Question

Burke: Training in the Service of Change;

Too often, training in organizations is conducted because competitors are doing it or because some executive believes that conducting a certain program would be a good thing to do, regardless of whether any evidence exists that the program actually works. Training is, indeed, capable of helping organizational members learn and develop, but training targeted at supporting and enhancing organization change can have considerable payoffs.

Action Learning;

This form of training and development combines actual problem solving in organizations with learning about how to work together better, how to solve organizational problems more efficiently and effectively, and how to improve the learning process in general—learning about learning. Even though action learning is reasonably well known, it is not practiced very often. This form of learning can be a powerful vehicle for organization change; see, for example, Tichy and Sherman (1993). We need to know more about the intricacies of this problem-solving and learning process and why it is not used more often.

Teams and Teamwork in Organizations;

There are good sources about teams and teamwork. Katzenbach and Smith’s (1993) The Wisdom of Teamsis one of them, as is Organizing Genius, by Bennis and Biederman (1997), and Leading Teams, by Hackman (2002). What surprises me, however, is that this collective wisdom is so seldom applied. Yes, here in the United States, we are an individually focused culture, but we know that teamwork can benefit organization change and performance. I believe now as I did earlier (Burke, 1995); that is, we need to know more about such things as the following:

• Why there is so much talk about teamwork, with so little real action.
• What the elements are of a high-performing team.
• What kinds of goals for teams are those that provide “demanding performance challenges”—and I do not mean going over a wall or climbing a mountain together (i.e., “ropes and slopes”).
• What it takes to achieve a high degree of personal commitment among team members.
• What synergy is, really, and what the conditions are for achieving it.
• The kinds of assumptions that organizational members hold about teamwork.
• How to instill a team culture in an organization and make it last through structural and management changes as well as changes in the reward system.

Question: Burke says we need to know more about “why there is so much talk about teamwork, with so real little action.” In your opinion, how would you respond to Burke?

Answer 1

Answer= teamwork is the essence of organizational success. The organizations that have a lot of importance and promote and motivate the individuals o work as a team are able to attain greater success in comparison to those organizations that do not have successful team planning.

With the help of team-building exercises, the members of the organizations begin to help each other, have better mutual understanding, coordination, empathy and promote the interest of each other as they know that for the success of the team, support of each individual in the team is necessary. A team is as strong as the weakest member of the team.

The organizations that value team building always have a better allocation of resources, the better accomplishment of the organizational goals as the efforts of the different members are combined and this provides a greater accumulative outcome that is not possible while working individually.