High Team Performance Analysis

Team Performance

Johnson and Johnson (1997) have highlighted five characteristics that lead to high team performance. Positive interdependence is when each team member feels connected in a way that they believe their success relies on the efforts of the team as a whole. Within the team there is a sense of personal responsibility and accountability to complete the task. A high performing team would display good interpersonal and group skills and build positive relationship between team members. In addition to this, there would be promotive personal interaction which denotes how team members encourage each other’s efforts and wellbeing to achieve success for the team. Finally, there is a review of the team process whereby members of the

However, if management are saying that they value teamwork but seem to reward individuals, then this can result in a drop in commitment, widespread resentment and perceptions of inequity (Rowland, 2013). Bacon & Blyton (2007) examined workers views of why teamwork was being utilised by management. They study aimed to gain an understanding of the impact of team working on the attitudes and behaviours of employees. It found that workers were generally supportive of the idea of teamwork but distrustful of managerial intent. It was mentioned that employees’ believed senior managers introduced team-working in order to meet the concerns of shareholders and it would be used adversely in a time of job cuts. Davis (1998) comments that, to improve performance, managers think they must change the culture of the team members but arguably it is managers themselves who must change their own culture. There can be a set of assumptions about organisations and people, and these assumptions are taken on by management and impact the design of the system. Unless managers understand how the system that they have designed drives performance, they will never know how to improve team performance (Davis, 1998,

It was found that leadership behaviour, goal clarity, and team learning behaviours were identified by team members as the top three important factors. In the same study it emerged that, in terms of measuring team performance, the most commonly applied criteria were satisfying quality requirements, realizing the target goals, and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, these three came out on top for all three groups (Savelsbergh, van der Heijden and Poell, 2010). As mentioned, goal clarity was perceived as a key performance criterion in this study. Hackman (1998) asserts that having a clear direction helps align team efforts with the objectives of the parent organisation. In this way, a degree of discipline is required to create successful teamwork (Johnson and Johnson, 1997; Cacioppe, 1999). It is mistakenly assumed that removing structures or bureaucratic impediments to group functioning will allow members to work together creatively and effectively. Rather, Hackman (1998, p.28) argues that setting a clear, engaging direction for a team is to empower, not depower,