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| Team Building |
Team buildingThe term team-building can refer generally to the selection and motivation of teams, or more specifically to group self-assessment in the theory and practice of Organizational development (OD).
Generic team-building
"Team building" (or "teambuilding") can refer to the process of establishing and developing specific groups to accomplish certain tasks. Team building has many contexts, for example in a sports club or some sort of organization. Ingredients seen as important to the successful set-up and launch of such team efforts include:
- selection of participants
- establishing visions, goals, missions and/or objectives
- distribution of workload
- timetabling
- balancing skill-sets
- metrics
- harmonising personality types
- training on how to work together
The morale of the team, an important variable, may depend on such factors as:
- support
- resources
- communication
- personalities
As team performance reflects on management, managers -- and even coaches -- sometimes feel the need to take part in constructing and fostering teams.
As with many activities, team-building can run to extremes. For a notorious recent example of team building run amok, see the case of Kamp Staaldraad in 2003.
Need for team-building
Modern society and culture continues to become more fluid and dynamic. Factors contributing to this include the communications revolution, the global market and the ever-increasing specialization and division of labor. The net effect is that individuals are now required to move between working with many different groups of people in their working and also personal lives. Joining a new group and immediately being expected to get along with them is somewhat unnatural - historically humans have evolved to work and live in close-knit, static societies. Hence the sudden need for methods to help people adapt to the new requirements. All kinds of people, from investment bankers to catering staff and session musicians, face the same difficulties. As yet there is no generally agreed solution to the problem - it may not even be possible given the thousands of years of cultural evolution that brought us to our present behavior patterns.
Team-building in Organizational development
Whenever a team in an OD context embarks upon a process of self-assessment in order to gauge its own effectiveness and thereby improve performance, it engages in team building.
Assessing team effectiveness
To assess itself, a team seeks feedback to find out both:
- its current strengths as a team
- its current weaknesses
Improving team performance
To improve its current performance, a team uses the feedback from the team assessment in order to:
- identify any gap between the desired state and the actual state
- design any gap-closure strategy
See also
- Cross-Functional Team
- Forming-storming-norming-performing
- List of human resource management topics
- Team
- Team building activities
- Teamwork
External links
- [http://www.wilderdom.com/teambuilding/ Team Building Resources News, Methods, Activities, Research, & More] - News, definitions, articles, methods, and research.
- [http://www.freechild.org/gamesguide.htm So You Wanna Be a Playa: Cooperative Games for Social Change] - A free booklet of activities for teambuilding, problemsolving, and more.
- [http://nasa.perbang.dk The NASA Exercise: Lost on the Moon] - On-line version of a widely used team-building exercise for measuring team processes.
- [http://www.globaldharma.org/ Website of Global Dharma Center / Center for Dharmic Leadership, an not-for-profit organisation providing (free) articles, research publications and training modules on Culture Development, Individual/Organisation Transformation and, Serving and Leading from a spiritual context.]
- [http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/ Team Building for Corporate Events]- Various corporate team building activities used for corporate events and company fun day
- [http://www.corporatequest.ca Team Building Retreats that combine Business Strategy Planning]
- [http://www.youunlimited.co.uk Team Building ideas with 'COLOUR'
- [http://evaluator.insights.com/?sD=80 A team is created from the individuals who make it whole
Off-line reference material
- William G. Dyer, Team building: Current Issues and New Alternatives (3rd Edition). Pearson Education POD, 1995. ISBN 0201628821.
category:Organizational studies and human resource management
TeamA team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team.
Thus teams of sports players can form (and re-form) to practice their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.
Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularized the concept of constructing teams. Differing opinions exist on the efficacy of this new management fad. Some see "team" as a four-letter word: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the Human Relations movement's desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer pressure and peer surveillance.
Compare the more structured/skilled concept of a crew, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.
Managers use teams for grouping people based on a common function. Members of a team usually belong to different groups, but receive assignment to activities for the same project, thereby allowing outsiders to view them as a single unit. In this way, setting up a team allegedly facilitates the creation, tracking and assignment of a group of people based on the project in hand.
A Virtual team consists of members joined electronically, with nominal in-person contact. Virtual teaming is made possible with technology tools, especially the internet. This allows teams to be formed of players otherwise unavailable. Research can be performed using input from the best minds around the world. Work projects can be completed by spreading the workload among long-distance players. Many businesses build their competitive edge on the capabilities and efficiencies of virtual teams.
Teams can sub-divide into sub-teams according to need. A team used only for a defined period of time often becomes known as a project team.
Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
See also
- Coalition
- Community
- Forming-storming-norming-performing
- Teamwork
- Team building
- Virtual team
Category:Social groups
TeamA team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team.
Thus teams of sports players can form (and re-form) to practice their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.
Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularized the concept of constructing teams. Differing opinions exist on the efficacy of this new management fad. Some see "team" as a four-letter word: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the Human Relations movement's desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer pressure and peer surveillance.
Compare the more structured/skilled concept of a crew, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.
Managers use teams for grouping people based on a common function. Members of a team usually belong to different groups, but receive assignment to activities for the same project, thereby allowing outsiders to view them as a single unit. In this way, setting up a team allegedly facilitates the creation, tracking and assignment of a group of people based on the project in hand.
A Virtual team consists of members joined electronically, with nominal in-person contact. Virtual teaming is made possible with technology tools, especially the internet. This allows teams to be formed of players otherwise unavailable. Research can be performed using input from the best minds around the world. Work projects can be completed by spreading the workload among long-distance players. Many businesses build their competitive edge on the capabilities and efficiencies of virtual teams.
Teams can sub-divide into sub-teams according to need. A team used only for a defined period of time often becomes known as a project team.
Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
See also
- Coalition
- Community
- Forming-storming-norming-performing
- Teamwork
- Team building
- Virtual team
Category:Social groups
Task"Task" has several meanings:
- In common language, a task is part of a set of actions which accomplish a job; the sense is that 'useful work is getting done'. Task analysis is the analysis or a breakdown of exactly how a task is accomplished, such as what sub-tasks are required. This information can then be used for many purposes, such as improving the design of tools or procedures that aid in performing the task. These tools can be either physical implements or software.
- In computing, a task is a program execution context; see task (computers).
- In project management, see task (project management).
Sport:Sports redirects here. For other senses of that word, see sports (disambiguation).
A sport consists of a physical activity or skill carried out with a recreational purpose: for competition, for self-enjoyment, to attain excellence, for the development of a skill, or some combination of these. A sport has physical activity, side by side competition, and a scoring system. The difference of purpose is what characterises sport, combined with the notion of individual (or team) skill or prowess.
History of sport
Main article: History of sport
The development of sport throughout history teaches us a great deal about social changes, and about the nature of sport itself.
There are many modern discoveries in France, Africa, and Australia of cave art (see, for example, Lascaux) from prehistory which provide evidence of ritual ceremonial behaviour. Some of these sources date from over 30,000 years ago, as established by carbon dating. Although there is scant direct evidence of sport from these sources, it is reasonable to extrapolate that there was some activity at these times resembling sport.
There are artifacts and structures which suggest that Chinese people engaged in activities which meet our definition of sport as early as 4000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been a popular sport in China's past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a range of sports were well developed and regulated several thousands of years ago, including swimming and fishing. Other sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zurkhaneh had a close connection to the warfare skills. Among other sports which originate in Persia are polo and jousting.
A wide range of sports were already established at the time of the Ancient Greece. Wrestling, running, boxing, javelin, discus throwing, and chariot racing were prevalent. This suggests that the military culture of Greece was an influence on the development of its sports and vice versa. The Olympic Games were held every four years in Ancient Greece, at a small village in Pelopponisos called Olympia.
Sport has been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the Ancient Olympics up to the present century. Activities necessary for food and survival became regulated activities done for pleasure or competition on an increasing scale, for example hunting, fishing, horticulture. The Industrial Revolution and mass production brought increased leisure which allowed increases in spectator sports, less elitism in sports, and greater accessibility. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity.
Not only has professionalism helped increase the popularity of sports, but additionally the need to have fun and take a break from a hectic workday or to relieve unwanted stress, as with any profession.
A classification of sports
Main article: List of sports
One system for classifying sports is as follows, based more on the sport's aim than on the actual mechanics. The examples given are intended to be illustrative, rather than comprehensive.
Opponent
- Combat (Wrestling, Judo, karate, boxing, fencing, tae kwon do...)
- Court (Tennis, shuttlecock sport, badminton, volleyball, squash, Table tennis...)
- Team (Baseball, cricket and football (soccer) are the most popular globally, with baseball being popular in the Americas and in Japan, cricket in the Commonwealth of Nations and football being popular throughout the world. Other examples include: Rugby, ice hockey, field hockey, softball, basketball, American Football...)
Achievement
- Target (Archery, shooting ...)
- Display (Gymnastics, bodybuilding, equestrianism, diving...)
- Strength (Weight-lifting, triple jump, shot put ...)
Sports that fall into multiple categories
- Biathlon
- Curling
- Paintball
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is defined as "conduct and attitude considered as befitting participants, including a sense of fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, a striving spirit, and grace in losing."
It is interesting that the motivation for sport is often an elusive element. For example, beginners in sailing are often told that dinghy racing is a good means to sharpen the learner's sailing skills. However, it often emerges that skills are honed to increase racing performance and achievements in competition, rather than the converse. Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's “not that you won or lost but how you played the game," and the Modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing . . . is not winning but taking part” are typical expressions of this sentiment.
