REFLECTIVE WRITING: TEAM vs GROUP

REFLECTIVE WRITING WEEK 10: TEAM vs GROUP

On week 10 Dr Jamilah shared with us about the difference between team and group. After Dr Jamilah delivered her interesting lecture, our friends from group 10, Nurain, Nur Fatin, Nur Insyirah, Nurwafa and Daing Haziq helped us to understand this topic deeper with their presentation. The most distinct difference between team and group is the team concept implies a sense of shared mission and collective responsibility, contrary to groups, groups focus on individual performance and goals. Groups rely and focus on individual abilities.

Based on the concept above, I think anyone who leads an organization, or a company would dream of having subordinates working as team instead of only working as group. It is evident from the literature that staying as a group can be just as beneficial in encouraging a positive performance as transitioning into a team, as both have value within their own context (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993, 61), but teams will bring a good environment in any workplace. Teams centre around a shared leadership of roles where members work together repeatedly in a focused way. This leads to mutual accountability and a collective responsibility of actions, which has the potential to enhance team performance beyond the reach of groups (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993, 25). Other than that, as Dr Jamilah mentioned, teams also reinforcing each other’s individual performance standard. They do not only completing their task well but they become better by time. People who can work together as team are workers that can contribute the most to an organization because they have support from team members.

To have good teams working in organization, a leader should play the main role to build good teams among workers. That is why many organizations are willing to spend lots of money on team building initiatives. However, in my opinion, annual team building programme is not enough to build good teams. A leader must take further steps to create supportive climate and culture in workplace. A good team is a group of people who are comfortable working with each other, without having to worry if they need to sacrifice more than they can just to complete their job and bring good name to their team. They should have enough resources to do their job. That is the responsibility of leader, to provide adequate and quality resources.

“All this while am I belong in groups or teams? Am I a team member or just a group member to my colleagues?” This question arisen as I understand the differences between team and group. We cannot hope to be in functional and supportive teams if we do not practice the characteristics of a good team member. I hope with this understanding, whereever I go, if I belong in a group, I will have chances to nurture the group to become functional team.