Evaluation of Team Management Concepts

Introduction 

In team management, there is the question of whether balancing conformity and deviance helps organizations to amplify their competitive advantage. In addressing this issue, conformity is described as the actions to ensure an individual fits the norms of a group or social standards, while deviance denotes a situation where an individual fails to agree to the norms of a group. Extreme conformity and deviance are disastrous to an organization’s operations since conformity is influenced by the desire to act like other admired group members and deviance is all about failing to observe the norms of a group. Since both conformity and deviance are about teamwork, cooperation is irrefutably a viable team management concept than can help with balancing conformity and deviance. Arguably, through cooperation, balancing conformity and deviance is vital in enhancing an organization’s competitive advantage through coordination between individuals and departments (Mertens & Recker, 2020).

Balancing Conformity and Deviance 

Description of Concept 

By definition, conformity refers to a person’s actions to ensure they fit the norms of a group or social standards. This occurrence is attributed to various reasons, the most notable one being to avoid punishments or be rewarded. Besides, people can also exercise conformity out of admiration (Bader & Baker, 2019). That is, an individual may want to act and behave like another member of their group since they like them or perceive their actions as being admirable. Overall, conformity to group functioning is driven by the desire to adhere to what the group perceives as the proper and right way of doing things. Alternatively, deviance describes a situation where an individual fails to agree to the norms of a group. In such an occurrence, groups respond to deviance members by attempting to convince them to change their behaviors for guaranteed conformity. Part of this process entails outlining the possible consequences of deviant behavior in a group setting. Further, groups try to figure out the necessary actions to accommodate a deviant member, which is why they act by adjusting the group norms to put up with them. If this fails, the last option is to expel these individuals from the group.

Since the two concepts of conformity and deviance illustrate the extremity in terms of agreeing or failing to agree, researchers show that a balance between the two is necessary. Deductively, balancing conformity and deviance is vital in organizations, precisely because it is linked to increased competitive advantage through synergy. Mertens and Recker (2020) confirm this by theorizing that a balance between conformity and deviance is important in helping business to achieve high-performance when operating under teams. The benefits of balancing conformity and deviance are entrenched in the idea that too much of conformity or deviance is disastrous in team operations. For instance, too much conformity is construed to show that it is more likely to cause behaviors that are not critical towards group processes and norms. As a result, there is a high possibility of dysfunctional norms slipping off without being replaced or corrected with more functional group standards. The same is replicated with too much deviance since it is most likely to result in poor performance since a group is incapable of controlling members’ behavior and actions (Kim & Choi, 2017). Therefore, the right amount of conformity and deviance is imperative in ensuring that the group norms and behaviors are reflected in a way that they are all focused on creating a favorable working environment.

Strengths & Weaknesses 

A critical analysis of balanced conformity and deviance reveals that members conform to obtain rewards and deviance is caused by failure to be in control of other members’ behavior. However, when there is a balance in conformity and deviance, the pertinent business benefit from achieving high performance. Therefore, the strength of balancing conformity and deviance is that businesses benefit in terms of amplified opportunities to improve productivity (Aguilera, Judge, & Terjesen, 2018). The other strength about balancing conformity and deviance is that it allows better coordination between team members, thus, allowing them to challenge themselves. On the other hand, balancing conformity and deviance is associated with the weakness of conformity erasing individuality and deviance failing to critique bad behavior and actions of group members.    

Team Management Concept 

In terms of organizations gaining competitive advantage through synergy means that their high-productivity is made possible by enhanced coordination between individuals and departments. Considering that teams refer to individuals that work intensely among themselves to achieve stipulated goals and objectives, there is the need to have team management concept that improves their coordination. In relation to this, the team management concept that is closely linked to increased competitive advantage by balancing conformity and deviance through synergy is cooperation.   

Description of Concept 

Most scholars agree that teamwork is defined based on the cooperative efforts of the members. Therefore, the element of cooperation in team management is undeniably unparalleled since it focuses on individual efforts into achieving the common goals and objectives of a group. In balancing conformity and deviance, cooperation is an imperative tool to help increase productivity since it describes the willingness of team members to work together towards a common purpose (Cewinska & Krasnova, 2017). Taken together, it means that cooperation is imperative since it defines the mode of conduct among staff members and ensuring that they are focused on making small or large inputs into whatever assignment is given to them. Ultimately, this means that every input by team members is important in ensuring that there is a balance in conformity and deviance. In particular, this is influenced by the idea that whatever each one does has the potential of influencing others. Thus, for effective teamwork, cooperation is essential.  

