Abstract :
Teamwork has become the management panacea for organisation ailments. The language of the sports coach has infiltrated the business environment to make us all develop teams-cross functional teams, virtual teams, project teams. The article exposes some simplistic myths and provides hard earned practical lessons in how best to tap some of the 70% of people´s capability typically unused by our major companies, through working together. It focuses on a particular project based UK defence/electronics company, which was faced with a downward trend in financial performance, driven by a cost plus consequence free culture and demotivated staff. The company had the potential to be world class, with technological capabilities second to none, and leadership in core markets. They needed a radical rethink of their ways of working, based on teams.
Keywords :
concurrent engineering; electronic equipment manufacture; human resource management; manufacturing data processing; military computing; business environment; cost plus consequence free culture; cross functional teams; demotivated staff; financial performance; human capability; organisation ailments; project based UK defence/electronics company; project teams; teamworking; virtual teams; Concurrent engineering; Electronic equipment manufacture; Manufacturing data processing; Military computing;
