Body:
Teams can enjoy a significant competitive advantage over individual employees in any organization through the facilitation of trusting, open, and supportive relationships. This advantage helps to foster collaboration in the organization. Trust is the basis and most common and ôfundamental element of a winning teamö (Kouzes and Posner, 2007, p.225). Literature suggests that ôpositive relationships help produce effective teamsö (Lafasto & Larson, in Pierce & Newstrom (Eds.), 2008, p160). Successful cooperation will enable individuals in team to accomplish much more than any one person could do alone.
Fostering Collaboration: The Power of Effective Teams
Introduction
In order for an organization to be effective, and moreover successful, it depends on the leader to institute an effective team strategy and at the same time foster collaboration between themselves, each team, and each individual of the teams. Hackman states, ôCommon knowledge suggests that teams outperform individualsö (Pierce & Newstrom, 2008, p.165). At the heart of this team building and collaboration are the issues of trust and truthfulness in the organization, and open and supportive actions and communication (LaFasto & Larson, in Pierce & Newstrom (Eds.), 2002).
The Power of Teams
LaFasto and Larson (2002) note that teams are very different from each individual employee because each team member must not only work on their own goals and the teams objectives, they must also be collaborative with the other members of the team. In order for a team to be most effective, it depends on a collegial atmosphere similar to the one created by Nike vice president and CFO Don W. Blair who states that he ôseeks to create the m ...