The primary focus in the increased competitive advantage of an organization through balancing conformity and deviance is interpreted to mean that there is the need for better coordination (Parks, 2019). Coordination is most likely to be achieved if teamwork management entails cooperation. If pertinent groups will achieve this level of cooperation, they need to make sure that they focus on important behavior, such as effective communication. The importance of effective communication is that it requires team members to share information and knowledge with others and in ways that they are honest and keen to listen to others’ suggestions and ideas without being judgmental. Reasonably, such an approach in teamwork is important since it also allows individuals to focus on their strengths and limitations, hence focusing on how they can improve the former and mitigate the latter.        

Strengths & Weaknesses 

Cooperation, as a team management concept, has its strengths and weaknesses, which are apparent in its advantages and disadvantages. Apparently, cooperation must be critically analyzed if balancing conformity and deviance is to help an organization achieve increased competitive advantage through synergy. Cooperation plays a vital role that is closely related to its strengths. That is, through cooperation, balancing conformity and deviance helps businesses be productive since it increases learning opportunities, exploits existing potential, and enhances communication and sharing of important information among team members (Jian, 2016). Conversely, the weaknesses include individuals resisting changes, conflicts arising in attempts of amplified coordination, less flexibility, and members free-riding in teamwork efforts.

New Thoughts 

From what I have learned about balancing conformity and deviance is that this is imperative to pertinent organizations since it is associated with increased productivity. From a religious perspective, there is the question of whether the bible advocates for balanced conformity and deviance. To my knowledge, the bible does foster balancing conformity and deviance and this is conveyed in the element of social cohesion. The Bible explores the concept of social cohesion by suggesting that individuals are bound to support the beliefs, values, and norms of a society. Similarly, the people are also entitled to violate specific behaviors and rules if they are perceivably not proper or right. According to the bible’s explication of this concept, it founds its argument on the idea that people’s righteousness is dictated by the people’s commitment to the religious course. This is replicated in the real-life situation since the values held by a society are responsible for defining the people’s character and the nature of their social life. Overall, I have learned that groupthink is supported by the bible, particularly since it explores the idea of how teamwork is imperative in helping individuals achieve stipulated goals and objectives.    

Conclusions 

In summation, it is clear that conformity describes a person’s actions to ensure they fit the norms of a group or social standards. On the other hand, deviance describes a situation where an individual fails to agree to the norms of a group. Regardless of the two being opposing approaches, balancing conformity and deviance is vital in organizations since it helps increase competitive advantage through synergy. Therefore, when organizations manage to balance conformity and deviance they are likely to experience strengths and weaknesses in their approach. The strengths are founded in the idea of businesses benefiting in terms of amplified opportunities to improve productivity, while the weaknesses result from failure to critique bad behavior and actions of group members. Further analysis shows that the team management concept that aligns with balancing conformity and deviance is cooperation. The significance of cooperation is that it helps in the coordination between individuals and organizations. Therefore, it is conclusively clear that balancing conformity and deviance is important in increasing an organization’s competitive advantage and it is supported by biblical approaches.  

References 

Aguilera, R. V., Judge, W. Q., & Terjesen, S. A. (2018). Corporate governance deviance.  Academy of Management Review ,  43 (1), 87- 109.  https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2014.0394 

Bader, C., & Baker, J. (2019). Deviance and conformity: The pressure of dual identities.  Deviance Management ,  1 (1), 27-51.  https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520973121- 005 

Cewinska, J., & Krasnova, A. (2017). Cooperation and Competition in Project Teams by.  ResearchGate ,  6 (8), 1- 13.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321918851_Cooperation_and_Competition _in_Project_Teams_1 

Jian, Z. H. O. U. (2016). Team Cooperation, Strength of Management and the Growth of Entrepreneurship: A Multiple Cases Study.  Economic Management Journal , (2), 7. http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-JJGU201602007.htm 

Kim, M. J., & Choi, J. N. (2017). Group identity and positive deviance in work groups.  The Journal of Social Psychology ,  158 (6), 730- 743.  https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2017.1412931 

Mertens, W., & Recker, J. (2020). How store managers can empower their teams to engage in constructive deviance: Theory development through a multiple case study.  Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services ,  52 , 101937.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101937 

Parks, C. D. (2019). Cooperation and competition between groups.  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology ,  1 (1), 1- 6.  https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.670