Performance Plus

Abstract

In today's workplace where interdependence and complexity has grown, teams have come forward as a common design element. Teams come in many forms and can achieve excellent performance and enhance coordination. Though there are teams, cross-functional teams upon being directed properly, can create effective teamwork which overall boost performance in an organization. This paper focuses on cross-functional teams and the designs of effective teamwork. Effective teamwork originate from four design factors: shared purpose, shared responsibility, team empowerment, and team enablement. Ensuring individuals have appropriate skills to perform tasks effectively are another way to encourage teamwork. There should be a clear vision of the four design factors stated above so as to create a central purpose focused on companywide goals and accepted by all members.

Introduction to Performance Plus

Maine Papers is a manufacturer of specialty papers and have been around for years. They have been experiencing declining performance for several years until new corporate leadership stepped in and turned Maine Papers' performance around. Corporate leadership had made known, a desire to increase the revenues from new internally developed products. Currently Maine Papers receives 30 percent of its revenues from products generated within the previous five years and the CEO has announced his intention of reaching 60 percent in three years which puts a significant amount of pressure on each of the divisions to improve their new product development process (Spector, 2012, p. 103). In this case study, General Manager Steve Cook is talking with his top management team about a full service program called Performance Plus that he wants to introduce or put out on the market. He explains the company missed their financial target the year before and it was enough to get the corporate staff nervous. He has promised to have this new package of offerings ready for the market by a May deadline which gave them four months to complete their new product. Cook (2012) insists that quality is his number one priority (p. 102). He does not want to miss the deadline but at the same time he does not want to come out with a substandard product offering either. Cook (2012) articulates that Maine Papers has developed an excellent reputation and he does not want to do anything to sacrifice their reputation (p. 102).

Steps to Take to Ensure High Quality Product on Time

As the General Manager, one of the first steps Steve Cook should focus on is teamwork and building the team so that they are advantageous to the company. Based off of the book publishing division's organizational chart, Cook appears to have seasoned and experienced managers working for him but he must ensure they work together as a tight cross-functional unit if he desires to improve quality, lower costs and deliver the new product on time. Research on team self-management has presented the argument that autonomy, in the form of collective control over critical task-related decisions, can enable teams to perform more effectively (Haas, 2010, p. 989). Cook understands that to have an effective team, he must ensure that there is an implementation effort that creates teamwork. Spector (2012) explains that putting employees together in a group and labeling them a team will not, in and of itself, lead to teamwork (p. 99). Essentially he is saying the team must make the necessary effort to pool their skills together to reach the desired performance improvement. By definition, "cross-functional teams are made up of representatives from multiple organization functions typically intended to achieve required coordination along a chain of interrelated activities and processes" (Spector, 2012, p. 98). Ultimately, this is what Cook is aiming for. Effective teamwork has four design factors: Shared purpose, shared responsibility, team empowerment, and team enablement. If these design factors are missing, there will not be any real teamwork among the members. In the shared purpose stage, team members agree on what their goal is and why that goal is important. Team members must equally accept and focus on the central purpose of company goals; this can be a slow and challenging process but must happen to create effective teamwork. In the shared responsibility stage, team members must take full responsibility for and joint ownership over every aspect, input, and outcome of the team's task (Spector, p. 100). There is a boost in teamwork when members