Team Skills, Challenges, And Solutions At Vigor Skin Care

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Describe and apply fundamental management theories and concepts to business operation.
2. Critically examine organisational and management practices.
3. Analyse management challenges, problems and issues and construct practical solutions.
4. Evaluate the purpose and value of teamwork and working collaboratively.

This assessment targets development of students’ critical thinking skills and encourages students to:

• Understand the complex nature of contemporary organisation
• Provide a critical perspective of the academic literature on a topic
• Construct a sustained argument in response to the question
• Utilise and conform to the principles of academic rigour in the production of an acceptable, formal response to the question.

Planning is one of the four key management functions, and it is argued to be indispensable for strategy to be successful in organisations. Yet, Henry Mintzberg debates that strategy cannot be formally planned. He callsstrategic planning an oxymoron, arguing that managers should engage in strategy making instead. Yet, amidst this debate, and in attempt to reconcile it, the question remains:

Do managers need to always engage in strategic planning to ensure successful achievement of organisational goals?

In answering this question, articulate your position on strategic planning, supporting your arguments with reference to:

a) your research (see the essay research guidelines on page 5 of this Assessment Guide for more details)

b) an organisation of your choice. This case study can be of an organisation that has used strategic planning successfully, or which found that strategic planning was not useful.

Team skills are highly required for the long term success of the organisation. It depends on the team management and capability of the leader that how team work is built in the work force. There are various team and group theories that can be used by the managers to build a better team (Turner, 2014). This report discusses the challenges that are faced by the Vigor Skin Care. It also explains the way in which the team skills can be built at the workplace.

Vigor Skin Care was one of the high performing companies in the Industry even have been Underdog. In the last few years they are facing many kinds of challenges. Some of the challenges that are evident in the Case study are:

• Improper communication: One of the biggest problems that lied in the company was that there was lack of proper communication at the workplace. Due to the lack of communication both Josh, peter and Sandy was unable to meet from time to time. There was delay in the supply chain which resulted in lack of products at the outlets due to lack of communication between different functions. This has created gap in the demand and supply of products.
• Lack of team work: It can be clearly seen in the case study that even after the company was performing well there was lack of the team work. This can be seen with the fact that there were even proper meeting between the different members of the team so as to discuss the challenges that they were facing. At the same time the team was just a team but they were not working as a team.
• Lack of enthusiasm: It can be clearly seen in the case study that there was lack of enthusiasm. This was the reason why tasks within the organisation did not completed on time. It was the role of the sandy, peter and Josh to maintain the high motivational standards at the workplace but they failed to do so (Heimbouch, 2001).

Some of the team and group theories that can be used in this regards are:

• Tuckman’s theory: This theory suggests that formation of the team must be based on the larger goals that company wants to achieve. It suggests that each and every staffs should understand themselves as a part of the team (West, 2012). In the case study, at the team development stage this was not followed clearly.
• Belbin’s theory: This theory suggests that for effective performance of the team, it is necessary that roles of each and every team member needs to be defined in a proper manner. There must be proper allocation of roles in the organisation (Sergeant and Laws-Chapman, 2012). This theory suggests of nine major roles that must be present in any team to become successful. At Vigor Skin care, this was not followed in an appropriate manner.

From the case study, it can be easily seen that there are many underlying challenges that was faced by the Vigor Skin care. Some of them are as follows:

• Lagging Performance: It can be seen that performance of the organisation was coming down which could also be seen through the fact that sales results in the last few years was coming down. Some of the units were not able to meet the demands of the organisation.
• Leadership failure: Team building and development is the role of the leader. At the same time they also have the role to build enthusiasm in the minds of the workers (Salas and Rosen, 2013). Sandy who was previously controlling the operations in a better manner now started to lose their control on the business operations.
• Lack of planning: The biggest problem that company was facing is the lack of planning. It is seen that there was lack of planning from the side of the manners. Even the use of strategies was not planned. It was abrupt and lacked proper utilisation of resources. This was the reason that people inside the firm was not able to do their task in the form of the team. They were doing job that was assigned to them rather than helping each other in meeting the larger goals.

Some of the group and team theories that can be used are:

• Bion’s and basic assumption theory: The groups that are dependent strongly depend on its leader. The flight-flight group works on the basis of common enemy (Levi, 2015). On the other hand paring group was used by two people getting together so as to carry on with the task of the leader. In Vigor Skin Care, this kind of team existed.
• Schutz theory of inclusion control and Openness: This theory suggests that there are three interpersonal needs for which any group is formed (Forsyth, 2018). First is inclusion in the group, openness and affection and control over the operations (Kyprianidou, et. al. 2012). All the three were lagging in the cited firm. Early success of the firm was considered as to be the long term success which resulted in loss for the company.

