Modern organizations are facing multiple and growing challenges
fulfilling their customer needs, achieving new potential markets and adding
value to their products or services. In this context group work is fundamental
to any organization. There are some variables that influence group work
performance such as group size, communication, group cohesion, competencies of
each individual, task structure, and available resources.
Some
people that are highly productive have high standards for themselves and for
others. To build a sustainable environment where optimum group performance will
be achieved it is necessary to have trust between group members. Commitment to
tasks is a characteristic that
differentiates high-performance groups from other groups. It is important to
notice that high-performance groups are built with people that want to belong
to that group and not by people that are assembled randomly for a task.
Empowerment is a process that offers to group
members the opportunity to be accountable for a broader scope of achievements
than previous Taylorist-Fordist model where roles were repetitive and
predictable. Empowerment truly means giving people the authority to adopt
changes at their tasks. However, it is not so simple to create a group that
will evolve into a high performing team. People come from different cultures
and have different forms of cognitively thinking about processes.
