What Is The Purpose Of Teamwork Within The Police?
Teamwork is generally encouraged or endorsed by supervisors and it is a cooperative effort by the members of a group to achieve a common work objective as it is defined by management. It normally involves an identifiable group of actors working on a readily observable problem with a clear start and end date defined by management. Teamwork occurs primarily because a task cannot be accomplished individually or working as a team is perceived as much more efficient or effective. For example, working on drug enforcement generally requires a spotter, a chase car, and a female officer to search any female suspects. Katzenbach and Smith (1993) argue that teams appear to best originate from the bottom up and at least initially, they are self-managed. So it is the duty of management to recognize nascent teams and to provide them with official endorsement and support – to give them their “marching orders” at it were. In other words, effective teams are seldom the result of complete managerial fia