Effective Organisational Developement and Team Building

Introduction

• Organizations operate in an environment characterized by diverse challenges and opportunities.
• The challenges and opportunities emanate from the macro and micro business environments.
• Despite the challenges , organizations should ensure that they succeed in the future.
• Organization’s future success can only be achieved through integration of effective strategic management practices such as organizational development.

Definition of organization development

Gupta and Pyngavil (2012) define organizational development as “a systematic way of responding to a business’s human resource needs to promote long term effectiveness and accountability in that business” (p.53).

• Definition of interventions; interventions refer to the planned actions that are aimed at improving organizations’ effectiveness. Interventions contribute to the disruption of status quo in an organization, which steers a firm to the desired state.
• Team building is one of the most effective organizational development interventions.

Team building

• Definition of team building – team building refers to a process-based intervention that can be very effective in enhancing organizational change, for example by improving the employees’ attitude.
• Teams are established with the objective of achieving a common goal. The team goals are aligned with the organization’s vision, mission, and values.
• The team members complement each other, which enhances the likelihood of achieving the desired outcome.
• Team building is aimed at improving an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency, which improves the overall organizational performance.
• Teams may become dysfunctional which might lead to increment in the rate of voluntary employee turnover.
• Employee turnover can be costly to an organization’s performance due to loss of human capital.
• Team building enables organizations to deal with issues that may lead a team becoming dysfunctional.
• Teams are designed to deal with a particular problem.
• Lack of coordination may adversely impact team performance. Therefore, team leaders should nurture a high degree of collaboration and coordination amongst the team members.
• Lack of coordination may lead to disruption in team activities, hence limiting the likelihood of achieving the set team goals.
• Some of the team members may quit or lose their morale, hence reducing the organization’s performance.

Key success factors in team building

• Successful implementation of team building intervention is dependent on number of factors which include;
• Setting measurable goals; The team goals should be set collaboratively, which means that all team members should be involved. Furthermore, the goals should be measurable in order to be effective in tracking the team’s performance.
• Effective communication; effective communication should be adopted within the team. This aspect ensures that all the team members are conversant with the team’s performance. The communication method adopted should enhance exchange of information between the team leaders and the followers.
  • Communication; effective communication plays a fundamental role in identifying gaps in team performance.
  • Conducting team meetings also plays a fundamental role in evaluating the effectiveness of meeting the set targets.
  • Implementing an effective reward system; the team members should be rewarded for their team effort. This goal can be achieved through the recognition of teams that depict exemplary performance.
• Elements of an effective team
  • The degree to which the resulting output corresponds with the stipulated standards such as quality, quantity, and timeliness.
  • The extent to which the team working processes enhances the team members’ ability to work interdependently in the future.
• Elements of an effective team
  • The extent to which working as a team contributes towards a unique experience amongst the team members. Therefore, effective team building should contribute towards improvement in personal well-being.

Steps involved in team building

• Conducting a need analysis- the need analysis should be focused on identifying the team building needs.
• Selecting a well qualified a change agent; the change agent should be conversant with team building activities. One of the skills that the change agent should possess is process consultation.
• Developing the team building approach.
• Formulating a team building schedule

Team building model ; The Tuckman model

Community of practice model [COP model]

Community of practice model

• The COP model is one of the most effective team models.
• COP model provides individuals in a particular organization to become better team members.

Dimensions of the COP model

1. Accountability to the enterprise
2. Negotiability of the repertoire
3. Mutuality of engagement

Application of team building intervention

• Coventry University is one of the leading learning institutions in the UK.
• The institution has implemented the concept of team building.
• Some of the settings in which the institution applies team building interventions adopted include;
  • Activity-based team building
  • Problem-solving-based team building
  • Skills-based team building

Team building interventions

Skills-based team building

• These activities mainly entail outdoor activities.
• The skills-based team building activities are aimed at instilling additional and specific skills in employees.

Some of the skills taught include

1. Conflict resolution
2. Promoting constructive feedback
3. Fostering group consensus

Conclusion

• Organizations are operating in an environment characterized by a high rate of change.
• Despite this aspect, firms’ management teams have an obligation to steer their organizations towards the desired level of excellence.
• Organizational development interventions can enable firms to achieve their desired goals by improving employee performance.
• Teambuilding is one of the most important organizational development intervention that employees can take into account.
• Team building improves the employees morale and hence their productivity. Subsequently, the organizations’ performance is improved.

References

Gautam, V., & Batra, S. (2011). Organization development systems: a study in organization behaviour and organization management. New Delhi, India: Concept Publishing Company.

Gupta, M., & Pyngavil, R. (2012). Effective team building in relation to organizational culture and organizational climate in banking sector; an inter-correlation analysis. Prestige International Journal of Management and Information Technology, 1 (1), 52-66.

Moore, M., Cangemi, J., & Ingram, J. (2013). Appreciative leadership and opportunity; centric approach to organizational success. Organization Development Journal, 31 (2), 1-106.

Idris, K. (2014). Organizational development and strategic intervention for enterprise sustainability; empirical evidence from Nigeria. British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 16(2), 1-16.

Ismail, I., Jalil, H., Krauss, S., & Hassan, A. (2008). Sustaining faculty organizational development through team building activities. Malaysia: University of Putra.

Krishnan, V. (2012). Transformational leadership and personal outcomes; empowerment as mediator. Leadership and organization development Journal, 33 (6), 550-563.

Niterlrooij, A., & Sminia, H. (2010). Organization development; what is actually happening. Journal of Change Management, 1 (3), 407-420.

Rickards, T., & Moger, S. (2000). Creative leadership processes in project team development; an alternative to Tuckman’s stage model. British Journal of Management, 11 (2), 273-283.

Werner, J., & DeSimone, R. (2009). Human resource development. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.