Introduction

Team effectiveness is paramount for the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. There are various practices that a team should incorporate to ensure that it delivers on its mandate. Team leadership and the relationship among team members is a critical determinant of the ability of a team to achieve organizational goals based on their assignment. Analysis of a team’s effectiveness is essential because it highlights the specific areas that a team excels and those that require improvement. This paper will analyze the Commission Replacement Team by identifying its strengths and weaknesses and later providing recommendations based on the findings. The analyst believes that the analysis will be an eye-opener for the team to continue with specific practices and replace others for the betterment of its productivity.

                                                            Strengths

There are various strengths evident in the team. First, the team can be described as real. This is because the team is stable membership and does not change its membership frequently. Hackman (1980), advises the organization to refrain from shuffling team members frequently to ensure stability. In this way, the team members to learn to work together as a group. Besides, it improves bondage thus creating a feeling of belonging. By so doing, the team members are capable of developing knowledge on how they could work together effectively. They perform tasks as a team rather than disintegrating them and delivering them individually (Hackman, 1980). It is also worth noting that the team has been granted authority over certain aspects of their tasks or group management. For instance, they are allowed to change the features of their design and admit new members into the team.

The second strength that is evident from the team is the ability to have a clearly defined direction. Besides, they understand the impact and consequences of their work on other people through a stipulated guideline. According to the survey, the majority of the members thought that the team’s purpose had been specified. Moreover, there is a total utilization of the skills and knowledge of the team members. The team members are engaged in determining how the tasks should be accomplished.

The team is also composed of the right people. There is a good mix of skills and diversity among team members.  Consequently, there is a wide range of ideas, creativity, and knowledge needed to perform tasks.  Individual members are added to the team based on what they can contribute towards the achievement of the goal. This is also a clear indication that teamwork skills are evaluated before adding a member in a team. In as much as diversity widens the range of perspectives, careful selection has been used to prevent the scenario where members are too diverse in their background and experience. The team tasks are also well designed thus enabling the members to interact and come up with unique ways of performing duties. It is worth noting that too diverse members would result in misunderstanding on individual perspectives especially when proper management procedures are not in place.

It was noted that coaching had been provided in the team. According to the survey, the team members describe the coaching process as helpful. The coaching process has played a pivotal role in the team’s goal of accomplishing tasks. The coaching has focused on enabling members to utilize their skills and knowledge in performing their tasks. This has improved commitment among team member in achieving tasks because they feel that they are part of the team. Furthermore, the coaching has prepared them to devise appropriate strategies that can be incorporated to foster teamwork in accomplishing tasks.

The modus operandi of the group allows them to be sustainable and effective in the long term. For instance, there is effective communication among team members through face-face interaction when carrying out interdependent work. This is essential especially when the team is handling tasks involving problem-solving and cracking complex concepts.

                                                                    Weaknesses

However, there are specific weaknesses that were evident in the team. For instance, the team lacks a solid structure. There are too many people in the teams thus hampering convening and work coordination. Team members are not some of the following guidelines even though they are well stipulated and every individual issued with a copy as a reminder. This is mainly due to the lack of penalties for non-compliance. Besides, there is a lack of adequate collective work, which is evident from the minimal consultations among team members.

It is worth noting that the team lacks adequate authority on how they handle tasks even though they are granted permission to add or remove team members. The team members cannot decide on the best approach to the work, the duration and how they should allocate work. They solely depend on the organization to make such decisions, which are sometimes time-consuming and not in the best interest of the members.

There also is unequal contribution effort in the team. Some members are very dormant and depend on the decisions made by others. This may be very dangerous for the team because it could technically be operating on the idea of one or two people thus lacking the concept behind teamwork. This could be attributed to the lack of consideration of entire members’ views hence the unwillingness to participate. Hackman (1980), argues that the most effective way of ensuring group members behave well is by setting up and supporting the group itself.

There are no adequate programs put in place to enable team members to perform efficiently. For instance, the rewarding system is individually based. This does not foster team and demotivates the team members from engaging in productive teamwork because they feel that their efforts will not be rewarded. Besides, there are no proper training and information needed to perform tasks. In this way, the information provided is not synthesized to sync with team needs.

Moreover, team coaching seems to be insufficient. Just like compensation, the coaching available focuses on individual performance rather than the overall team performance. The coaching provided is too little to reinforce behavior in the teams. Too much emphasis has been directed to less relevant aspects such as interpersonal relations and insignificant interventions, which are non-substantial. Consequently, the work accomplished is unsatisfactory to the clients mainly to the lack of a stipulated goal.  The team could also be paying more attention to matters within such as member satisfaction rather than the outcome.

Areas of further research

Certain areas were not adequately addressed by the survey thus requiring more analysis. For instance, more research should be carried out to determine the impact of team members’ relationship on the efficiency of the team. This may be the primary cause of unsatisfactory results experienced. Besides, the team effort is also not proportional to the quality of work produced, which is puzzling. There be more research in this area as well to unearth the underlying causes.

Recommendations

Generally, the team has some of the best qualities and is likely to produce the best result if it improves on particular areas. First, the number of team members should be limited that one that is easily manageable to encourage all members to participate and facilitate easy decision making. Besides, the team members should be vetted to ensure compatibility. This will enable proper teamwork coordination (Hackman, 1980). It will also ensure that team conventions are arranged conveniently. Additionally, the team should have stipulated norms with penalties in case of defaulting to promote discipline among members (Janz et al., 2016).

More authority should be granted to the team to enable them to decide on how it should manage its tasks and time frames. This will dramatically improve the quality of work delivered. This can be achieved by ensuring that the team leadership oversees the smooth coordination of tasks.  The permission to admit and dismiss members is not enough to provide independence and smooth running of the team. Moreover, diversity should be maintained to improve the quality of teamwork (Burke et al., 2014).

It was noted that coaching and compensation strategies are individually based. The team should invest in collective efforts to motivate the members through coaching and compensation focused more on guiding the execution of tasks and reinforcing behavior. Besides, there is a need to implement a rewarding system that focuses on the entire team rather than on individual performance. This will foster the interdependence among team members, which will consequently lead to members delivering collective work.

References

Burke, C. S., Salas, E., Wilson-Donnelly, K., & Priest, H. (2014). How to turn a team of experts into an expert medical team: guidance from the aviation and military communities. BMJ Quality & Safety, 13(1), 104.

Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign.

Janz, B. D., Colquitt, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2016). Knowledge worker team effectiveness: The role of autonomy, interdependence, team development, and contextual support variables. Personnel psychology.