AB140 Introduction to Management
Unit 7 Assignment
Patrick Morgan
7/1/2014

In a traditional organization, most communication starts at the top of the organization. Formal communication includes newsletters, email and other company collateral. In a team-based organization, the communication process is typically less structured and more informal since a traditional organizational structure tends to be rigid and a team-based structure is more flexible. For example, the team may use social media technology, including a wiki, blog or forum, to share information, make announcements and report status updates. Bureaucracy may hinder creativity and innovation. A manager in a traditional organization typically makes decisions without consulting her subordinates. In a team-based structure, the leader typically seeks the participation of team members and conducts brainstorming meetings to gather information. Depending on the kind of decision, time and resources available, job tasks, work environment and impact, the team approaches the decision-making process differently. This includes identifying individuals who need to participate in discussions and strategies for choosing alternatives.

In a traditional organization, a manager usually schedules and leads meetings. She sets the agenda and controls the flow from one topic to the next. In a team-based organization, team members are usually empowered to call meetings on their own. Additionally, people may report to more than one manager in a matrix structure and attend multiple meetings on the same topic. In a team-based organization, participants may not work in the same location and web-based conferencing software can be used to enable the team to interact using the Internet for audio and video. Sub-teams may form to handle issues and problems raised at meetings.
These informal sub-teams may only exist for a day, week or month. A team-based organization tends to be much less formal and structured. Traditionally, managers review the performance of all subordinates. This may not provide a true picture of the person’s strengths and weaknesses. In a team-based organization, a leader typically solicits input from not only superiors, but also peers, subordinates and business partners. A small business benefits when performance gaps are identified early and interventions can be implemented. This helps the business react quickly to trends. With today’s self-managed teams hierarchy, often informal, is based entirely on competence. There are no job titles, but there are leaders, and everyone knows who they are. They’re the ones who have served their colleagues best, have offered the most useful ideas, and have worked hardest and most effectively for the team’s success. Even in cases where leadership positions are explicit, they’re still transparently competence-based. Emergency-room teams, for example, observe a strict hierarchy based on position: attending surgeons at the top, then fellows, then residents. But no one disputes that the positions reflect skill levels.

Goals are clear in self-managed teams, the most effective ones always know exactly. It’s highly specific, detailing how the employee’s performance will be measured in up many activity areas. When every member finishes the exercise, that team knows precisely what it’s on the table to accomplish. Values are shared in self-managed teams because effective teams are actually passionate and specific about what they value. Often it’s the regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with the keeping commitments to co-workers. Teams with those characteristics can keep going without formally designated leaders, maintaining high performance even as members change through the years. It’s not that the identity of the members doesn’t matter. On the contrary, it matters hugely — and teams like these, being self-managed, choose their own members much better than any official leader could. The key insight for leaders at traditionally organized companies is that such teams aren’t unstructured, or chaotic.
They’re just the opposite: focused, disciplined, and more effective over the long term than typical teams. In an increasingly competitive global economy, those advantages are more valuable every day. Effective teams start with a clear direction in what they are looking to achieve. Sometimes, companies are in such a hurry to move on their projects that they pull together groups of people without first deciding on the goals and desired outcomes. Start at the end point: What is the outcome you want and why? Leave the team some flexibility to develop the best way to get there.

Effective teams use efficient practices because once you know what you want to achieve, the next step is to look at the best way to proceed with the work. Is your organization prepared to support the team in its objectives? Will they have the right tools and resources to complete their tasks? How will you measure their efficiency during the process and monitor it for improvement? These are important questions to ask upfront to ensure that the team will be as effective as possible. Effective teams have defined roles, to which roles might shift somewhat once the team is assembled, but understand the skill sets and thinking styles are needed on the team. If a team needs to develop a new product for market, that team will need a detail-oriented person (the task-master), who is methodical and can keep the team on track.