High Performance Teamwork

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Groups are defined as two or more people who work regularly with one another to achieve common goals (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005, Chapter 9). For a group to become a high-performance team, the team needs to be able to use their collective skills and behaviors to become an efficient model working towards a common goal. Having a common goal will make each team member accountable for the success and failure of the team. Since each team member is accountable to the team, each member's behavior will have an effect on the team. Cultural diversity and demographic characteristics affect an individual's behavior. Behavior caused by diversity and demographic characteristics will be a determining factor whether or not a group can be a high-performance team. Types of Teams The first step in creating a high-performance team is to determine what type of team is appropriate for a given situation. There are three major types of workgroup teams: teams that recommend things, teams that make or do things, and teams that run things (Schermerhorn et al., 2005, Chapter 10). Recommendation teams typically are quick moving teams that analyze a problem created by another type of team, look at that problem from a different perspective and make a recommendation for solving the problem created by the other types of teams. Because this type of team is normally temporary the group must be able to quickly overcome their individual differences to make a good recommendation to other types of groups (Schermerhorn et al., 2005, Chapter 10). Production teams are teams that run things and will be long-term groups that are tasked with a constant goal. Members of this team must have a long-term relationship, a solid foundation of operations, and external support to maintain a high-level of performance over a long period (Schermerhorn et al., 2005, Chapter 10). This type of team is affected by a daily requirement for high output and efficiency. Management teams are teams that run things and are tasked with the responsibility of leading and coordinating the other types of groups. This type of team will take ideas from the recommendation teams or suggestions from production teams and make a decision whether these will have a positive effect on an organization.

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