But often the pressures of competition (See the related article,
"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." or an obsession with individual achievement - as well as the intrusion of technology - can all work against enjoyment and fair play by participants.
People responsible for leisure activities often seek recognition and respectability as sports by joining sports federations such as the IOC, or by forming their own regulatory body. In this way sports evolve from leisure activity to more formal sports: relatively recent newcomers are BMX cycling, snowboarding, wrestling, etc. Some of these activities have been popular but uncodified pursuits in various forms for different lengths of time. Indeed, the formal regulation of sport is a relatively modern and increasing development.
Sportsmanship, within any given game, is how each competitor acts before, during, and after the competition. Not only is it important to have good sportsmanship if one wins, but also if one loses. For example, in football it is considered sportsmanlike to kick the ball out of play to allow treatment for an injured player on the other side. Reciprocally, the other team is expected to return the ball from the throw-in.
Compare Sportsmanship with Gamesmanship.
Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration.
Professionalism and the regulation of sport
The entertainment aspect of sport, together with the spread of mass media and increased leisure time, has led to professionalism in sport. This has resulted in some conflict, where the paycheck can be seen as more important than recreational aspects: or where the sport is changed simply to make it more profitable and popular
therefore losing some of the traditions valued by some.
The entertainment aspect also means that sportsmen and women are often elevated to celebrity status, or in some cases near-god-like. Today the consensus is that David Beckham (England and Real Madrid Footballer) is the most famous sportsman in the world, with a fanatical following particularly in Asia where statues have been erected of his likeness.
The successful execution of a sport requires the consensus agreement of the participants on a set of rules for fair competition. This has led to the control of each sport through a regulatory body to define what methods of competition are acceptable and what are considered cheating.
Sport and politics
There have been many dilemmas for sports where a difficult political context is in place.
When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sportspeople adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.
The 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin was an illustration, perhaps best recognised in retrospect, where an ideology was developing which used the event to strengthen its spread through propaganda.
In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Even until the mid 20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the GAA if s/he played or supported Football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of soccer and Rugby union at Gaelic venues under the controversial Rule 42, although Gaelic games are frequently played on soccer and rugby arenas, particularly outside of Ireland. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC, now reconstituted as the PSNI, from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
Nationalism in general is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. These trends are seen by some as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake, for the enjoyment of its participants.
See also: List of countries by national sport
Art and sport
Sport has many affinities with art. Ice skating and Tai chi, for example, are sports that come close to artistic spectacles in themselves: to watch these activities comes close to the experience of spectating at a ballet. Similarly, there are other activities that have elements of sport and art in their execution, such as performance art, artistic gymnastics, Bodybuilding, Parkour, Yoga, dressage, etc.
The fact that art is so close to sport in some situations is probably related to the nature of sport. The definition of "sport" above put forward the idea of an activity pursued not just for the usual purposes, for example, running not simply to get places, but running for its own sake, running as well as we can.
This is similar to a common view of aesthetic value, which is seen as something over and above the strictly functional value coming from an object's normal use. So an aesthetically pleasing car is one which doesn't just get from A to B, but which impresses us with its grace, poise, and charisma.
In the same way, a sporting performance such as jumping doesn't just impress us as being an effective way to avoid obstacles or to get across streams. It impresses us because of the ability, skill, and style which is shown.
Art and sport were probably more clearly linked at the time of Ancient Greece, when gymnastics and calisthenics invoked admiration and aesthetic appreciation for the physical build, prowess and 'arete' displayed by participants. The modern term 'art' as skill, is related to this ancient Greek term 'arete'. The closeness of art and sport in these times was revealed by the nature of the Olympic Games which, as we have seen, were celebrations of both sporting and artistic achievements, poetry, sculpture and architecture.
The terms 'sport' and 'sports'
In Commonwealth English, sporting activities are commonly denoted by the collective noun "sport". In American English, "sports" is more common for this usage. In all English dialects, "sports" is the term used for more than one specific sport. For example, "football and swimming are my favourite sports" would sound natural to all English speakers, whereas "I enjoy sport" would sound less natural than "I enjoy sports" to many North Americans.
Recommended reading
- The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandel (PublicAffairs, ISBN 1-58648-252-1).
See also
The following entries go into further detail into issues important to sport:
- history of sport, sportsmanship, professional sports, aesthetic appeal of sport, nationalism and sport, and regulation of sport
- List of professional sports leagues
- Sports Utility Vehicles
- Sportsmen
- Sportswear
- Sports Cars
- Sports Bars
- Minor sports / developmental leagues
- List of sports
- List of sporting events
- List of sportspeople
- Sport governing bodies
- Olympic Games
- Sporting venues
- Sponsorship
- Sports coaching
- Sports equipment
- Sports injuries
- Sports marketing
- Sports memorabilia
- Sports timeline
- Spectator sport
- Multi-sport events
- Sports art
- Sport in film
- Sporting club
- Disabled sports
- Female sport
- Sports history organizations
- Fantasy sports
- Sport Record
- Extreme Sports
- Nationalism and sport
- Violence in sports | NHL violence
- Nudity in sport
- Sport in Africa, Sport in the United Kingdom, Sport in France, Sport in India, Sport in Australia, Sport in Canada, Sports in the United States, Sport in New Zealand
External links
- [http://www.sports.ie Sports.ie - Live Sports news and RSS feeds]
- [http://www.thefamousquotations.com/subjects/sports-and-competition-quotations.htm Sports Quotations]
- [http://www.newworldsports.net New World Sports - Sports Commentary]
- [http://www.pressboxnews.com/ Sports News Aggregator]
- [http://dmoz.org/Sports/ Open Directory Project - Sports]
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Sports/ Yahoo! - Sports]
- [http://news.google.com/news?topic=s Google - Sports News]
- [http://uk.newsbot.msn.com/s/?id=2 MSN - Sports News] (UK)
- [http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index&cid=755 Yahoo! - Sports News]
- [http://www.sportsfilter.com SportsFilter - Community Weblog]
- [http://www.kungfufollowme.com/ Chinese Kung Fu: Tai Chi And Shaolin Kung Fu]
- [http://www.sports-facts.com/ Sports-Facts.Com!]
Category:Games
-
Category:Technology
ko:스포츠
ms:Sukan
ja:スポーツ
simple:Sport
th:กีฬา
Club:This article is about clubs referring to a particular organization of people. For other article subjects named club see club (disambiguation).
A club is an association of people not united together by any natural ties of kinship, real or supposed. Such clubs occur in all ancient states of which we have any detailed knowledge, from very early times. After people started living together in groups too big for everybody to be related to each other, there was need for men with a common interest to be able to associate despite having no ties of kinship.
In modern terms, the term club has broader implications. The Service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to all sorts of hobbies, sports, and games, clubs for social activities, political and religious clubs, and so forth. See for example BSAC (a big British scuba diving club). Club can also refer to a nightclub or discotheque.
Ancient World
For a long description of club-like organizations in ancient Greece, see Ancient Greek clubs.
For a long description of club-like organizations in the Roman Empire, see Roman clubs.
England
18th century Origins
The word "club," in the sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, only became common in England at the time of Tatler and The Spectator (1709‑1712). It is doubtful whether its use originated in its meaning of a knot of people, or from the fact that the members "clubbed" together to pay the expenses of their meetings. The oldest English clubs were merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of dining or drinking together. Thomas Occleve (in the time of Henry IV) mentions such a club called La Court de Bone Compaignie, of which he was a member. John Aubrey (writing in 1659) says: "We now use the word clubbe for a sodality in a tavern.". For a long time, most organtations called "clubs" were gentlemen's clubs (in particular London clubs), but with the modern age the word usage has spread and many workman's organizations have imitated the club type of organization.
Of early clubs the most famous was the Bread Street or Friday Street Club, originated by Sir Walter Raleigh, and meeting at the Mermaid Tavern. Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden and Donne were among the members. Another such club was that which met at the Devil Tavern near Temple Bar; and of this Ben Jonson is supposed to have been the founder.
Coffee Houses
With the introduction of coffee-drinking in the middle of the 17th century, clubs entered on a more permanent phase. The coffee-houses of the later Stuart period are the real originals of the modern club-house. The clubs of the late 17th and early 18th century type resembled their Tudor forerunners in being oftenest associations solely for conviviality or literary coteries. But many were confessedly political, e.g. The Rota, or Coffee Club (1659), a debating society for the spread of republican ideas, broken up at the Restoration, the Calves Head Club (c. 1693) and the Green Ribbon Club (1675). The characteristics of all these clubs were:-
#No permanent financial bond between the members, each man's liability ending for the time being when he had paid his "score" after the meal.
#No permanent club-house, though each clique tended to make some special coffee-house or tavern their headquarters.
These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation which ran: "His Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed.", because "in such houses divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majesty's Government and to the Disturbance of Peace and Quiet of the Realm." So unpopular was this proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to withdraw it, and by Anne's reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England's social life.
Social Clubs
From the 18th‑century clubs two types evolved: social and political. Social club were made up of the social elite, and became known as "Gentlemen's clubs". There are these types of clubs:-
- Social and dining clubs which are permanent institutions with a fixed club-house. The London coffee-house clubs in increasing their members absorbed the whole accommodation of the coffeehouse or tavern where they held their meetings, and this became the club-house, often keeping the name of the original keeper, e.g. White's, Brooks's, Arthur's, Boodle's. The modern club, sometimes proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of St James's has long been known as "Clubland"; but the institution has spread all over the English-speaking world.
