Essay on teamwork...

[omnara]

Prompt : When people work in teams , they are more peoductive than when they work individually

"There is nothing called a collective brain".
Howard Roark, The fountainhead.

Man is a social animal. A society comprises of many individuals of differing expertise. When population was small, many of the societies were self sufficient, but later when population increased so did the trade relations between different societies. As the needs increased, production had to increase too. It was not possible to provide goods and services on an individual level, co-ordination of multiple individuals to achieve a common goal became a necessity.

When multiple people work in teams, it is not necessary to witness a spontaneous increase in productivity. People differ in nature, abilities, attitudes and goals. They need to be managed in order to focus their abilities to achieve a goal. Managing multiple individuals is one of the most arduous task in business administration, next only to manage different teams.

Human body is often quoted as a (wrong) example of team work. According to pundits, brain manages almost all functionality as the team leader manages the team. Different organs are attributed different team member's well defined roles. They are interdependent,work in harmony and sustain the team producing results. But the single most important factor is overlooked in this comparison -- that the individual's self. None of the organs is a separate entity with its own self. They are always ready to do what they are designed to do, where as in the real world with a human team member that is not always the case. Accounting for the self of an individual is the most difficult part of team co-ordination.

When multiple individuals are involved, a team can face a number of setbacks depending on the individuals. A dull team member could hamper the entire team's performance like a weak link in a chain undermine its strength. The exceptional team members could feel that they are bogged down by the need to explain the obvious to ninnies.In practice, if this were not the case, the largest companies would have been the best. The complexity of efficient management is one of the reason why large corporations dedicate increasing amount of resources to manage teams.

Team work is not without its own merits -- but this is heavily depended on how efficient the team is managed. With well defined roles and responsibilities decided after factoring in the individual involved, a team can produce more than what the individuals are capable of producing separately. For example, even tough many of the Nobel awards are conferred to individual researchers, their work acknowledges the efforts of other individuals (often junior researchers) who assisted them to make breakthroughs. Similarly, technical book authors often acknowledge the team of individuals who assisted them to make their work possible.

In conclusion, depending on the team, contributing individuals, management among other factors, team work can be more efficient. There can be no generalization possible in this issue. Teams of individuals may contribute to Nobel prices. But if Picasso or Da Vinci had to work in teams, they would have never produced their master pieces. So was Issac Newton or Einstein.

[devilmukh]

very well-written essay...