Self-Directed Team Analysis

The world ‘s economy has developed continuously throughout the decades. In order to catch up with the economic development and people demand, the business is always seeking for the best approaches to enhance productivity as well as performance of the company. “According to Mc Shane, Olekalns and Travaglione (2010), self-directed teams have a high degree of autonomy, which is proven to increase productivity”. Based on my experiences either in the course ‘s work group activities, I agree that self-directed team if implemented appropriately will lead to the high level of productivity. This essay will critically analyse the authors’ claim and examine whether or not self-directed teams are always beneficial for the business in many perspectives. Throughout the body of the essay, we will be looking at the self-directed team ‘s definition, advantages, and disadvantages, how it is reflected in the real work group meetings and some solutions.

According to Mc Shane, Olekalns and Travaglione (2010), A Self-directed team, also known as a self-managing team is defined as a “cross functional work group” which each team member is responsible for a small specific task but interdependent to each other’s in working processes to accomplish “an entire piece of work” with a high level of independence. In other words, Wood, Wallace, Zeffane, Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn (2001) also define self-directed teams are the groups of people that have an authority in managing and evaluating their work with a very minimum supervision to solve day-to-day issues.

Self-directed teams have proven its vital role in business organizations and workplaces by many advantages.

First of all, the employees’ motivation and satisfaction are improved significantly, whic...

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Halkos, G & Bousinakis, D 2010, ‘The effect of stress and satisfaction on productivity’, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 59, Issue 5, pp. 415-431.

Mc Shane, S, Olekalns, M & Travaglione, T 2010, Organisational behaviour on the Pacific Rim, 3rd edn, Mc Graw Hill, Australia, pp. 320.

Singer, J & Duvall, S 2000, ‘High-performance partnering by self-managed teams in manufacturing’,: Engineering Management Journal, vol. 12, Issue 4, pp.9-15, viewed on 5 April 2011, ProQuest Database.

Williams, R 1995, Self-Directed Work Teams: A Competitive Advantage, post November 1995, viewed 3 April 2011, http://www.qualitydigest.com/nov95/html/self-dir.html

Wood, Wallace, Zeffane, Schermehorn, Hunt, Osborn 2001, Organisational behaviuor: global perspective, 2rd edn, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, Australia, pp. 309-310.