- Clubs which meet occasionally or periodically and often have no club-house, but exist primarily for some specific object. Such are the many purely athletic, sports and pastimes clubs, the Jockey Club, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Also there are literary clubs, musical and art clubs, publishing clubs; and the name of "club" has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall between the club proper and mere friendly societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as slate, goose and Christmas clubs, which do not need to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act.
Clubs in England and Wales were not controlled by the licensing system until the Licensing Act of 1902 was passed, or in Scotland until the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1903 was passed. They were passed mainly to check the abuse of "clubs" being formed solely to sell intoxicating liquors free from the restrictions of the Licensing Acts, but it applied to all clubs in England and Wales, of whatever kind, from the humblest to the most exalted Pall Mall club. The act required the registration of every club which occupied any premises habitually used for the purposes of a club and in which intoxicating liquor was supplied to members or their guests. The secretary of every club was required to furnish to the clerk to the justices of the petty sessional division a return giving:
#the name and objects of the club
#the address of the club
#the name of the secretary
#the number of members
#the rules of the club relating to:
##the election of members and the admission of temporary and honorary members and of guests
##the terms of subscription and entrance fee, if any
##the cessation of membership
##the hours of opening and closing
##the mode of altering the rules
The same particulars must be furnished by a secretary before the opening of a new club. The act imposed heavy penalties for supplying and keeping liquor in an unregistered club. The act gave power to a court of summary jurisdiction to strike a club off the register on complaint in writing by any person on any of various grounds, including.:-
- If it had fewer than 25 members.
- If there was frequent drunkenness on the premises.
- If persons were habitually admitted as members without 48 hours' interval between nomination and admission.
- If the supply of alcoholic liquor was not under the control of the members or the committee.
Other Countries
The earliest clubs on the European continent were of a political nature. These in 1848 were repressed in Austria and Germany, and later clubs of Berlin and Vienna were mere replicas of their English prototypes. In France, where the term cercle is most usual, the first was Le Club Politique (1782), and during the French Revolution such associations proved important political forces (see Jacobins, Feuillants, Cordeliers). Of the purely social clubs in Paris the most notable were The Jockey Club (1833) and the Cercle de la Rue Royale.
In the United States clubs were first established after the War of Independence. One of the first in date was the Hoboken Turtle Club (1797), which still survived as of 1911.
See also
- The Hellfire Club
- Chaos Computer Club
- The Slimelight Club
- Club-house
- Turtle Club
- Happy Land Social Club
- List of London's Gentleman's clubs
Category:Organizations
ja:部活動・クラブ活動・サークル活動
Organization
:Alternative meaning: Organisation (band).
An organisation (Commonwealth English) or organization (American English, and Oxford English) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. This topic is a broad one.
Organisations are studied by researchers from several disciplines: sociology, economics, political science, psychology, engineering, etc. The area is commonly referred to as organisation theory, organisational behaviour or organisation analysis. it however consists of a number of different theories and perspectives, some of which are compatible and others that are competing. Among those that are or have been most influential are:
- Weberian organisation theory (referring to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society'
- Marxist organisation analysis
- Scientific Management (mainly following Frederick W Taylor)
- Human Relations Studies (going back to the Hawthorne studies, Maslow and Hertzberg)
- Administrative theories (with work by e.g. Henri Fayol and Chester Barnard)
- Contingency theory
- New institutionalism and new institutional economics
- Network analysis
- Economic Sociology
- Organisation ecology (or demography of organisations)
- Transaction cost economics
- Agency theory (sometimes called principal - agent theory)
- Studies of organisation culture
- Postmodern organisation studies
- Labour Process Theory
- Critical Management Studies
- Unicist Natural Organisation
The most prestigious scientific journals focused on the study of organisations include organisation, Organisation Studies, Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Review.
"Organisation" can also be used to define how the different parts of computer hardware are linked in order to execute the many computational activities most efficiently.
Organisations that are legal entities: government, international organisation, non-governmental organisation, armed forces, corporation, partnership, charity, not-for-profit corporation, cooperative, university.
The study of organisations includes a focus on optimising [organisational structure]. According to management science, most human organisations fall roughly into four types:
- Pyramids or hierarchies
- Committees or juries
- Matrix organisations
- Ecologies
Organisation studies also includes research efforts to inform the effective management of organisations, and addresses organisational culture, organisational learning and managing change as major factors affecting organisational effectiveness, beyond the basics of organisational structure.
Pyramids or hierarchies
A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. Hierarchies were satirised in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced the term hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".
An extremely rigid, in terms of responsibilities, type of organisation is exemplified by Führerprinzip.
Committees or juries
These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the middle ages juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables.
Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average member is worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions grow worse, not better! Staffing is crucial.
Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.
Staff organisation or cross-functional team
A staff helps an expert get all his work done. To this end, a "chief of staff" decides whether an assignment is routine or not. If it's routine, he assigns it to a staff member, who is a sort of junior expert. The chief of staff schedules the routine problems, and checks that they are completed.
If a problem is not routine, the chief of staff notices. He passes it to the expert, who solves the problem, and educates the staff -- converting the problem into a routine problem.
In a "cross functional team," like an executive committee, the boss has to be a non-expert, because so many kinds of expertise are required.
Matrix organisation
This organisational type assigns each worker to two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organisation is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organised by regions, customer types, or some other schema.
See matrix management.
Ecologies
This organisation has intense competition. Bad parts of the organisation starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired.
Companies who utilise this organisation type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous.
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organisation in [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1294443,00.html this external article] from The Guardian.
"Chaordic" organisations
The chaordic model of organising human endeavours emerged in the [1990]s, based on a blending of chaos and order (hence "chaordic"), comes out of the work of Dee Hock and the creation of the VISA financial network. Blending democracy, complex system, consensus decision making, co-operation and competition, the chaordic approach attempts to encourage organisations to evolve from the increasingly nonviable hierarchical, command-and-control models.
Similarly, see Emergent organisations, and the principle of self-organisation. See also group entity for an anarchist perspective on human organisations.
See also
- Affinity group
- Bureaucracy
- Charitable trust
- Collective
- Conversation organisation
- Fraternal organisation
- Fraternities and sororities
- International organisation
- Meeting
- Mutual organisation
- Non-governmental organisation
- Open source movement
- Organisational development
- Organised crime
- Pacifist organisation
- Project
- Requisite organisation
- Service club
- Service organisation
- Terrorist organisations
- Virtual organisation
- Voluntary association
Related lists
- List of environmental organisations
- List of trade unions
- List of civic, fraternal, service, and professional organisations
- List of organisations
References
- Organisations by Richard Scott: ISBN 0132663546
- Organisations and Institutions by Richard Scott
- Understanding organisations by Charles Handy.
- The Peter Principle, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, Pan Books 1970 ISBN 0-330-02519-8
- The Nature of the Firm by Ronald Coase.
External links
- [http://www.globaldharma.org Website of Global Dharma Center, a not-for-profit organisation offering (free) training modules, research papers, workshop exercises etc on Culture Development and Individual/Organisation Transformation]
Category:Organizational theory
Workload
A precise definition of workload is an elusive term, but a commonly accepted definition is the hypothetical relationship between a human operator and task demands. The assessment of operator workload has a vital impact on the design of new human-machine systems. By evaluating operator workload during the design of a new system, or iteration of an existing system, problems such as workload bottlenecks and overload can be identified. As the human operator is a central part of a human-machine system, the correction of these problems is necessary for the operation of safe and efficient systems.
Training:For alternative meanings see training (disambiguation)
Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge and relates to specific useful skills. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at technical colleges or polytechnics. Today it is often referred to as professional development.
Sporting training appears more mechanistic: planned suites of regimes develop specific skills or muscles with a view to peaking at a particular time. A specialized field of training often used in sports is autogenic training.
Training & Development is the field concerned with workplace learning to improve performance.
In military use, training means gaining the physical ability to perform and survive in combat, and learning the many skills needed in a time of war. These include how to use a variety of weapons, outdoor survival skills, and how to survive capture by the enemy, among others.
It can include specialties, such as parachuting, flying an airplane, SCUBA diving, operating high-tech weapons, intelligence gathering, navigating at sea, and many others.
Once the desired abilities have been learned, on-going training means to drill and keep in shape in case of deployment orders (i.e. the same as exercise, only it's for military units).
Category:Education
ja:訓練
MoraleMorale is a term for the capacity of people to maintain belief in an institution or a goal. The term applies particularly to military personnel and to members of sports teams. Since at least the time of Carl von Clausewitz' On War, maintenance of morale has been considered one of the fundamental "Principles of War"; while Sir Basil Liddell Hart regarded morale even more fundamentally:
:The aim of a nation in war is to subdue the enemy's will to resist,...
Despite the intangible nature of morale, material factors (such as remuneration, food and shelter) can affect it.
In certain role-playing games, characters may have a morale attribute. This usually serves to indicate how long the character will press a difficult fight before giving up or fleeing.
See also
- Psychological warfare
Category:Psychological warfare
Performance
A performance comprises an event in which generally one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people (the viewer or viewers, or audience). Sometimes the dividing line between performer and audience may become blurred, as in the example of "participatory theatre" where audience members might get involved in the theatrical event.
Examples of performance genres include:
- musical genres:
- concert
- opera
- operetta
- musical
- theatrical genres:
- play
- opera
- operetta
- ballet and other types of dance
- musical
- other genres:
- circus acts
- performance art
performance art
Performances might take place daily, or at some other regular interval.
Similar activities can take place in a religious or occult setting whereby the performance becomes a ritual. In a scientific setting, the carrying out of predetermined actions in a controlled environment becomes the performance (execution) of an experiment.
