The Myths and Realities of Teamwork
Teamwork is defined as the capability to collaborate and communicate effectively with others to accomplish a common goal. Hence, almost every leader knows that teamwork is crucial to accomplish the common goals of an organization (Thakur, 2015). According to Butera (2019), some myths of teamwork contribute to the inefficiency of the team and their capability to perform and deliver. Therefore, the leader needs to abandon those myths and finding a way to resolve them.
In this assignment, I would like to analyze the six myths of teamwork described in the book written by Wright (2013) titled, “The Myths and Realities of Teamwork”
Myth 1: Teams are harmonious people who compromise their needs for the sake of the team
In reality, a good team is built of diverse people with clear-cut needs to be met (Wright, 2013). Furthermore, Wright (2013) emphasized that diversity should be acknowledged and used accordingly to strengthen the team. Thakur (2015) also stated that in the real world, harmony may become a destructive thing for a team because it will make the team becomes conflict-free. When in fact, a functional conflict can encourage the team to brings more creative solutions than a conflict-free team.
In addition, to create a productive collaboration within a team, team members need to be able to disagree comfortably with one another without worry that they might be damaging the harmony within their team. (Butera, 2019)
Myth 2: Team conflict is unhealthy
In the past, people thought that conflict is unproductive and damaging for the team.
In fact, as stated in Wright’s (2013) book, conflict can be constructive specifically if the team members can embody the team’s common objectives rather than individual goals. In addition, conflict might drive more innovation and creativity within a team, encouraging the members to cooperate and bring more good ideas.
Myth 3: Most people like teamwork
In keeping with Wright (2013), only one-third of the working population love working within a team. Each individual has different values and preferences, therefore, some people might have a preference to work by themselves. Despite that fact, a well-functional team can provide an environment that indulges each individual work preferences.
Thakur (2019) affirmed that sometimes it will be faster, simpler, and more efficient to delegate routine works or any works that require swift decisions and deadlines to an individual rather than to a team. Thus, the organization should recognize the individual preferences then adjust them with the assigned tasks to make more efficient and effective teamwork.
Myth 4: Teamwork is essential to business success
Conforming to Wright (2013), an organization can handle working without teamwork for simple tasks or processes. They can work in silos and a task environment instead of working within a team. The Business itself determines whether it is necessary or not to work within a team. In this modern, fast-moving, sophisticated environment, sometimes an organization gets more benefits from the diversity of ideas that the team members could offer rather than the teamwork. An organization could assign a role that suits each employee’s skills and preferences, then assign the tasks based on their role’s responsibilities. With this, an organization can get more benefit from the individual contribution.
Myth 5: Teams are easy to influence and manage
Every leader needs a particular skill set to lead and manage the teams effectively. In reality, leading a team and leading day-to-day management is like chalk and cheese. Wright (2013) stated that a leader must establish a culture of trust and transparency to gain more ideas from the team, and also a leader has to act as a coach instead of a manager. Managing and influencing the teams is not easy since we need to think about a lot of factors that might affect the team. Let’s examine communication as one of the factors that affect teamwork. Lack of communication can make a flawed team since the members are not in line with their works. They might have different assumptions and understanding of what are the common goals (Wright, 2013).
Myth 6: Senior Managers encourage teamwork
In the real world, Senior managers might not encourage teamwork. Pursuant to Wright (2013), senior managers might afraid to lose the control that teamwork appears to bring with it. They might feel threatened that they might lose their position when a skilled team member is rising from their team. As Wright (2013) stated in his book, some managers hinder team productivity by being territorial and micromanage everything. Some of them also limit access to information to protect their power.
Further research on Myth 2: Team conflict is unhealthy
As we have learned in the previous unit, conflict in an organization is inevitable. As long as there are unmet needs, incompatible objectives, perceptions, and interpretations differences, disagreements, or such, conflict is unavoidable (Robbins & Judge, 2016). Butera (2019) emphasized that the team members should be eager to welcome honest arguments, challenges, transformation, and compromise with each other. A highly effective team should be able to debate positively. Debate is a valuable activity for brainstorming new ideas, concepts, and strategies (Riklan, 2015). As Riklan (2015) stated in his article, it’s crucial to build a safe and trusting environment to encourage a productive debate to create better ideas.
Why do people buy into this myth?
In my opinion, people buy into this myth because they hate conflict and they want to avoid it as much as possible. Thus, they believe that to create harmony within a team, team members need to compromise and sacrifice their needs for the sake of the team.
Is it difficult to influence others to see the reality against the myth?
Related to Myth 5: Teams are easy to influence and manage, it won’t be easy to influence others to see the reality against this myth. Some factors such as the level of trust, communication, and transparency of information might affect the difficulties to influence.
On the other hand, the characteristic of the team itself also can be an important factor in this case. If the team consists of closed-minded individuals, then it might be difficult to influence them. Nevertheless, if the team members consist of open-minded individuals then it might be feasible to change their perception regarding this myth.
Conclusion
Myths and misconceptions in managing teamwork might become obstacles for leaders to create highly functional teams. As Butera (2019) stated in his article, leaders should keep an open mind attitude regardless of their team members’ backgrounds. Learning more about their own team members’ strengths and accommodate their needs by discussing their role and responsibilities in the team, keep transparent communication, and motivate them to work together to achieve common goals can be an effective way to build a high-performance team and avoid any negative impacts of these myths and misconception.
References
Butera, C. (2019, January 9). Teamwork: Myths, realities and tips. Business Management Daily. https://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/52305/teamwork-myths-realities-and-tips/
Riklan, M. (2020, August 1). 5 characteristics of highly effective teams. Fun Team Building Company — The Leaders Institute. https://www.leadersinstitute.com/5-characteristics-highly-effective-teams/
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2016). Organizational behavior.
Thakur, R. (2015, August 10). 6 common myths about team work. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-common-myths-team-work-rajeev-thakur
Wright, D. (2013). The myths and realities of teamwork, 1st ed. Retrieved from http://bookboon.com/en/the-myths-and-realities-of-teamwork-ebook
Note:
This article is written based on University of The People Organizational Behavior (BUS 5113) written assignment by Fristy Tania in October 2021
