Free Essay About Teamwork

What are some of the reasons people resist the idea of working in teams and ways to deal with that resistance?
Working in teams is significant because it ensures promotion of productivity and quality improvement. Effective utilization of teams will see organizations achieving its objectives and goals. Performance of organizations depends on the effectiveness of teams. There are various reasons that make people resist the idea of working in teams. Individuals believe that working in a team will lead to a waste of productive time because of time spent on building agreement and trust. People think that team meetings rob them of the time that they could use to do something productive.
People express dissatisfaction, exasperation and anger over a team’s frequent inability to make good decisions in a timely manner because of time spent to ensure all members of the teams agree on a decision. People feel that the other members of the teams decrease their chances of succeeding. This is true if high performers exist in teams and their individual contribution in the teams is less recognized. This makes the team members to hold back their performance and effort to concentrate their efforts and energy on individual targets and goals.
At times, lower managers do not provide the required support to the teams because they do not know how to use teams to achieve the objectives. This often leads to failure of teams. To overcome the resistance of people working in teams, managers need have the required training on how teams operate. Training will equip managers with tactics to deal with resistance of people working in teams. Managers need to attach rewards based on individual contribution towards the success of the team. This ensures that team members apply their efforts and skill in the activities of the team because of recognition. Managers should also ensure that continuous learning happens in the team.