CAPSTONE PROJECT-TEAMWORK

Teamwork is an element that cannot be assumed at any workplace. Naturally, human beings are social beings and are engineered to collaborate in the furtherance of a common goal. Costa, Passos, and Bakker (2014) explain that engagement at work on a team level is a critical determinant of employee performance. As such, it remains important for scholars and people in management positions to come up with methodologies that have the potential to glue teams together to ensure that everyone moves in the same direction. 

Great teamwork is often an asset worth giving attention. It is a means to develop human synergy in the workplace through the amplification of individual members’ results. In the end, the overall results are thus greater than individual member’s contribution. As such, there should be an ungoverned understanding among the team members which will allow unfettered exchange of ideas, opinions, emotions, and even problems geared towards achieving the common goal.  

The onset of the industrial revolution was characterized by division of labor, an ideology that has flourished till date. It is for this reason that in the same organization there is an accountant, project manager, engineer, data analyst and many others. People were expected to be specialists in limited areas and meet at the central point to help the organization meet its goals. The whole idea under division of labor is to allow the best person handle a task better and faster. 

The Problem

The performance of a team is often the hallmark of the kind of understanding and cohesiveness that is experienced in the team. It is the outcome of commitment of each team member to the overall goal. As such, when the results of the teamwork are put on a weighing scale, it should be that the positives associated with such a team tip the scales indicating that they are more than the negatives. The gap between the positives and negatives of a successful team should widen each day, in favor of the positives. On this trajectory, such a team should be more productive; a desire of each organization. To push up the productivity scales, this study aims at evaluating what negative consequences can arise in high cohesive groups in the workplace and further evaluate the effect of such negative consequences on the overall group performance. 

Justification 

It is important to retain the momentum of high cohesive teams to ensure that productivity is maintained at high levels. To do this, there must be an understanding of the factors that trigger a downward spiral in the performance and interpersonal relationships of such a team. Belbin (2012) emphasized on the importance of learning in teams. As such, there is a need for finding strategies that help such teams adjust especially to difficult situations as further elaborated by Belbin (2012). To do so, negative aspects that result in high performance teams need to be identified beforehand to ensure that adaptive strategies are activated when indications point out to such direction. Doing so is an appreciation of such teams and also an appreciation of the fact that maintaining high performance teams takes effort. Further, it will make organizations, management, teams themselves, and other interested stakeholders appreciate the value of high performing teams and as such put in the necessary effort to keep such teams running. 

References

Belbin, R. M. (2012). Beyond the team. Routledge.Costa, P. L., Passos, A. M., & Bakker, A. B. (2014). Team work engagement: A model of emergence. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87(2), 414-436.