A music performance (a concert or a recital) may take place indoors in a concert hall or outdoors in a field, and may require the audience to remain very quiet, or encourage them to sing and dance along with the music. In a street concert by one or more street musicians (or, in British English, buskers), often the public consists of people who happen to pass by. Such performers do not require payment, but do welcome it. See extended technique.
Similarly other street artists may carry out street performances, e.g. performing acrobatics. The same applies in other public places.
The word performance may also describe the way in which an actor(ess), or artiste in such a production performs. Or in a solo capacity; such as a mime artist, comedian, conjurer, etc.
conjurer]
Performance, as in What a performance! is also used sarcastically in reference to an individual's overwrought or excessive emotional outbursts.
----
In engineering, performance relates to measuring some output or behaviour. Techniques for [http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Monitoring monitoring] performance include:
- sampling
- logging
- taking snapshots
- testing
Computing performance provides a case in point for engineering performance - see:
- performance testing
- performance tuning
Performance, in a business context, a sub-set of engineering performance, refers to the activity of a unit (be it individual, team, department, or division) of an organization intended to accomplish some desired result.
See also
- performance management
- performance improvement
- performance problem
- heat pump and COP
Category:disambiguation
ja:演奏
Management:Manager redirects to here. For use in sports, see coach (sport).
:Enterprise management redirects to here. For use in computer networks, see Network management or Systems management
"Management" (from Old French ménagement "the art of conducting, directing", from Latin manu agere "to lead by the hand") characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). Early twentieth-century management writer Mary Parker Follett defined management as "the art of getting things done through people."
One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan, and as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, there are five management functions: Planning, Organizing, Leading, Co-ordinating and Controlling.
Management is also called "Business Administration", and schools that teach management are usually called "Business Schools". The term "management" may also be used to describe the slate of managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. A governing body is a term used to describe a group formed to manage an organization, such as a sports league.
Historical development
Some writers trace the development of management thought back to Sumerian traders and ancient Egyptian pyramid builders. Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems of exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises, given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of management systematically. But innovations such as the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.
19th century
Modern management as a discipline began as an off-shoot of economics in the 19th century. Classical economists such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill provided a theoretical background to resource allocation, production, and pricing issues. About the same time, innovators like Eli Whitney, James Watt, and Matthew Boulton developed technical production elements such as standardization, quality control procedures, cost accounting, interchangeability of parts, and work planning.
By the middle of the 19th century, Robert Owen, Henry Poor, and M. Laughlin and others introduced the human element with theories of worker training, motivation, organizational structure and span of control. Compare the analyses of Karl Marx and of Friedrich Engels.
By the late 19th century, marginal economists Alfred Marshall and Leon Walras and others introduced a new layer of complexity to the theoretical underpinings of management. Joseph Wharton offered the first tertiary-level course in management in 1881.
20th century
By about 1900 we find managers trying to place their theories on a thoroughly scientific basis. Examples include Henry Towne's Science of management in the 1890s, Frederick Winslow Taylor's Scientific management (1911), Frank and Lillian Gilbreth's Applied motion study (1917), and Henry L. Gantt's charts (1910s). J. Duncan wrote the first college management text book in 1911.
The first comprehensive theories of management appeared around 1920. People like Henri Fayol and Alexander Church described the various branches of management and their inter-relationships. In the early 20th century, people like Ordwat Tead, Walter Scott and J. Mooney applied the principles of psychology to management, while other writers, such as Elton Mayo, Mary Parker Follett, Chester Barnard, Max Weber, Rensis Likert, and Chris Argyris approached the phenomenon of management from a sociological perspective.
Peter Drucker wrote one of the earliest books on applied management: Concept of the Corporation (published in 1946). It resulted from Alfred Sloan (chairman of General Motors until 1956) commissioning a study of the organisation. Drucker has gone on to write 32 books, many in the same vein.
H. Dodge, Ronald Fisher, and Thorton C. Fry introduced statistical techniques into management. In the 1940s, Patrick Blackett combined these statistical theories with microeconomic theory and gave birth to the science of operations research. Operations research, sometimes known as "management science", attempts to take a scientific approach to solving management problems, particularly in the areas of logistics and operations.
Some of the more recent developments include the theory of constraints, Management by objectives, reengineering, and various information technology driven theories such as agile software development.
As the general recognition of managers as a class solidified during the 20th century and gave perceived practitioners of management a certain amount of prestige, so the way opened for popularised systems of management ideas to peddle their wares. In this context many management fads may have had more to do with pop psychology than with scientific management theory.
Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches, namely:
- Human resource management
- Operations management or production management
- Strategic management
- Marketing management
- Financial management
- Information Technology management
21st century
In the 21st century we find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, we tend to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management. A list of some of the areas of management can be found later in this article.
It is also the case that many of the assumptions made by management have been under attack from business ethics, critical management studies, and anti-corporate activism.
One consequence is that workplace democracy has become both more common, and more advocated, in some places distributing all management functions among the workers, each of whom takes on a portion of the work. However, these models predate any current political issue, and may be more natural than command hierarchy. All management is to some degree democratic in that there must be majority support of workers for the management in the long term, or they leave to find other work, or go on strike. Hence management is becoming less about command-and-control, and more about facilitation and support of collaborative activity, utilizing principles such as those of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human interaction.
Nature of the work
In for-profit work, the primary function of management is satisfy a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers), and providing rewarding employment opportunities (for employees). In nonprofit work it is also important to keep the faith of donors. In most models of management, shareholders vote for the board of directors, and that board then hires senior management. Some organizations are experimenting with other methods of selecting or reviewing managers senior managers (such as employee voting models) but this is very rare.
In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, politicians are elected to public office. They hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United States a great many people lose jobs during a regime change. 2500 people serve "at the pleasure of the President" including all the top US government executives.
Public, private and voluntary sectors place different demands on managers, but all must retain the faith of those who select them (if they wish to retain their jobs), retain the faith of those people that fund the organization, and retain the faith of those who work for the organization. If they fail to convince employees that they are better off staying than leaving, the organization will be forced into a downward spiral of hiring, training, firing, and recruiting.
Management also has a responsibility to innovate and improve the functioning of the organization.
In all but the smallest organizations, achieving these objectives involves a division of management labour. People specialize in a limited range of functions so as to more quickly gain competence and expertice. Even in employee managed workplaces such as a Wobbly Shop, where managers are elected, or where latitude of action is sharply restricted by collective bargaining or unions, managers still take on roughly the same functions and job descriptions as in a more traditional command hierarchy.
Chief executive officer (CEO) - The CEO is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the business. He or she provides overall strategic direction for the firm, often with the assistance of a team of vice presidents. Strategic management decisions like what products to market, what market segments to target, what functions to outsource, what business model to employ, and what geographical areas to operate in are the responsibility of the CEO. The CEO is accountable to the board of directors. Typically a CEO will delegate many responsibilities to one or more executive vice presidents.
In small firms, the owner, president, or chief executive officer typically assume many roles and responsibilities.
Vice president, Marketing - An executive vice president of marketing might direct overall marketing strategies, advertising, promotions, sales, product management, pricing, and public relations policies. The direct reports of the EVP oversee advertising and promotion. In a small firm, they may serve as a liaison between the firm and the advertising or promotion agency to which many advertising or promotional functions are contracted out. In larger firms, advertising managers oversee in-house account, creative, and media services departments.
Marketing managers - Marketing managers develop the firm's detailed marketing plans and procedures. With the help of subordinates, including product development managers and market research managers, they determine the demand for products and services offered by the firm and its competitors. In addition, they identify potential markets—for example, business firms, wholesalers, retailers, government, or the general public. Marketing managers develop pricing strategy with an eye towards maximizing the firm's share of the market and its profits while ensuring that the customers are satisfied. In collaboration with sales, product development, and other managers, they monitor trends that indicate the need for new products and services and oversee product development. Marketing managers work with advertising and promotion managers to promote the firm's products and services and to attract potential users.
Promotions managers - Promotions managers supervise sales promotion specialists. They direct promotion programs that combine advertising with purchase incentives to increase sales. In an effort to establish closer contact with purchasers—dealers, distributors, or consumers—promotion programs may involve direct mail, telemarketing, television or radio advertising, catalogs, exhibits, inserts in newspapers, Internet advertisements or Web sites, instore displays or product endorsements, and special events. Purchase incentives may include discounts, samples, gifts, rebates, coupons, sweepstakes, and contests.
Public relations managers - Public relations managers supervise public relations specialists. These managers direct publicity programs to a targeted public. They often specialize in a specific area, such as crisis management or in a specific industry, such as healthcare. They use every available communication medium in their effort to maintain the support of the specific group upon whom their organizations success depends, such as consumers, stockholders, or the general public. For example, public relations managers may clarify or justify the firms point of view on health or environmental issues to community or special interest groups.
They also evaluate advertising and promotion programs for compatibility with public relations efforts and serve as the eyes and ears of top management. They observe social, economic, and political trends that might ultimately affect the firm and make recommendations to enhance the firm's image based on those trends.
They may also may confer with labor relations managers to produce internal company communications—such as newsletters about employee-management relations—and with financial managers to produce company reports. They assist company executives in drafting speeches, arranging interviews, and maintaining other forms of public contact; oversee company archives; and respond to information requests. In addition, some handle special events such as sponsorship of races, parties introducing new products, or other activities the firm supports in order to gain public attention through the press without advertising directly.
