I just found this Youtube-Video which I really want to share with you. It is about managing diversity and in how far companies could learn something about diversity by having a look at football teams.
As they were saying that teamwork is easy within a team of 11 players, but could be quite complicated within a huge company. Do you also agree? Do you think working as a team is only possible in a limited group of people?
Furthermore they talk about the acceptance of people in a football team and that generally in football people from all over the world are more and more accepted than in companies. Do you think that is right? Do you think there is a difference between diversity in companies and diversity in football games?
I am really interested into your opinions so please feel free to share your thoughts.
First of all I think it depends how you define “working as a team”. I think working as a team in the broad sense, like getting along well sharing information, helping each other out and so on is definitely possible also in a larger group (so in big companies). However for real teamwork I think the group cannot be too big.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I mean with this?
From school I know that working in teams of 3 to 6 people is a good number. Tasks can be divided, people can communicate and the amount of different options is limits. Also this is a good number for discussions. However when it comes to more than 8 people the number already is a problem. It is hard to schedule meetings, include all opinions and so on.
As a conclusion: I think a team where members have to work together closely it is important the members are limited to a smaller number.
However teams where members have their own task and only need to coordinate their works it is also possible to work well within bigger companies.
However I think the point is: People of the take sports teams as examples for teamwork. Why can they work together so well?? Easy: here all the members are working together to achieve a commen goal which is clearly defined and understood by every single member. I think if teamwork doesn’t work out, the most common problem is that the goal is not understood to everybody or not everybody sees it equally important to achieve it!!
I think that football is a good example of teamwork between people from different nationalities and background. Most trainers and managers would not allow discussions about background because everybody has to focus on one goal that is far more important than the individual people's opinions.
ReplyDeleteI think that nowadays, many people in countries such as Austria, which have a relatively high rate of immigrants, are used to working with people from other cultural backgrounds but unfortunately, a lot of racism still exists. Probably workshops in companies would help to somehow overcome this problem.
Generally I think that teams should be big enough to have different points of view come together. Nevertheless, if the team is very big, agreeing is very difficult so there should never be more that 7 or 8 people in a team! I would probably consider groups of 4 as the ideal group size.
I also agree, based on personal experience, that working teams should be kept relatively small to avoid time-consuming discussions and difficulties in the organization process. Many projects are already determined to fail, if the communication processes are flawed, no matter how intelligent or good the participating Team members are.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there is a difference regarding diversity in a Football Team and a Company, because each Player/Team member is placed on a Position/Job according to his skills/Talent to achieve the common GOAL/Goal.