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TEAMWORK AND TEAM PERFORMANCES
INTRODUCTION
In today's business world, organizations, whether it be small or large are faced with major challenges. A major challenge in any organization is to turn formal groups, into true high performances teams. Teams are one of the major forces behind today's revolutionary change in organizations. Teamwork in this case is regarded only as one element of the new forms of work organization and is an important part of high-performance work organization. Team work and performance sometimes may fail if not carefully managed. As stated by Steven (2003), "poor teamwork can prevent your company's teams from working effectively and achieving their goals".
That is "failure to work as a interconnected unit can lead to project delays, feelings of frustration, dislike among team members, and can eventually decreased team performance" (Gregory, 1996:63). In order to reduce workplace conflict and get team members to work together as a high-performance unit, good behavior and relationship is required in team work will result in progressive team work performance.
This essay will briefly outline how teamwork develops and tries to take into account both the workplace context of individual organizations and the framework at company level at all organizations. It thus addresses how teamwork fit in into companies' overall organizational strategy. The article then focuses on certain specific aspects of teamwork. Besides looking at the overall incidence of this type of work group in different organizations, the study examines the frequency of specific forms of teamwork. It considers whether teamwork helps to give workers greater autonomy and higher job satisfaction hence, determines whether the presence of teamwork influences the learning environment in organizations.
BACKGROUND
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In today's changing world, unlike in the past where all organizations had been working independently, the shift of focus from individual to teams and teamwork is one of the most notable ways in which work is shifting today. It is challenging to arrive at a single definition of teamwork. According to the explanation offered by Hacker, a unique feature of teamwork at the assembly line is a successive work action to assemble different parts of a product. On the other hand, where the goal is to improve the production process, then group teamwork is much more about complexity, communication and integrative working (O'Leary-Kelly, Martocchio & Frink 1994). Thus, teamwork refers to "groups of employees who have at least some collective tasks and where the team members are authorized to regulate mutually the carrying out of these collective tasks' (Delarue, Stijn & and Van Hootegem 2003). A truly committed team is the most effective and productive unit that exists in most business organizations. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) also state; "a team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a com...
