What Makes a Team

What makes a team click?

Compare individual motives that are conducive to successful teamwork.

Positive motivators for success, as far as the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Group Motivators are concerned include: Acceptance, Socialization, Friendships, Close Relationships, Affection, Success, Prestige, Status, and a Sense of Achievement (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010). These are positive motivators that drive individuals to not only join groups, but seek to excel in them as well. These motivators will be covered in brief in the following text. These motivators can be further defined by two broad categories that encompass them - "Satisfiers and Motivators" (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010)

Satisfiers

Satisfiers are to an extent our more material needs: food, housing, money, that kind of thing. Individuals often join a team, be it a specific team or in a general sense when getting employed somewhere, there are often motivations of taking care of material needs - seeing these needs met means individuals are more likely to try to excel in a team environment. Now while these needs may drive individuals to join a group and work within them, it will not always drive them to excel in them (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010). Which leads us directly into the second category; Motivators.

Motivators

Motivators are the other classification of individual motivations that drive us to join and excel in groups. These include our desires to be accepted by others and to be a part of something; both of which being successful in a group provide. Groups also do well in providing for our esteem needs; because it gives us something excel towards, while providing an environment where our success or failure will affect others in a positive or negative manner. This means that we feel good for our successes, because others feel appreciative of us and the effort we put in. A final point that being in a group helps us satisfy is the desire to help others in some manner or another - it satisfies the part of the human brain dedicated to empathy when we can come together and assist another in doing good work.

Compare motives that may have a negative effect on teamwork.

For a team or group to have success, each member must be willing to practice teamwork. However, there are several motives that can have a negative effect on teamwork that can cause a project, assignment or task not to be completed. Some motives such as competitiveness among team members. Even though teams consist of independent individuals, members must move from a mindset of independence to interdependence functioning as a unit. Team members who continually try to prove they are better than others within a group lose sight on the goal or task at hand. He or she become consume with performing better than others at any cost, and lose all concept of being a team player. These individuals usually have hidden agendas, which is focused more on obtaining approval from upper management. Also such motives for power and authority can have a negative effect on teamwork. These types of team members desire leadership roles and can become over bearing, and negative in their efforts for greed and power. These individual's interactions with team members