Literature Review
At the workplace, employees usually emphasize personal achievement and career development to the extent that the concept of teamwork appears to be overlooked by both employees and management. As a result, some managements see less impact of teamwork as a tool of organizational performance and overall productivity (Boakye, 2015). Nonetheless, there is a positive relationship between teamwork and organizational performance. The team’s work builds confidence towards accomplishing the organizational goals through effective team behaviors and morale to tackle new and complex challenges. The convergence of skills, experience, and ideas is arguably the main driving force to higher performance. Agarwal and Adjirackor (2016) describe the concept of teamwork as the process in which a group of people collaboratively work together to achieve a given goal. Teamwork is a basic idea of working together to achieve goals for the organization’s good by improving productivity. Another definition of teamwork is that teamwork constitutes a large group of employees than what the job description dictates. The essence of teams is breaking down the workload into smaller tasks while involving all employment. However, units are subject to internal factors, including motivation, rewards, working conditions, culture, structure, diversity, lines of communication, cohesiveness, leadership style, and individual talents and personalities. Also, external factors including political, social, technological, and economic environments influence team working. Agarwal and Adjirackor (2016) claim that there is a consensus among researchers and scholars that individual and teamwork must exist for the organization’s well-being and its workforce. From a unique perspective, most managers ensure that work gets done individually, but goal achievement is pursued through teamwork. Therefore, teamwork is the very foundation of the successful management of organizations.
On the other hand, Ali (2019) defines organizational performance as a voluntary association of various factors, including physical, capital, and human resources, to achieve a shared goal or common objective. Recent studies have researched the impact of human resources on overall organizational performance. One of the most critical aspects of human capital is a commitment to organizational goals. It calls for the formation of a team spirit to grow labor stab, improve behavior and improve overall performance (Ali, 2019). It synchronizes efforts and provides upwards thrust for higher productivity. Therefore, teams are indispensable when an organization is faced with complex projects and tasks.
Boakye (2015) asserts that group work has been in existence within organizations for as long as one can remember in the form of service teams, management teams, or production teams. However, individual works are more emphasized and perceived as the building blocks of an organization. Team thinking and working reflect the potential of an organization in achieving set objectives. Abuzid and Abbas (2017) concur with Boakye that teamwork components directly positively affect organizational performance. Stiff competition and globalization have compelled organizations to conduct corporate restricting and even reducing employees to adopt innovation and increase efficiency. Abuzid and Abbas (2017) recognize teamwork as an integral component of devising new roles while improving the effectiveness for desired goals. Teamwork integrates seamlessly with both manufacturing and service organizations. The employees in organizations that embrace a team-based approach become more intelligent and more competent due to interdependence in achieving individual and team objectives. As the employees strive to accomplish goals as a team, they gain in-depth knowledge of their area of specialization at the individual level. Abuzid and Abbas (2017) claim that teamwork is prone to reduced motivation, team and personal conflicts, absence of skill and will, and lack of responsibility. These adverse effects have a ripple effect on organizational performance as it stagnates or reduces it significantly.
The cooperative game’s framework can analyze the impact of teamwork on organizational performance. According to Askari et al. (2020), a cooperative approach positively affects the organization’s performance. Therefore, the cooperative game model can help identify factors related to teamwork that influence overall performance. Activities that influence employees’ performance include motivation, interaction, coordination, skill, accuracy, speed, skill, and knowledge transfer (Askari et al., 2020). Interestingly, a collaborative work culture requires the management to conduct a performance assessment based on both individual work and teamwork. According to Griffith (2015), a 360-degree group assessment tool helps the management determine how well the teams perform while providing them feedback for recognition and improvement. In other words, everyone is involved in assessing the other to ensure that the evaluations are not biased.
Organizations encourage performance management to ensure employees improve from one period to another. Organizations achieve progress if their workforce strives to work more intelligently on the individual and group levels. Increased effectiveness in human resources usually leads to efficiency across the department or business units of the organizations. Therefore, performance management is a great tool that helps management monitor and assess the quality of employees’ contributions to the organization’s goals. It is an initiative by the HR management that pushes employees to achieve their personal and group goals. Askari et al. (2020) stress that organizational success largely depends on the interdependence and cohesiveness within teams and how team members perceive and understand their roles and responsibilities toward the organization’s goals. One of the fundamental concepts of game theory is cooperative games which promote team spirit. Von Neumann developed basic game theory concepts that acted as cornerstones of the modern economy in 1944 (Askari et al., 2020). John Nash introduced a new definition of equilibrium in games, especially non-cooperative games. In such games, players appear independently to maximize their interests. Conversely, players tend to make coalitions and groups with mutual benefits to maximize personal benefits. In other words, the players choose strategies that lead to a collective course of action for much better outcomes. Workgroups occur to avoid delays, costs, and different undesirable outcomes. Real-life examples of the cooperative game’s model at play include resource allocation in public organizations such as exploitation of oil fields, water, commercial agreements, and facilitating stock exchanges and international relations. Therefore, cooperative games are the most effective way to promote teamwork for higher productivity, sustainability, and justice. Individuals play a critical role in determining a team’s performance (Bobbie & Paul, 1998). When individuals take their responsibilities in a team seriously, they become more committed to set objectives, and the group becomes infallible.
