LITERATURE

The Impact of Self-Managed Teams on Organizational Performance

The Impact of Self-Managed Teams on Organizational Performance

(Critical and Comparative Analysis)

Introduction

A productive enterprise offers significant elements of action plans developed by the organization towards its members. Organizational dynamics change very rapidly and its implications depend on how well the company addresses its lacking towards attaining a superior position in the business world. A new dynamic or model of working is growing in all organizations, in the form of self-managed teams. They are self-directed groups that design work and run the operation. These teams are organized with the traditional hierarchy and bureaucracy; where each team member performs a task according to the complexity of his position, but share the tasks depending on the wishes of other team members. Decisions are made jointly, because there is a boss or leader who has more power than the rest. Self-directed teams not only perform a particular job based on a product or service, but they manage that job completely (Schein, 1999, 33-76).

Instead of organizing work according to the traditional model of Taylor, these teams reduce process steps, restructuring the work around the process. There must be interdependence and shared responsibility for results. While the usual system reduces the skills required at each level of work; boredom is resulting in lower job categories. The system of self-managed teams integrates the needs of people with the work to be performed. This concept (design system work with the full participation of people who do the work) has helped the productivity of many organizations since the early 90s. Companies redistribute power, authority and responsibility to the people whose work is closest to the customer or the result have the ability to make decisions. Self-directed teams represent an approach to organizational design that goes beyond quality circles or problem solving mechanisms. Self-directed teams are used in working systems which requires a high individual and group performance.

Comparative Analysis

The emergence of self-managed teams requires companies to rethink a number of factors that make up the organizational culture. For there to be self-managed teams, there must be a work environment that fosters empowerment, decision-making of workers in their daily work, there must be a change in the supervision and control, work projects and performance not by schedule of assignment, among other factors (Senge et.al, 2005, 150).

Self-managed teams impact upon the organizational performance in a number of ways. While in a team of self-managed project executors, each individual is responsible for his or her own actions. This feeling creates a sense of responsibility among them, which is long cherished and rewards by the organization. Contributions of self-managed teams occur in the form of increased synergy and interventions. Synergy is an effect, a result that occurs only with the maximization of individual contributions. By investing knowledge, useful information, creativity, originality, diversity of experiences and skills, adaptation of the known to new situations, to “invent” amidst the crisis, it adds value to the common purpose (Argyris & Schon , 1996, ...