Sales managers - Sales managers direct the firm's sales program. They assign sales territories, set goals, and establish training programs for the sales representatives. Managers advise the sales representatives on ways to improve their sales performance. In large, multiproduct firms, they oversee regional and local sales managers and their subordinates. Sales managers maintain contact with dealers and distributors. They analyze sales statistics gathered by their staffs to determine sales potential and inventory requirements and monitor the preferences of customers. Such information is vital to develop products and maximize profits.
Account executive - The account executive manages the account services department, assesses the need for advertising, and, in advertising agencies, maintains the accounts of clients.
Creative director - The creative services department develops the subject matter and presentation of advertising. The creative director oversees the copy chief, art director, and associated staff.
Media director - The media director oversees planning groups that select the communication media—for example, radio, television, newspapers, magazines, Internet, or outdoor signs—to disseminate the advertising.
Areas of management
- Administrative management
- Association management
- Change management
- Communication management
- Constraint management
- Cost management
- Crisis management
- Customer relationship management
- Earned value management
- Enterprise management
- Facility management
- Human interaction management
- Integration management
- Knowledge management
- Land management
- Logistics management
- Marketing management
- Operations management
- Pain management
- Perception management
- Procurement management
- Program management
- Project management
- Process management
- Product management
- Quality management
- Resource management
- Risk management
- Skills management
- Spend management
- Stress management
- Supply chain management
- Systems management
- Talent management
- Time management
See also
- Adhocracy
- Administration
- Engineering management
- Management consulting
- Management development
- Management Technology
- Managing upwards
- Micromanagement
- Middle management
- Music management
- Poor management
- Senior management
- Strategic management
- Virtual management
- Peter Drucker's management by objectives
- Eliyahu M. Goldratt's theory of constraints
- Pointy Haired Boss —negative stereotypes of managers
Lists
- list of management topics
- list of marketing topics
- list of human resource management topics
- list of economics topics
- list of finance topics
- list of accounting topics
- list of information technology management topics
- list of production topics
- list of business law topics
- list of business ethics, political economy, and philosophy of business topics
- list of business theorists
- list of economists
- list of corporate leaders
- list of companies
Category:Management occupations
Category:Organizations
ko:경영학
ja:マネジメント
Coach (sport): Football manager redirects to here. For the computer game, see Football Manager
In sports, a coach or manager is an individual involved in the direction and instruction of the on-field operations of an athletic team or of individual athletes. Coaching entails the application of sport tactics and strategies during the game or contest itself, and usually entails substitution of players and other such actions as needed. Most coaches are former participants in the sports in which they are involved, and those who are not have usually had extensive training in the sport in question.
training]]
The term "coach" is sometimes equivalent in U.S. usage to the term "manager" in other English-speaking countries in reference to the director of a sporting team, particularly with regard to soccer. Additionally, the director of the operation of a team in baseball, a sport far more popular in the U.S. than in any other English-speaking country, is also properly referred to as a "manager", particularly in the context of a team comprised of adults as opposed to youths.
A coach, particularly in a major operation, is traditionally aided in his efforts by one or more assistants known as the coaching staff. The coach's leadership is often cited, rightly or wrongly, as one of the prime or even the prime ingredient in successful efforts by the athletes under his or her direction, as indicated by the "Coach of the Year" award traditionally presented by all major U.S. sports. Often in major team sports the principal coach, usually referred to as the head coach, has little to do with the development of details such as techniques of play or placement of players on the playing surface, leaving this to assistants while concentrating on larger issues.
Responsibilities
head coach managers ever]]
In some professional sports operations the head coach also serves as general manager, the team executive responsible for acquiring the rights to players and negotiating their contracts, generally in recent years with their agents, and for trading or dismissing players, but these roles have been increasingly likely to be seen as separate functions fulfilled by separate persons in more recent years, although many coach/general managers still exist.
Many coaches, usually those of school-sponsored sports teams, also bear the responsibility of teaching the skills, rules and tactics involved in a particuliar sport to its players. This can be accomplished individually, by team, by division (ex. Defensive Coaching, Offensive Coaching, etc.) or by position (ex. receiver coach, quarterback coach, etc.) where applicable. Under this system in which duties are divided, there is necessarily a head coach who oversees all other coaches as a supervisor.
Successful coaches often become as well or even better-known than the athletes they coach, and in recent years have come to command high salaries and have agents of their own to negotiate their contracts with the teams. Often the head coach of a well-known team has his or her own radio and television programs and becomes the primary "face" associated with the team.
Coaching methods
Coaching techniques and philosophies are often taught by prominent coaches to youth and high school coaches at events referred to as "coaching clinics". Coaching philosophies are passed along from one generation of coaches to another through these events, and of course the tendency of assistant coaches serving under a successful head coach being the most likely to be given an opportunity to become head coaches in their own right. All major collegiate sports have associations for their coaches to engage in professional development activities, but professional coaches tend to have less formal associations, and have never developed into a group resembling a union in the way that athletic players in many leagues have. Most coaching contracts allow the termination of the coach with little notice and without specific cause, usually in the case of high-profile coaches with the payment of a financial settlement. U.S. collegiate coaching contracts require termination without the payment of a settlement if the coach is found to be in serious violation of named rules, usually with regard to the recruiting or retention of players in violation of amateur status. Coaching is a very fickle profession, and a reversal of the team's fortune often finds last year's "Coach of the Year" to be seeking employment in the next.
Other uses
The term "coach" has been expanded greatly in U.S. English usage, especially in recent years, to include such non-sports-related concepts as "personal coaches", "sales coaches", "life coaches", "investment coaches" and the like; see the article on coaching for more information.
See also
Coach (baseball)
Coach (hockey)
External links
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9212/coaching.htm Coaching Certification.]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2004-1/coaches.htm National Standards for Athletic Coaches.]
Category:Sports occupations
!
Specialization
Specialization is an important way to generate propositional knowledge, by applying general knowledge, such as the theory of gravity, to specific instances, such as "when I release this apple, it will fall to the floor". Specialization is the opposite of generalization.
Concept B is a specialization of concept A if and only if:
- every instance of concept B is also an instance of concept A; and
- there are instances of concept A which are not instances of concept B.
For instance, 'Bird' is a specialization of 'Animal' because every bird
is an animal, and there are animals which are not birds (dogs, for
instance).
In logic, specialization occurs when you take a statement such as:
: "All cars are red"
And use it to derive statements such as:
: "My car is red"
: "Fred's car is red"
See also
Specialization (functional), Cell differentiation, Division of labour
Category:logic
Division of laborDivision of labour is generally speaking the specialisation of co-operative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. Historically the growth of a more and more complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of trade. The division of labour reaches the level of a scientifically based management practice with the time and motion studies associated with Taylorism.
In the history of the human species, the first division of labour was between men and women, but it became ever more sophisticated since the invention of agriculture and the dawn of civilization. Some other social animals also exhibit a division of labour.
What appeared to some as the idyllic "wholeness" of pre-civilized life in humans was thought to be due first and foremost to people not being differentiated into specialized roles and functions. That interpretation is countered by the primitive, survivalist habitus of prehistoric man who spent much of his time foraging. Anarcho-primitivism and Primitive Communism are two controversial theories which explore the politics of these primitivist economic states.
Plato and Durkheim
In Plato's "Republic" we are instructed that the origin of the state lies in that "natural" inequality of humanity that is embodied in the division of labour.
Émile Durkheim wrota about a fractionated, unequal world by divining it along the lines of "human solidarity," its essential moral value is division of labour. In 1893 he published "The Division of Labor in Society", his fundamental statement of the nature of human society and its social development. According to Franz Borkenau it was a great increase in division of labour occurring in the 1600s after the Industrial Revolution that introduced the abstract category of work, which may be said to underlie, in turn, the whole modern, Cartesian notion that our bodily existence is merely an object of our (abstract) consciousness.
Adam Smith
In the first sentence of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith foresaw the essence of industrialism by determining that division of labour represents a qualitative increase in productivity. His original example was the making of pins. Unlike Plato, Smith did not regard the division of labour as a consequence of human inequality but famously argued that the difference between a street porter and a philosopher was as much a consequence of the division of labour as its cause. Therefore, while for Plato the level of specialisation determined by the division of labour was externally determined, for Smith it was the dynamic engine of economic progress. However, in a further chapter of the same book Smith criticises the division of labour saying it leads to a 'mental mutilation' in workers; they become ignorant and insular as their working lives are confined to a single repetitive task. This contradiction has led to some debate over Smith's opinion of the division of labour.
The specialization and concentration of the workers on their single subtasks often leads to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular subtasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task.
Worker skill is the chief source of productivity gain in Smith's thinking. In modern economic theory, that role has been taken over by overall technological progress and the concept of human capital.
Karl Marx
Increasing specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a lack of enthusiasm for their work. This viewpoint was extended and refined by Karl Marx. He described the process as alienation; workers become more and more specialized and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete alienation. Marx wrote that "as a result of division of labour," the worker is "reduced to the condition of a machine." He believed that the fullness of production is essential to human liberation and accepted the idea of a strict division of labour only as a temporary necessary evil.
Marx's most important theoretical contribution was his sharp distinction between the social division and the technical or economic division of labour. That is, some forms of labor cooperation are due purely to technical necessity, but others are purely a result of a social control function related to a class and status hierarchy. If these two divisions are conflated, it might appear as though the existing division of labour is technically inevitable and immutable, rather than (in good part) socially constructed and influenced by power relationships.
