What Makes Teams Work?
There are many different and liable responses to this question. Many argue against the notion of teamwork in today's corporations. Others argue that top management alone should control every aspect of operations. While few argue that lower level employees should solely be responsible for decision making within their groups. Throughout this paper I am going to express the opinions of different CEOs and corporate leaders. Finally, I will express my own opinions about the positive and negative aspects of teamwork.
Ray Oglethorpe, president of AOL Technologies, considers size as the most important factor in building a successful team. He believes that too many people in a team cause the connections between team members to hard to make, ultimately destroying the team. Ideally he likes a team to be between seven to nine people. His company successfully incorporated this idea when the company was "felling hamstrung at the technologies level." Another key facet is to have no delegates. Oglethorpe says, "You don't want people who have to take the ideas back to someone else to get authorization. You want the decision makers."
The United States Marine Corps. is an organization that I think creates teams for the right reasons and in the right way. I grew up in Pensacola, FL. I live only three minutes away from two bases. One is a Navy base and the other is for Marines. Through living so close, I have learned that many people mistake the U.S. Marine Corps. as a command-and-control organization. However, I know that when they put a team together it is in the right place for the right reasons. ...