Managing People: Innovation And Leadership Management Coursework

INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP
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Innovation and Leadership
One of the ways through which businesses are organizing their employees is through the formation of teams. Within an organization, different teams can be formed with the aim of achieving different objectives (Tohidi 2011, p. 1139). Therefore, a team is made of two or more persons who work collaboratively to achieve certain goals and objectives. Teams act as alternatives to hierarchical systems and are a much more inclusive method for business organization. Effective teams may result in increased employee motivation, which increases the overall business productivity. Teams are different from groups in that members in a group only share information and make decisions that will allow each member to achieve their individual work goals (Tohidi 2011, p. 1139). On the contrary, members in a team share information as well as the responsibilities. The idea behind teaming is synergy, a technique that allows members to accomplish more together than they could individually. Thus, as opposed to groups, forming a team requires extra care because the contribution of every member is fundamental for the outcome (Sisson, 2014). Consequently, members of a team should be selected on the basis that their abilities and skills are suited to accomplishing particular goals of a given team.
Question One
Last year I had an opportunity of working in a team of interns at my workplace. The group was mandated with a task to identify some of the techniques the company could apply to increase the sales of its product. To ensure that everyone knew exactly what was expected of the team or in other words, the objectives of the team, team leaders created a simple brochure containing information about all activities and procedures we would undertake to achieve our ultimate goal. Also, leaders organized several meetings to assess the work ahead and discuss the strategies to use during the actual work. The members who were not able to attend some of the meetings were updated through emails, SMS or Whatsapp group texts. By the time the project kicked off, all members were aware of what our team was all about and all activities we would undertake and resources in terms of time and skills the team would require to operate effectively. Therefore, to ensure that the goals and objectives of a particular group are clear to every member, communication is key. Various modes of communication ranging from the brochure, face-to-face meetings and social media can be used to explain the objective of the group and how such objectives can be achieved in order to get members prepared (Watkins 2003, p. 30).
Question Two
During team formation, some factors were considered. As Moore and Ford (2008) state, a team can only function well if individual members are assigned tasks that match or closely match their skills and abilities (Moore and Ford 2008, p. 20). Allocating responsibilities on the basis of abilities get the most out of team members, an act that will help the team achieve its overall goal (Kumar et al. 2014, p. 208). As indicated earlier, our main objective was to identify various ways through which our company...