High Performance teams

Essay by mftalleyUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, May 2005

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Over the last few years the importance of teamwork has become apparent in the workplace. A team is defined as "a small group- of people with complementary skills who work actively together to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable" (Schermerhorn 2). Being collectively accountable forces the group work together knowing that their performance is graded by the performance of the team as a whole. In the competitive environment that we now work in, teams allow individual knowledge to expand and give the opportunity for experiences that one would not have on their own.

High performance teams (HPT) differ in several ways from a traditional workgroup. A HPT will have strong core values. These values are the underlying guidelines for behavior and attitude that have been set into place and are in line with the team's goals. HPT's will also "turn a general sense of purpose into specific performance objectives" (Schermerhorn 2).

By setting specific performance objectives, a team knows exactly what the goal is and what needs to be done. This also allows a team to see the importance for group effort rather than individual gain. It is also very important to have combined different skill sets. A good HPT will have a technical person, a problem solver, a decision maker, etc. In order to be a truly outstanding HPT there must be creativity. In order to be high performance a team must come up with something new and unique. There is always a need for new products, services, and even ways of doing things.

To go from a workgroup to a HPT there are several things that must happen. First off making sure that the entire team knows the standards of the group is important. If the team does not set...