Science and world

Barriers to an effective team 
The key barriers to team effectiveness include (Table 7): too little team autonomy, excessive negative 
competition between teams, conflicts, a group thinking syndrome, taking overly risky decisions, and social laziness.
Research shows that creating and developing interpersonal relationships is essential for the effective team 
functioning [3]. This involves: 

direct influence, i.e., maintaining positive relationships between team members facilitates cooperation, 

indirect influence, i.e., properly shaped and pre-existing interpersonal relationships that improve 
communication. Good communication is the basis for the team work effectiveness. 
Additionally, many authors emphasize the importance of work autonomy and the complexity of tasks when 
building organizational commitment of employees. It was discussed by various authors, including Dunham, Grube, 
Castaneda, Meyer, Bobocel, Allen, and Parker. On the other hand, the positive impact of the task complexity on the 
team commitment is described, among others, by Van der Vegt, Emans, Van der Vliert, and Parker. Consequently, the 
determinants presented above do not exhaust all classifications that can be found in the literature. However, this proves 
the existence of many stimuli and groups of factors that are worth taking care of when thinking in a context of building 
organizational commitment of employees, thus influencing the increase in the employee team effectiveness [3]. 

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ISSN 2308-4804. Science and world. 2021. № 12 (100). Vol. II.
59 
Table 7 
Barriers to an effective team 
No 
Feature 
Assumptions 
Possible application 
1 
Too little team 
autonomy 
Restricting team activities and 
excessive control can lead to a 
conflict in the organizational 
hierarchy. 
The use of flexible organizational structures that will 
enable the adaptation of team activities to an existing 
situations, and thus improve their effectiveness. 
2 
Excessive negative 
competition between 
teams 
Competition between individual 
teams can have negative 
consequences in certain situations. 
When: work is not done properly, the information flow 
is uneven or too slow, members are not inclined to 
rotate between teams, teams do not collaborate on tasks 
that require cooperation. 
3 
Conflicts 
Team members put their own 
interests above the collective interest 
of the team, adopt passive attitudes, 
or the conflict is so strong that the 
members decide to leave the team. 
Avoiding Conflict. 
4 
Group Thinking 
Syndrome 
The team has a sense of infallibility. 
Theses stated are not questioned, the opponents are 
ignored or forced to submit. 
5 
Making overly risky 
decisions 
Team members are more likely to 
take actions that are unpredictable or 
they do not consider future 
consequences, as they believe that 
the responsibility will be borne by 
the entire team. 
Avoiding the lack of a sense of individual responsibility. 
6 
Social laziness 
Reduced involvement of individuals 
due to the belief in team 
responsibility ("someone from the 
team will do this task anyway"), 
which leads to a reduced 
effectiveness of the entire team. 
Involvement of every team member. 
Source: own study after: J.
Blythe, Komunikacja marketingowa, Polskie Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, Warszawa 2002, pp. 36-37.; 
Armstrong, Zarządzanie ludźmi, Rebis, Poznań.2007, pp. 65–66
.