It may be, for example, that it is technically necessary that both pleasant and unpleasant jobs must be done by a group of people. But from that fact alone, it does not follow that any particular person must do any particular (pleasant or unpleasant) job.
If particular people get to do the unpleasant jobs and others the pleasant jobs, this cannot be explained by technical necessity; it is a socially made decision, which could be made using a variety of different criteria. The tasks could be rotated, or a person could be assigned to a task permanently, and so on.
Marx also suggests that the capitalist division of labour will evolve over time such that the maximum amount of labour is productive labour, where productive labour is defined as labour which creates surplus value.
However, time use surveys suggest that commercially performed labour always depends on, and goes together with, the performance of a very large amount of voluntary labour. To the extent that state subsidies are cut and privatisation increases, more work often devolves on people who must do that work without pay.
In Marx's communist utopia, the division of labour is transcended, meaning that balanced human development occurs where people fully express their nature in the variety of creative work that they do.
Von Mises, and globalisation
On the other hand, Marx's theories, including the negative claims regarding the division of labour have been criticized by the Austrian economists, such as Ludwig von Mises.
The main argument here is that the gains accruing from the division of labour by far outweigh the costs; that it is fully possible to achieve balanced human development within capitalism, and that alienation is more a romantic fiction. After all, work is not all there is; there is also leisure time.
The issue reaches its broadest scope in the controversies about globalisation, which is often interpreted as a euphemism for the expansion of world trade based on comparative advantage.
This would mean that countries specialise in the work they can do best. Critics however allege that international specialisation cannot be explained very well in terms of "the work nations do best", rather this specialisation is guided more by commercial criteria, which favour some countries over others.
The OECD recently advised (28 June 2005) that:
"Efficient policies to encourage employment and combat
unemployment are essential if countries are to reap the full benefits of globalisation and avoid a backlash against open trade... Job losses in some sectors, along with new job opportunities in other sectors, are an inevitable accompaniment of the process of globalisation... The challenge is to ensure that the adjustment process involved in matching available workers with new job openings works as smoothly as possible."
Modern debates
In the modern world, those specialists most preoccupied in their work with theorising about the division of labour are those involved in management and organisation. In view of the global extremities of the division of labour, the question is often raised about what division of labour would be most ideal, beautiful, efficient and just.
Labour hierarchy is to a great extent inevitable, simply because no one can do all tasks at once; but of course the way these hierarchies are structured can be influenced by a variety of different factors. The question to ask is what the hierarchy is a hierarchy of.
An important Western concept in this regard is the concept of meritocracy, which could alternately be read as an explanation or as a justification of why a division of labour is the way it is. But it is often agreed that the most equitable principle in allocating people within hierarchies is that of true (or proven) competency or ability.
US 2002 estimates for the division of labour
Statistics may help to reveal some of the dimensions of the division of labour. This example concerns the USA.
First, we can derive the basic employment categories in the USA in 2002 in approximate figures from BLS data, as follows (working our way down from the total population):
- American total resident population 288 million
- population (16+) 224 million
- economically active population 218 million
- total civilian non-institutional population (16+) 215 million
- population 16-65 years old 188 million
- civilian labour force 145 million
- employed civilian labour force 137 million
- Unpaid family workers 0.03 million
- employers 10 million (4.9 million distinct firms, 7 million establishments)
- self-employed (farm) 1 million
- self-employed (non-farm) 9 million
- wage & salary earners 136 million
- employees 127 million
- government employees 20 million
- private sector workforce 105 million
- Parttime workers non-farm 27 million
- Parttime workers farm 0.5 million
- private sector waged employees 95 million
- unionised wage earners 18 million
We can then look at the proportions of what the total American population actually did in 2002, in approximate figures and broad categories:
- Children (under 16, not working for pay) 64 million
- Retired (over 65, not in the labour force) 28 million
- Fulltime housewives, house-husbands and idle not working for pay 22 million
- Industrial production workers 26.2 million
- Managers and executives 15.8 million
- Clerical and administrative workers 15.3 million
- Sales workers 15 million
- Reserve army of unemployed 13 million
- Engineers, architects, technicians, programmers and scientists 10.5 million
- Employers of workers, all kinds 9.8 million
- Supervisors of workers, all kinds 9.1 million
- Teachers, professional childcare workers and paid childcare assistants 8 million
- Transport workers 5 million
- Unskilled labourers, handlers and helpers 4.8 million
- Aides, ushers, guides, orderlies, and attendants 4.8 million
- Personal care, health and medical workers 4.3 million
- Cleaners, janitors, private cooks, maids & housekeepers 3.7 million
- Accountants, auditors, underwriters, and financial officers 2.6 million
- Adults in institutional care n.e.c. 2.5 million
- Specialists & consultants in human resources, PR and labour relations 2.1 million
- Prison & jail inmates 2 million
- Artists, entertainers & designers, photographers, professional athletes, recreational services 1.6 million
- Nursing home residents 1.6 million
- Fulltime criminals and lumpenised, not in corrective institutions 1.5 million
- Lawyers, judges and legal assistants 1.3 million
- Therapists, counselors, social workers and welfare service aides 1.2 million
- Police, detective, and law enforcement officers 1.2 million
- Medical doctors, dentists, vetinarians, optometrists, and podiatrists 1.1 million
- Military personnel, domestic 1.1 million
- Groundskeepers, gardeners, animal caretakers (non-farm) 1.1 million
- Security guards 1 million
- Farmers 1 million
- Prostitutes 1 million
- Working children (under 16) 1 million
- Inspectors (construction, production and compliance) 0.9 million
- Editors, writers, reporters, proofreaders, librarians, archivists, and curators 0.6 million
- Adult hospital patients 0.5 million
- Religious clergy, and employees of religious institutions 0.4 million
- Corrective institution & prison officers 0.3 million
- Firefighting, fire prevention and pest control workers 0.3 million
- Water, sewage and electricity workers 0.2 million
- Hospice inpatients 0.1 million
- Adult psychiatric patients 0.2 million
Finally, we can look at the occupational structure of the employed labour force (including salaried and self-employed) in the USA in 2002, in broad categories, as follows:
- Managers and executives 15,800,000
- Supervisors 9,100,000
- Teaching staff, all kinds 6,600,000
- Machine operating and assembly workers 6,400,000
- Food & beverage preparing and service workers 6,100,000
- Administrative support clerks n.e.c. 5,800,000
- Construction trade workers 5,300,000
- Aides, ushers, guides, orderlies, and attendants 4,800,000
- Mechanics and repairs workers 4,500,000
- Technicians 4,300,000
- Cleaners, janitors, private cooks, maids & housekeepers 3,700,000
- Retail sales workers 3,400,000
- Truck drivers 3,200,000
- Secretaries, stenographers, and typists 3,000,000
- Scientists 3,000,000
- Sales representatives in finance and business services 2,900,000
- Cashiers 2,900,000
- Accountants, auditors, underwriters, and other financial officers 2,600,000
- Engineers, architects, and surveyors 2,600,000
- Freight & stock handlers, baggers & packers, machine feeders 2,400,000
- Labourers & helpers 2,400,000
- Registered nurses 2,300,000
- Financial records processing clerks 2,200,000
- Management analysts, specialists & consultants in human resources, PR and labour relations 2,100,000
- Materials recording, scheduling, and distributing clerks 1,900,000
- Sales representatives in mining, manufacturing, and wholesale 1,500,000
- Childcare workers and childcare assistants 1,400,000
- Lawyers, judges and legal assistants 1,300,000
- Barbers, hairdressers, cosmeticians, pharmacists, dietitians 1,300,000
- Therapists, counselors, social workers and welfare service aides 1,200,000
- Artists, entertainers & designers 1,200,000
- Police, detective, and law enforcement officers 1,200,000
- Military personnel 1,100,000
- Medical doctors, dentists, vetinarians, optometrists, and podiatrists 1,100,000
- Receptionists 1,000,000
- Security guards 1,000,000
- Working children under 16 1,000,000
- Prostitutes 1,000,000
- Farmers 968,000
- Non-financial records processing clerks, 995,000
- Inspectors (construction, production and compliance) 955,000
- Groundskeepers and gardeners (non-farm) 940,000
- Earthmoving equipment, crane, industrial truck, forklift, lorry and tractor operators 898,000
- Metal workers 826,000
- Farm workers 726,000
- Computer programmers 605,000
- Bus drivers 605,000
- Bank tellers 477,000
- Postal delivery workers, messengers & couriers 468,000
- Editors, writers, reporters and proofreaders 417,000
- Religious clergy, and employees of religious institutions 393,000
- Personal services n.e.c. 348,000
- Taxi drivers and chauffeurs 340,000
- Street and door-to-door sales workers 334,000
- Corrective institution & prison officers 328,000
- Doctor's and dental assistants 318,000
- Firefighting and fire prevention workers 262,000
- Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers 237,000
- Librarians, archivists, and curators 231,000
- Butchers and meat cutters 229,000
- Dressmakers, tailors and shoe repairers 189,000
- Professional photographers 178,000
- Animal caretakers (non-farm) 170,000
- Interviewers 169,000
- Airplane pilots, airplane staff, air traffic controllers 152,000
- Bakers and baking workers 148,000
- Recreational services workers 129,000
- Telephone operators 119,000
- Oil & mining extraction workers 115,000
- Railway workers 111,000
- Cabinet makers, furniture & wood finishers, and other woodworkers 104,000
- Newspaper vendors 103,000
- Ship captains, sailors, mates & deckhands, fishermen 98,000
- Professional athletes 95,000
- Social welfare eligibility clerks 86,000
- Sales demonstrators, promoters, and models 77,000
- Water and sewage treatment plant operators 77,000
- Forestry & logging workers 77,000
- Optical goods workers 72,000
- Other precision production workers n.e.c 72,000
- Pest control workers 63,000
- Food batchmakers 54,000
- Other plant & system operators 45,000
- Electric power plant operators 35,000
- Bookbinding workers 35,000
- Nursery workers 33,000
- Hand molders & shapers 21,000
- Patternmakers, layout workers, & cutters 12,000
- Bridge, lock, & lighthouse tenders 3,000
- Hunters & trappers 2,000
These 2002 figures are just intended to provide a modest indication or illustration; of course, the way the division of labour is viewed depends greatly on the identification, classification and aggregation principles applied. A portion of migrant labour typically fails to be captured in the data.
