing Groups and Teams

Organizing Groups and Teams within Organizations (chapter 5)
A reflection from the reading of Bolman and Deal (2008) on organizing groups and teams helped me think and answer the following:  Why is it important to organize teams in an organization?  What does it take to have a successful team? What should we look for when we need to create one?

A successful group or team helps an organization advance its mission, vision and goals.  It’s important to have successful teams as it can raise the performance of individuals or it can diminish the well-intended and motivated spirits of those around them (Bolman & Deal, 2008).   Individuals should know what their role and responsibilities are so that they may understand how their contribution will affect the group.  A well put together team is motivated, uses creativity, is driven, and should have such a high level of trust and reliance among each other that it should be visible from the outside in, much like when the basketball team the Miami Heat plays.  The level of interconnectedness along with reframing makes them extraordinarily exceptional as a team.  A team should be a structure where members can express their ideas or views without fears of retribution and where members together reach a consensus.   In a poorly constructed team, there can be dissention in the group, feelings of isolation, individuals with unmatched skillsets, lack of trust and morale, all which can bring a project to a halt or fulfill below average expectations.  Essentially, the structure involves understanding what needs to be done, identifying who will be in charge, what or who needs to be coordinated and taking time to analyze the skillsets of staff to determine what responsibilities can be assigned in order to build a cohesive team.  Teams can be basic or complex.  Basic structures have “clearly defined roles, elementary forms of interdependence and coordination by plan or command; complex structures have flexible roles, a give-and-take, organized using lateral dealings and communal feedback" (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 102). The structure of a group can be defined by the group and can be either tight or loose.  What is important is that the team be able to adapt to the situation.  The reporting structure or hierarchy and flow of information can vary; it can be from top-down, be shared, circular or networked.  In circular and networked, communication is much simpler where groups or individuals may communicate with each other with fewer restrictions.  This is a preference over the one boss, dual or simple hierarchy arrangement.   Circular and networked allows the teams to interact easily and transfer information to each other, instead of waiting for information to flow to/from the top and waiting long periods for a decision to made.  Although, the nature of business may influence the structure, for example, in healthcare you may need a more top down approach because it involves patient safety.  Size matters, if the structure of a team is too large it becomes unmanageable, if so, then additional team leaders should be added to help alleviate oversight.