Groups and Teams

Name

Date

Institutional Affiliation

Groups and Teams

In management, there is a distinct difference between the role of a team and that of a group. However, their differences remain subtle in that they have a very slight difference in the definition (“difference between a group and a team – The Business Journals,” 2013). A team is a collection of individuals who are focused to accomplish a common goal and are committed to one another at the same time. A group, on the other hand, are individuals who come together to coordinate their efforts in achieving something. The general similarity is that both the team and the group come together to achieve certain goals (“Teams vs. Groups,” 2015). However, the individuals in a group are committed to the goals and make individual efforts. A team is holistically committed to the objectives and are committed to one another’s progress on how to achieve the objectives. Groups are created to assist in harnessing different talents to meet certain goals. A team is created to accomplish goals and objectives efficiently, effectively and collectively (“Research on managing groups and teams,” n.d.)

I once was tasked to be a member of a team that was supposed to integrate software into a tech company that handled medical insurance funds. The team had to come up with data from all the institutions that were covered by the insurance company. Furthermore, part of the objective was to ensure that all the databases were correctly configured and running in a given timeframe. Working in such a team needs everyone to be on the same page of the task. I was given two accounts to manage and comprehensively configure all the allocations. However, this was not an individual task. The rest of the team would help out when some data was missing or duplicating. Everybody was busy work9ng towards meeting the goal as well as helping each other out considering this was an upgrade into a venture that had been non-existent in the company. The team leader was part of the top management but had to lay out the needed procedures and teach by demonstration comprehensively. This cohesion by the team helped to fast-track a process that would have taken months, and everyone was well informed on the running of the different accounts henceforth.

 

 

References

The difference between a group and a team – The Business Journals. (2013, 14). Retrieved from https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/growth-strategies/2013/06/the-difference-between-a-group-and-a.html

Research on managing groups and teams. (n.d.). Research on Managing Groups and Teams, ii. doi:10.1016/s1534-0856(08)11017-9

Teams vs. Groups. (2015). Project Management Leadership, 177-191. doi:10.1002/9781119207986.ch13