Effective Team Performance Depends on Supportive Corporate Culture

TBS-903

MANAGING AND ORGANIZATIONS

ASSESSMENT-1(TOPIC 2)

EFFECTIVENESS OF TEAMS AND SUPPORTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Culture of an organization has the same impact on its employees as culture of society on the life of individuals. Organizational culture shapes the working environment of an entity. A healthy and supportive organizational culture will result into a better working environment and better output. Performance of individuals as well as teams is directly affected by the organizational culture of the entity. Teams are likely to be more effective when operating in a supportive organizational culture. In this paper an endeavour has been made to establish this linkage between supportive organizational culture and effectiveness of team.

Before coming to the core issue it is pertinent to briefly discuss the meaning of team and organizational culture so as to establish a common platform for our discussion.

Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis (2011, p.88) define the team as "two or more people psychologically contracted together to achieve a common organizational goal in which all individuals involved share at least some level of responsibility and accountability for the outcome". For high-involvement organizations teams can act as the basic building block (Shadur, Kienzle & Rodwell, 1999). People work in teams for the notion of safety and sense of belongingness (Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis, 2011).

Functional, cross-functional, and self-managing teams are the common types of teams. Functional team comprises people from the same department; Cross-functional teams comprise people who belong to diverse departments to tackle a specific task and Self-managing teams accept responsibility for all aspects of given work using self-direction and motivation (Heathfield, Susan M. n.d.).

We can define organizational culture as "a system of shared norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions which binds people together, thereby creating shared meanings. This system is manifested by customs and habits that exemplify the values and beliefs of the organization" (Larson & Clifford, 2011). Culture involves well understood behaviours which is known to all individuals and are based on a shared system of meanings which provide necessary guidance to our perceptions and thinking process (What is Corporate Culture, n.d.). It can also be said as the cumulative outcome of an organization's assumptions of the past and present, its experiences, philosophy, values, self-image, dealing with external parties and the expectation of the future (Organizational Culture, n.d.).

Culture has some key functions in all the organizations. The culture of an organization provides to its member a feeling of identity and affiliation. People identify with their organization more enthusiastically if the organization's values and shared perception are stated with more clarity and conviction (Larson & Clifford, 2011). "Culture is like a big invisible lever that moves all the organizations and impacts productivity, retention, customer satisfaction and much more" (Eikenberry, 2012). This lever if skilfully manipulated can create cohesion and productivity for the organization. "Culture creates a common ground for team members and reduces uncertainty by offering a language for interpreting events and issues" (The one Page, n.d.).

A supportive organizational culture nourishes the growth of individual skills and qualities and is a constant source of motivation for the entire workforce. There is a sense of belonging in the entity and a happy working environment. In supportive organization culture the management takes decision in the wider interest of the entity and all concerned are involved in decision making, mistakes are considered to be contributing towards learning, it always look for inventive cost-effective ways to deal with the various external issues, diversity is considered to be good, people are not afraid to disagree with one another and do not personalize disagreements. There is a collaborative approach to problem solving and conflict resolution. The organizational mission, goals and well-being is acknowledged as supreme and there is an informed and wise leadership at the top (Attributes of a Supportive Organizational Culture, n.d.,). "Advocating challenging work, open communication, trust, innovation, and cohesion among employees are essential attributes defining a supportive culture" (Pool, 2000, in Schein 1993 & Caudron 1993).

A strong supportive culture is clear, well defined and widely shared among members. It discourages dysfunctional work behaviours and encourages positive attitudes. The sound organizations are having culture which has a performance orientation, emphasize teamwork besides having tolerance for risk taking, encouragement of innovation and welfare of its employees (Environment, Organizational Culture and Diversity, n.d.). Supportive Culture inspires loyalty in employees and motivates them to be part of the team. "At companies with winning cultures, people not only know what they should do, they know why they should do it "(Rogers et al, 2006).

In the past various models have been proposed dealing with teams' performance by numerous authors. Several variables affecting the performance of teams have been discussed at length in these models. T7 Model of Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, however, presents the most comprehensive framework of all the models (Meuse & Kenneth, 2009). Total of seven factors have been identified by them affecting the effectiveness of teams; five factors are inside the team whereas two factors outside the team. Since all the factors have letter "T" in the beginning hence the Model has been named as T7. The internal factors are; Trust, Thrust, Talent, Teaming Skills and Task Skills. The two external team factors are; Team-Leader Fit and Team Support from the Organization.

Besides the internal factors, it is vital to provide organizational and leadership support for success of teams. "It does not matter how good a team is on thrust, trust, talent, teaming skills, and task skills, it must have the support from the organization and the leadership fit to be effective" (Meuse & Kenneth, 2009).

IBM and Microsoft are probably the perfect examples to explain this relationship of good and not so good corporate cultures and the output of teams. In fact Organizational culture has played a vital role in the early fall as well as the subsequent revival of IBM.

In the late 1980s, good organizational culture of supporting its softwares teams made Microsoft overtake the then giant, IBM, whose culture was one of bureaucracy, lack of realism and out