Some of the solutions to the problems are:

• Rebuilding of the team: It is essential that Tuckman’s stages of team formation must be used before rebuilding of the team.
• Role defining: It is crucial that Belbin’s nine roles are clearly defined within the organisation so that the challenges that are faced by the team can be reduced.
• Leadership building: It is essential that leadership skills are developed so as to have better control over the operations (Crowe Associates Ltd, 2018).
• Freedom in the business: It is essential that managers give freedom to the team players so that they can work effectively.

Timely meetings should be conducted so as to discuss the challenges that are faced by the company. This can be done only when the team is formed in an appropriate manner. Defining role can bring coordination among them. With the freedom employees can feel openness and have control over the operations of the firm (Salas, Fiore and Letsky, 2012). It will also help in bringing enthusiasm in the working team. Leadership building will help in building more control over the operations (Yukl, 2013). All these recommended solution will help in more effective team.

Conclusion

From the above based report, it can be concluded that Vigor Team work is facing business challenges due to the ineffective team at the workplace. Improper communication, Lack of team work, Lack of enthusiasm, Performance was lagging, Leadership failure and Lack of planning are some of the challenges faced by the company. Bion’s and basic assumption theory, Schutz theory of inclusion control and Openness, Tuckman’s theory and Belbin’s theory are some of the theories that can be used by the organisation so as to rejuvenate the team.

Team work has achieved great significance in the real world in modern times. In order to make us understand the importance of team work our professor has assigned a group task of examining a case study related to the concept of teamwork. Before participating in the group task that was given to us, I personally had a negative opinion on the team-work concept as I was an introvert type of a person who used to feel a kind of hesitation in communicating with other people. In my class also, I never believed in forming a group of some close friends.  This was all due to the lack of confidence that I had in myself. However, looking at the practical corporate world where we were supposed to move to, after completion of our academic courses, it was necessary for me to develop my inter-personal skills. Before starting the work as a team we all were concerned about how things will be managed and how will we coordinate to effectively complete the task in the given time. However, to accomplish the common goal of the given task in the best possible manner we all were highly committed towards the task. Initially, we created a plan and distributed the whole task among different team members of our group so as to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each group member towards the common goal. We also determined the deadlines within which all the members had to perform our respective tasks so as to avoid any delays and confusion. The clear definition of roles and responsibilities has absolutely helped us to avoid any sort of conflicts and confusion about the work. While working on the group assignment, we all could understand the practical aspects of team work and also we could easily recognise the problems and issues that could generally be faced while performing a task in group.

Aims and objectives

The consistent interaction of each group member with the other one has not only allowed us to create a good bond but also it has allowed us to share the knowledge and experience of our respective areas of interest which has ultimately contributed positively to our growth and development. However, there were few negative experiences also that we have gained while performing the task. For instance, when we all were about to complete our respective piece of work one of the team member could not complete his work on the timely basis because of some carelessness towards deadlines and this hampered the overall progress of assigned group task. Due to this, all other members had to face sudden pressure and this had also led to some disputes among two of our group members. However, we somehow managed to help him to complete his work on time.

All the positive and negative experiences of working as a part of team for the group task have allowed us to learn important things about concept of team-work and it will surely help us once we all will move to the corporate world. Further, the participation in the task has made us learn about how to resolve the conflicts that would arise while we well work in the companies as a part of any team. Also, the participation in the task has made us understand the importance of individual’s contribution in the achievement of overall objective.

References

Crowe Associates Ltd, (2018) Group Theory. Online. Available at: https://www.crowe-associates.co.uk/teams-and-groups/group-theory/. [Accessed on 08^th October 2018].

Forsyth, D.R., 2018. Group dynamics. Cengage Learning.

Heimbouch, H. (2001) Should This Team Be Saved? Online. Available at: https://hbr.org/2001/07/should-this-team-be-saved. [Accessed on 08^th October 2018].

Kyprianidou, M., Demetriadis, S., Tsiatsos, T. and Pombortsis, A., 2012. Group formation based on learning styles: can it improve students’ teamwork?. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60(1), pp.83-110.

Levi, D., 2015. Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.

Salas, E. and Rosen, M.A., 2013. Building high reliability teams: progress and some reflections on teamwork training. BMJ Qual Saf, 22(5), pp.369-373.

Salas, E., Fiore, S.M. and Letsky, M.P., 2012. Why cross-disciplinary theories of team cognition. Theories of team cognition: Cross-disciplinary perspectives, pp.3-18.

Sergeant, J. and Laws-Chapman, C., 2012. Creating a positive workplace culture. Nursing Management (through 2013), 18(9), p.14.

Turner, M.E. ed., 2014. Groups at work: Theory and research. Psychology Press.

West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John Wiley & Sons.

Yukl, G.A., 2013. Leadership in organizations. Pearson Education India.