The first social psychological laboratory experiments in the late nineteenth
century dealt with the effectiveness of teamwork. The question then was,
which is more effective, a group or an individual? The results were, and
have been ever since, contradictory. On some occasions the group improves,
on others it impairs individual performance. There is no law of nature to
determine the effectiveness of teamwork. It is up to the team leadership to
make the team perform by getting the resources of the team out in the open,
build them up for a synergistic outcome and even to reinforce the team
resources by way of team learning.
In present day companies and in modern management teamwork is a
necessity. A functional organization requires teamwork for the co-ordination
of departments, as none of them alone can be responsible for the
performance of the whole unit. Networking in a modern way to organize
where teamwork can be used successfully. Teamwork facilitates
management and leadership, and properly conducted improves
communication and saves the time of all concerned, as many issues can be
dealt with while everyone concerned participates in the meeting. Teamwork
has motivational meaning, too. In organization development and in-house
training teamwork has established itself as a major educational resource.
Teamwork in companies is structured. The teams have a leader and
other roles, objectives, accountability, schedules, deadlines and other
characteristics of task forces. Teams are organized as management teams,
functional teams, project teams, committees, quality teams, production
teams, etc. There is no point in asking whether teamwork is productive
or not. It has come to stay. The point is how to lead it in a productive way.
This is the subject of what follows