Team Working

Since i started to be part of the human society, i had many opportunities to work in a group, in fact in school, in university and in sports activities, team work has always played a fundamental role in my teachers, mentors and coaches opinion. Especially in sport, team working has a significant meaning in fact it helps to fortify and improve performances of each member of the group; this is why my best team working experience take place in a football team while i was attending the secondary school. In that period, as every child, sport and especially football, had a considerable role in my life, and, somehow, represented an occasion to demonstrate my own abilities in a group and compare them.

The experience was successful because, even if we were a recently formed team, we demonstrate to everybody how strong and solid we were and facing with out fear and apprehension every match we achieved the first position in the league. The main reasons of this success were three, the passion and the love we felt at that time for the game, the strong relationship between each member of the team and the organization of our group. In fact our team was well organized by our coach he established previously the function that each one had to have in the team and obviously the role we had to play, finally he assigned to each member a particular task for the game. Following Belbin's theories of team-role, the way chosen by our coach was correct and useful, in fact giving small and clear task to 12-years boys, which normally may have some problems to act in a good way while member of a group, he provide a simple but efficiency organization to the group, and match after match we start to gain more and more faith in the team, in ourselves and in the coach. Belbin said that in each role, a particular weakness is associated to the role contribution, in our team we did know perfectly each one weakness and contribution,

allowing us to understand which system was perfect to fit everyone features. In order to Belbin's nine team-roles theory, i was identifiable as "Plant" because, as my coach said to me, i was able to create something, invent a trick or a solution to solve some difficult situations, but on the other and i was to imaginative and inconstant during the match, so my role in the team was the "jolly", able to provide more ideas during a period that the match was stocked.

Considering Tuckman model, our group passed through some levels to become a real team-work, and before getting into the real task, we did face some problems and solve some incomprehension; firstly we tried to establish guidelines and rules, which were considerably important as we were for the first time together in the same team, therefore we decided how our report should been like and which results we wanted to achieve. Storming our ideas was really helpful to understand if there were any kind of conflict and hostility in the group, and it provides also the clear point of view of each member, that is an essential aspect, in fact, knowing all the point of view of group’s members its easily to find out the way to work and produce certain results. I did try to understand other member’s point of view and illustrate mine, as, in this way, i had the possibility of find by myself the correct way to work on the assignment without acting against the will of the group, and, even more important, i provided to my group mates some suggestion which were more compatible to my idea of the report.

During these last years, Microsoft in UK, deeply focused on managing its staff, trying to create a workforce more efficient and collaborative; starting from the enrichment of the organization culture, managers offered to their employees more opportunities to spend some time with their colleagues not at work, supporting the access to some events outside the office and encouraging staff participation in group activities. This first step provided to managers, workforce and team work made of employees confident in themselves and in other staff members. The second step concerned insisting on the theme of training, managers wanted employees to gain the maximum experience from their work, not just by them self, but even by their colleagues and other employees, in this way managers create an independent training system, meaning of a reinforcement of the organization’s culture and of relations that link each member of the team work. Finally managers provided to its staff flexible working options, to stimulate them and to make them more confident with their job, and they improved the efficiency of the workforce providing to employees technologies requested.

What makes Kellog’s employees so linked to the company they work for is made 50% by the culture of the organization and 50% by the working conditions provided by the managers of the company. Employees are really linked to each other, relations between members are encouraged by the company by group events, and team activities are considered the basis of a strong workforce in the company. To make their employees more confident and more faithful to the company, managers provide them a well paid salary and different bonuses, which employees can gain by improving their performances in the company, in addition the organization cares every single aspect of staff members life, such as insurances and pension, and allows every single employee to set up according to managers his own developing plan, which concern future plans of the member in the company, future plans that normally concern the career and work opportunities. Choosing this way to act, Kellog's is able to make his employees more confident in each other and in the company, creating a strong sense of belonging of members to the organizations and providing enormous improvements to the aspect of motivation.

References

-Mullins, L. (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8^th ed. Pearson Education Limited: Harlow