CAT / FIA FBT Syllabus D. Leading And Managing Individuals And Teams - Organisational Success - Notes ^{2 / 3}

Being inherently social, people generally do not choose to live or work alone.

Most of their time is spent interacting with others.

People are born into a family group, work in groups and play in teams.

One person cannot do everything, but a team can combine all the main areas of skill and knowledge that are needed for a particular job.

Synergy

describes the phenomenon in which combined activity of separate entities has a greater effect than the sum of activities of each entity working alone often described as a way of making 2 + 2 = 5.

Within organisations there has been an implicit belief that people working as members of a group or team perform more effectively than if they are organised as individuals. 

There are, of course, many work situations where the group is the best means to get work done, such as:

• When working cooperatively, rather than working individually, gives a better end result in terms of speed, efficiency or quality.

• Where the task requires a mixture of different skills or specialism’s.

• Where competition between individuals leads to less effectiveness rather than more.

• Where the task requires the coordination of activities.