It should be emphasized that the ways in which the division of labour may be viewed are potentially infinite. This give rise to a never-ending stream of management literature.
Normally, statisticians focus on the main occupational activity or employment status of members of the population; but of course individuals may also divide their time between different activities which are still not adequately captured in survey data.
Consequently, it is always important in making generalisations about the division of labour to be very clear about the assumptions being made about how people differ and what they have in common.
The global division of labour
There exist as yet few comprehensive studies of the global division of labour (an intellectual challenge for researchers), although the ILO and national statistical offices can provide plenty data on request for those game to try.
In one study, Deon Filmer estimated that 2,474 million people participated in the global non-domestic labour force in the mid-1990s. Of these around a fifth, 379 million people, worked in industry, 800 million in services, and 1,074 million in agriculture. The majority of workers in industry and services were wage & salary earners - 58 percent of the industrial workforce and 65 percent of the services workforce. But a big portion were self-employed or involved in family labour. Filmer suggests the total of employees worldwide in the 1990s was about 880 million, compared with around a billion working on own account on the land (mainly peasants), and some 480 million working on own account in industry and services.
Some useful sociological references
Stephanie Coontz & Peta Henderson, Women's Work, Men's Property: The Origins of Gender and Class.
Ali Rattansi, Marx and the Division of Labour.
Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society.
Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital; The Degradation of Labor in the 20th Century
André Gorz, The Division of Labour: The Labour Proces and Class Struggle in Modern Capitalism.
Bertell Ollman, Sexual and social revolution.
Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd and Ernst Fehr, Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life.
F. Froebel, F., J. Heinrichs and O. Krey, The New International Division of Labour. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
James Heartfield, "The Economy of Time" http://www.heartfield.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/economy.pdf
Richard Florida, The rise of the creative class.
Richard Florida, The flight of the creative class.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/
Deon Filmer, Estimating the World at Work, a background report for World Bank's World Development Report 1995 (Washington DC, 1995).
See also
- Taylorism
- organisation
- surplus product
- hierarchy
- time use survey
- productive and unproductive labour
External links
- [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/adamsmith-summary.html Summary of Smith's example of pin-making]
Category:Labor
Category:Sociology
TeamA team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team.
Thus teams of sports players can form (and re-form) to practice their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.
Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularized the concept of constructing teams. Differing opinions exist on the efficacy of this new management fad. Some see "team" as a four-letter word: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the Human Relations movement's desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer pressure and peer surveillance.
Compare the more structured/skilled concept of a crew, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.
Managers use teams for grouping people based on a common function. Members of a team usually belong to different groups, but receive assignment to activities for the same project, thereby allowing outsiders to view them as a single unit. In this way, setting up a team allegedly facilitates the creation, tracking and assignment of a group of people based on the project in hand.
A Virtual team consists of members joined electronically, with nominal in-person contact. Virtual teaming is made possible with technology tools, especially the internet. This allows teams to be formed of players otherwise unavailable. Research can be performed using input from the best minds around the world. Work projects can be completed by spreading the workload among long-distance players. Many businesses build their competitive edge on the capabilities and efficiencies of virtual teams.
Teams can sub-divide into sub-teams according to need. A team used only for a defined period of time often becomes known as a project team.
Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
See also
- Coalition
- Community
- Forming-storming-norming-performing
- Teamwork
- Team building
- Virtual team
Category:Social groups
Self-assessmentThe EFQM definition is as follows,
Self-Assessment is a comprehensive, systematic and regular review of an organisation's activities and results referenced against the EFQM Excellence Model.
The Self-Assessment process allows the organisation to discern clearly its strengths and areas in which improvements can be made and culminates in planned improvement actions which are then monitored for progress.
See also
Team building
External Links
- [http://www.globaldharma.org/ Website of Global Dharma Center / Center for Dharmic Leadership, an not-for-profit organisation providing (free) articles, research publications and training modules on Culture Development, Individual/Organisation Transformation and, Serving and Leading from a spiritual context.]
category:Organizational studies and human resource management
Cross-functional team__NOTOC__
A cross-functional team, in business, consists of a group of people working toward a common goal and made of people with different functional expertise. It could include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human resources departments. Typically it also includes employees from all levels of an organization. Members may also come from outside an organization (in particular, from suppliers, key customers, or consultants).
Cross-functional teams often function as self-directed teams: they respond to broad objectives, but not to specific directives. Decision-making within a team may depend on consensus, but often is lead by a manager/coach/team leader.
A non-business yet good example of cross-functional teams are music bands, where each element plays a different instrument (or has a different roll). Songs are the result of collaboration and participation, and the goals are decided by consensus. Skills to play all the instruments involved are not required since music provides a standard language that everybody in the team can understand. In short, music bands are a clear example of how this teams work.
Organizational consequences of cross-functional teams
The growth of self-directed cross-functional teams has influenced decision-making processes and organizational structures. Although management theory likes to propound that every type of organizational structure needs to make strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, new procedures have started to emerge that work best with teams.
1) Less unidirectional - Up until recently, decision making flowed in one direction. Overall corporate-level objectives drove strategic business unit (SBU) objectives, and these in turn, drove functional level objectives. Today, organizational have flatter structures, companies diversify less, and functional departments have started to become less well-defined. The rise of self-directed teams reflects these trends. Intra-team dynamics tend to become multi-directional rather than hierarchical. Interactive processes encourage consensus within teams. Also the directives given to the team tend to become more general and less prescribed.
2) Greater scope of information - Cross-functional teams require a wide range of information to reach their decisions. They need to draw on information from all parts of an organization’s information base. This includes information from all functional departments. System integration becomes important because it makes all information accessible through a single interface.
3) Greater depth of information - Cross-functional teams require information from all levels of management. The teams may have their origins in the perceived need to make primarily strategic decisions, tactical decisions, or operational decisions, but they will require all three types of information. Almost all self-directed teams will need information traditionally used in strategic, tactical, and operational decisions. For example, new product development traditionally ranks as a tactical procedure. It gets strategic direction from top management, and uses operational departments like engineering and marketing to perform its task. But a new product development team would consist of people from the operational departments and often someone from top management.
In many cases, the team would make unstructured strategic decisions -- such as what markets to compete in, what new production technologies to invest in, and what return on investment to require; tactical decisions like whether to build a prototype, whether to concept-test, whether to test-market, and how much to produce; and structured operational decisions like production scheduling, inventory purchases, and media flightings. In other cases, the team would confine itself to tactical and operational decisions. In either case it would need information associated with all three levels.
4) Greater range of users - Cross-functional teams consist of people from many parts of an organization. Information must take a form that all users understand. Not only engineers use technical data and not only accountants use financial data and not only human resources personnel use HR data. Modern organizations lack middle managers to combine, sort, and prioritize the data. Technical, financial, marketing, and all other types of information must come in a form that all members of a cross-functional team can understand. This involves reducing the amount of specialized jargon, sorting information based on importance, hiding complex statistical procedures from the users, giving interpretations of results, and providing clear explanations of difficult concepts. Slicing and dicing techniques may prove useful in providing different views of the information to different users. Data visualization systems can present complex results in an intuitive manner.
5) Less teleological - Since the publication of Peter Drucker’s views on "Management by Objectives", business decision-making has become more goal-oriented. Managers have come to view decision-making generally, and strategic thinking in particular, as a multi-stage process that starts with an assessment of the current situation, determines objectives, then determines how to reach these objectives. Management by dorky took this basic scheme and applied it to virtually all significant decisions. Today many firms have started to opt for a less structured, more interactive approach. One way of implementing this involves using self-directed cross-functional teams. Proponents hope that these teams will develop strategies that will re-define industries and create new “best practices”. They feel that mere incremental improvements do not suffice. Cross-functional teams, using unstructured techniques and searching for revolutionary competitive advantages, allegedly require information systems featuring increased interactivity, more flexibility, and the capability of dealing with fuzzy logic. Artificial intelligence holds out the promise of one day proving useful in this regard.
See Also:
- marketing
- management
- organizational development
External links
- [http://www.developingteamwork.com/ Developing Teamwork] - A video based learning package designed for organisations wishing to improve the effective use of the intellectual resource of their people. Available for review online free of charge.
category:Organizational studies and human resource management
Forming-storming-norming-performingThe Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of team development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable - in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and to deliver results. This model has become the basis for subsequent models of team dynamics and frequently used management theory to describe the behavior of existing teams.
Forming
In the first phase, the forming of the team takes place. The team meets and learns about the opportunity, agrees on goals and on the resources necessary to tackle the task. Team members tend to still behave quite independently. They may be motivated, but are relatively uninformed of the issues and objectives of the team.
Supervisors of the team during this phase tend to be directive.