However, one of the major issues that negatively affect teamwork is conflicts. Such conflicts stem from power imbalances, poor communication, weak leadership, change in management, dissatisfaction, and lack of transparency within the team (Sahar, 2018). Lack of teamwork can be catastrophic since communication lines are broken and synergy to tackle complex tasks. Every group requires effective leadership to ensure that all team members are in the same direction and working towards the same goals (Minahan, 2014). Team leaders tend to align individual goals with group ones to deliver good results. They develop strategies for team members to achieve the desired goals. Poor teamwork is energy-draining and costly due to improper utilization of resources provided to accomplish goals. Nonetheless, Sahar (2018) believes that conflicts and related issues within teams can be resolved through five achievable and realistic strategies. Fast forwards, a team with the potential to achieve goals greater than expectations requires a good and experienced team leader. The leader must have the interests of the company at heart. As a result, such a leader manages to set the tone for the rest of the team members and motivate them. Another critical strategy includes open and transparent communication among team members and teams (Carol & Brenda, 2004). The management clearly defines the company’s objectives while the team leaders persuade the team members to follow them to the latter. Team leaders and members must maintain positive behavior and strive to resolve conflicts amicably without incurring losses or additional costs. Carol and Brend (2004) also demonstrate that time management is critical in ensuring that the teams are more productive and efficient at the same time.
More importantly, team members need to be motivated at all times. Sahar (2018) provides several methods of inspiring members of the group. For a group to remain intact, the management must ensure that the compensation and benefits package of the members match with their level of contribution. The working conditions must be safe, conducive, and pleasant. The goals should be achievable, realistic, and straightforward, while failure to achieve them should not be punished. Trust building within the group is an excellent tool for ensuring that everyone is on board and in the right direction (Minahan, 2014). Besides open communication, two-way traffic should facilitate reporting and feedback. John (2014) further that including team members in the decision-making process shows that they are trusted, and their opinions matter in the organizational development. Therefore, seeking the team members’ views builds trust and employee engagement for the betterment of the organization. Team members are more focused on the organizational goals when they know the areas that require improvement. In this case, job satisfaction at the individual level encourages good teamwork.
References
Abuzid, H. F. & Abbas, M. (2017). impact of teamwork effectiveness on organizational performance vis-a-vis the role of Organizational Support… Journal of Engineering and Applied sciences, 12(8), 2229-2237.
Agarwal, S., & Adjirackor, T. (2016). Impact of teamwork on organizational productivity in some selected primary schools in the Accra metropolitan assembly. European Journal of Business, Economics, and Accountancy, 4(6), 40-52.
Ali, M. R. H. (2019). The effect of teamwork development on organizational performance: a case study of tile and carpet center in Kenya.
Askari, G., Asghri, N., Gordji, M. E., Asgari, H., Filipe, J. A., & Azar, A. (2020). The impact of teamwork on an organization’s performance: A cooperative game’s approach. Mathematics, 8(10), 1804.
Bobbie. T and Paul. A. (1998) Individual and groups in organization (online) London. Revised ed. Sage Publications Ltd. (Accessed 20 December 2013).
Carol A.& Brenda A. (2004) Building intelligent teams; A road map to high performance(online)London. Sage publications Inc. (Accessed 19 June 2012).
Griffith, A. (2015) Working in Teams, moving from High Potential to High Performance (online) London. Sage Publications. Inc (Accessed 08 December 2017).
John E. (2014) Achieving an effective meeting; Mechanics of decision group process (online) 3rd ed. London. Sage Publications Inc. (Accessed 21 December 2015).
Minahan, M: (2014). The NTL handbook of organization development and change: Principle practice and perspectives, (online). 2nd ed. Pfeiffer. (Accessed 03 March 2014).
Rubab. S (2018) How to Resolve Lack of teamwork Issue. Available from: http://www.medium.com (Accessed 20 September 2018).
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