Managing Groups Teams (Coursework Sample)

Managing Groups Teams
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Managing Groups Teams
For the last few decades, teamwork has turned out to be like a buzzword in the modern organizations. The modern organizations have believe that having a strong team is a source of competitive advantage that needs to be fully exploited for the benefit of the organization. It is believed that there are benefits that an organization can enjoy by having a strong team that is motivated to achieving the organizational goal. It is fact that a strong team produces more than what an individual can produce. From the case of Strident, the company is collapsing because there is no teamwork in the organization.
JoHari Model
The JoHari Model brings the light to the problem that Strident faces. According to the model, there should be an open area in an organization. The open area creates effectiveness in the organization and produces good results. In this area, there is good communication and cooperation, no conflict and mistrust, no misunderstandings, distractions and confusions. In Strident, there is mistrust, conflict, poor communication, and poor cooperation. This shows that there is no free area in Strident causing the problem. The second idea of the JoHari Model is the blind spot (Shenton, 2007), which is what others know about someone, which he/she does not know. Alex seems not to be knowing that the employees have other personal issues which they need to take care of besides those of the organization. The moment the employees realizes this, they start caring about themselves by leaving work in time and coming late. This causes the present problems that Strident faces.
The third idea is the hidden area. There might be an area that Alex does not understand about the organization or about the staff members. In addition, the strong relationship between Alex and Sue is hidden to Sue or Alex. Both might be using it for manipulative purposes, Alex might be using it for personal desires or Sue might be using it to get more attention from the top management than it gets from other staff members. The last idea of the JoHari model is the area of unknown activity (Roberts et al, 1993). The employees of Strident are not motivated in any way neither are they given any incentives that may encourage them to put more effort in their work. Secondly, there is no employee training in Strident, these areas may be unknown to the top management or the employees themselves. If they were known, they should have been tried to encourage and motivate the employees.
Group dynamics causing the problem
It is rare to find modern organizations ignoring or neglecting the power of group dynamics in running and motivating their group teams. Team dynamics are an essential part of group teams in organizations. They have a significant impact in the way in which a team works. Therefore, holding the group dynamics can have a great impact to the organization such as improving the profitability of the organization, retaining the staff, improving the performance of the groups and individuals, and building the reputation of the company (Forsyth, 2009). Group dynamics strongly influences how a group reacts, behaves or how it performs in the organization.
In a performing team, every member of the team talks and listens to what other have to say. In strident, only Alex who did the talking and was making decisions on his own while his team members had no room for talking or give suggestions on how they can improve the performance of the organization. During the meetings, there was no debate between the members but it was more of questions and answers between Alex and his team. They might have been discouraged by the fact they were not involved in the decision making of the organization hence the withdrawal exhibited by the employees by leaving work early.
The spirit of the Strident’s teamwork is lost by the strong relationship between Alex and Sue Black. Alex respected Sue and involved her more in the activities of the organization than he included other members led by Marlene. They felt excluded in the organization since they were not included in the decision-making. The relationship between Alex and Sue created two subgroups in the organization, that of Sue and Alex, and that of other members. The creation of subgroups in the organization may have led to a flaw in the flow of information in the organization. Information may not have been flowing across the whole group but used to flow in the subgroups only. There was no trust in the members of the organization (Austin, 2003). Marlene had no trust in Sue, which shows that there was a conflict between them, Marlene told her members not to do everything for Sue. In addition, Alex and Rebecca did not trust each other. This is evident in the way in which they communicated with staff members. The conflicts between them created mistrust, which led to miscommunication in the organization. The miscommunication in Strident led to misunderstandings and poor performance.
Another cause for the poor performance in strident may have been due to the leadership style that was brought by Alex (Forsyth, 2009). Alex’s leadership style did not include the other members of the organization. He showed signs of not caring about the personal obligations of the members of the organization. Therefore, the members became more interested in protecting themselves than sticking to the plan of the organization. In addition, Alex did not acknowledge the efforts or ideas of the members, he valued his own ideas, and he thought that no one had an important idea than his therefore not allowing them to give their views.