Storming
Every group will then enter the storming stage in which different ideas compete for consideration. During this phase, the team addresses issues such as what problems they are supposed to solve, how they will function and what leadership model they will accept. Team members open out to each other and confront each other’s perspectives. They are still relatively unacquainted with the project.
In some cases, the storming stage can be resolved quickly. In others, the team never leaves this stage.
The storming stage is necessary to the growth of the team. It can seem contentious, unpleasant and even painful to members of the team who are very averse to conflict. If improperly managed, this phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation.
Supervisors of the team during this phase may be more accessible but tend to still be directive in their guidance of the decision-making process.
Norming
At some point, the team will enter the norming stage. During this phase, team members adjust their behaviors to each other as they develop work habits that make the teamwork seem more natural and fluid. Team members often work through this stage by agreeing on rules, values, shared methods, working tools and even taboos. During this phase, team members begin to trust each other. Motivation increases as the team gets more acquainted with the project.
Teams in this phase may lose their creative edge if the norming behaviors become too strong and begin to stifle healthy dissent and the team begins to exhibit group-think.
Supervisors of the team during this phase tend to be more participative than in the earlier stages. The team members themselves can be expected to take more responsibility for making decisions.
Performing
Some teams will reach the performing stage. These high-performing teams are able to function as a unit as they find ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without the need for external supervision. Team members have become interdependent. By this time they are motivated and knowledgeable. The team members are now competent, autonomous and able to handle the decision-making process without supervision. Dissent is expected and allowed as long as it is channelled through means acceptable to the team.
Supervisors of the team during this phase are almost always participative. The team itself will make most of the necessary decisions.
Even the most high-performing teams will revert to earlier stages in certain circumstances. Many long-standing teams will go through these cycles many times as they react to changing circumstances. For example, a change in leadership may cause the team to revert to storming as the new people challenge the existing norms and dynamics of the team.
Adjourning and Transforming
Tuckman later added a fifth phase, adjourning, that involves completing the task and breaking up the team. Others call it the phase for mourning.
A team that manages to remain together may transcend to a transforming phase of achievement. Transformational management can produce major changes in performance through team synergy and is considered to be more far-reaching than transactional management.
See also
- Group development
- Group dynamics
- Team
- Team building
Reference
- Tuckman, Bruce. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological bulletin, 63, 384-399.
The article was reprinted in Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal ‑ Number 3, Spring 2001 and is available as a Word document: http://dennislearningcenter.osu.edu/references/GROUP%20DEV%20ARTICLE.doc.
Category:Social groups
Category:Group processes
TeamA team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team.
Thus teams of sports players can form (and re-form) to practice their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.
Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularized the concept of constructing teams. Differing opinions exist on the efficacy of this new management fad. Some see "team" as a four-letter word: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the Human Relations movement's desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer pressure and peer surveillance.
Compare the more structured/skilled concept of a crew, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.
Managers use teams for grouping people based on a common function. Members of a team usually belong to different groups, but receive assignment to activities for the same project, thereby allowing outsiders to view them as a single unit. In this way, setting up a team allegedly facilitates the creation, tracking and assignment of a group of people based on the project in hand.
A Virtual team consists of members joined electronically, with nominal in-person contact. Virtual teaming is made possible with technology tools, especially the internet. This allows teams to be formed of players otherwise unavailable. Research can be performed using input from the best minds around the world. Work projects can be completed by spreading the workload among long-distance players. Many businesses build their competitive edge on the capabilities and efficiencies of virtual teams.
Teams can sub-divide into sub-teams according to need. A team used only for a defined period of time often becomes known as a project team.
Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
See also
- Coalition
- Community
- Forming-storming-norming-performing
- Teamwork
- Team building
- Virtual team
Category:Social groups
TeamworkTeamwork is the concept of people working together as a team. The concept has spread from the world of sports where it is well known and accepted, to business, so much so that it is in danger of being considered by some as an empty buzzword, or a form of corporate-speak. In the 21st century, as people are becoming more sophisticated and society is becoming more technically advanced, working as a team makes it easier to accomplish goals.
Some things cannot be accomplished by people working individually. Larger, ambitious goals usually require that people work together with other people. Anyone who has ever been to a job interview will invariably be asked what the concept of teamwork means to them. The reason for this is because companies today want people who are team players, people who are able to get along with their colleagues and work together in a cohesive group. Because teamwork is the desired goal of many organizations today, they will often go to the effort of coordinating team building events in an attempt to get people to work as a team rather than as individuals.
Skills Needed For Teamwork
There are seven essential skills that one must learn in order to be able to successfully adopt the concept of teamwork. These skills are:-
1. Listening - it is important to listen to other people's ideas. When people are allowed to freely express their ideas, these initial ideas will produce other ideas.
2. Questioning - it is important to ask questions, interact, and discuss the objectives of the team.
3. Persuading - individuals are encouraged to exchange, defend, and then to ultimately rethink their ideas.
4. Respecting - it is important to treat others with respect and to support their ideas.
5. Helping - it is crucial to help one's coworkers, which is the general theme of teamwork.
6. Sharing - it is important to share with the team to create an environment of teamwork.
7. Participating - all members of the team are encouraged to participate in the team.
Team Development
The forming-storming-norming-performing model takes the team through four stages of team development and maps quite well on to many project management life cycle models, such as initiation - definition - planning - realisation.
See also
- Cooperation
- Collaboration
- Group (sociology)
- Team
- Team building
DVon
Devon Hughes (born on August 1, 1972 in New York) is an American professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment as D-Von Dudley. He currently wrestles for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling under the new stage name of Brother Devon.
Hughes is one half of one of the most successful tag teams in wrestling history, Team 3D (formerly known as the Dudley Boyz), along with his storyline half-brother Brother Ray (formerly known as Bubba Ray Dudley).
Career
Hughes started wrestling in 1992 in the East Coast independents as A-Train, feuding with the Latin Lover in most promotions.
He eventually ended up in ECW where he formed the most successful tag team ever in ECW with his "half brother" Bubba Ray Dudley. They won the Tag Titles on 8 occasions. They were known for inciting riots with their remarks toward the fans during interviews.
Upon arriving in the WWF in 1999, they feuded with The Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian. They were part of The Alliance that tried to take over the WWF in 2001. Bubba and D-Von continued to wrestle in the WWE after The Invasion storyline ended, winning tag team gold on many occasions. When RAW and SmackDown! became separate brands in 2002, D-Von was sent to SmackDown! while Bubba stayed on RAW following the Brand Extension. During his time there, he developed the character Reverend D-Von who was later managed by newcomer Deacon Batista. After several months on SmackDown!, he was reunited with Bubba at Survivor Series where they reformed their partnership and D-Von went back to RAW as a result. In the 2004 Draft Lottery, the Dudleys were traded to SmackDown! along with Booker T to keep Triple H on RAW after he was drafted to SmackDown! They won the WWE Tag Team Championship during this time. After being on hiatus for several months, the Dudleys returned to WWE to promote and perform at ECW One Night Stand.
On July 5, 2005 the WWE opted not to continue contract renewal negotiations with Hughes, as well as his partner Lamonica. In addition, fifteen other wrestlers were released by the WWE, which was decreasing its spending as a result of a fall in projected revenue. Later, WWE would go on to stop Hughes, Mark Lamonica (Bubba), and Matt Hyson (Spike) from using any aspect of the Dudley gimmick in any other promotion, claiming ownership of all Dudley Boyz trademarks dating back to 2003 despite the fact the gimmick predated their run in WWE.
On September 21, 2005, it was announced that Lamonica and Hughes had been signed to multi-year contracts by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. The pair debuted on Spike TV on October 1 under the new name of Team 3D. Lamonica is now known as Brother Ray, while Hughes is known as Brother Devon. The name Deadly Death Drop was also copyrighted which is believed to be the new name for the Dudley Death Drop (3D).
[http://www.powerwrestling.com/news/board.php?Show=1390]
Profile
- Height: 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
- Weight: 240 lb (109 kg)
- Trained by: Johnny Rodz
- Debut: 1992
- Previous identities: D-Von Dudley, Reverend D-Von, A-Train
- Previous managers: Sign Guy Dudley, Joel Gertner, Jenna Jameson, Stacy Keibler, Paul Heyman
- Previous enforcer(s): Deacon Batista
- Signature illegal object(s): Tables
- Quote(s): "Thou shalt not fuck with the Dudleyz!"
Finishing and signature moves
- The Saving Grace (Lifting inverted DDT)
- Elevated Neckbreaker from 2nd-Rope
- Running Corkscrew Elbow Smash
- Piledriver
- 3D
- Reverse 3D
- Wassapp?! (assisted diving headbutt to groin)
Championships and accomplishments
- 8-time WWF World Tag-Team Champion (with Bubba Ray Dudley)
- 1-time WWE Tag-Team Champion (with Bubba Ray Dudley)
- 1-time WCW World Tag Team Champion (with Bubba Ray Dudley)
- 8-time ECW Tag-Team Champion (with Bubba Ray Dudley)
- 1-time NSWA United States Champion
- 1-time WWO International Champion
- 1-time NEW United States Champion
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) ranked him # 362 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003. He also won three PWI Awards. He won Tag Team of the Year in 2001 with Bubba Ray and Match of the Year in 2000 and 2001. Those matches were both The Dudley Boyz vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. Edge and Christian
References
[http://www.powerwrestling.com/news/board.php?Show=1390 Former Dudley Boyz trademark new names]
Hughes, Devon
Hughes, Devon
Hughes, Devon
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