Teamwork in Apollo 13

Introduction

Team and teamwork are becoming more prevalent in the workplace in the current business environment. Teams play a pivotal role in organizations and the capability to create the high performing teams is closely associated with organization success. This essay explores theories of team and teamwork in the workplace by utilizing the examples from the film ‘Apollo 13’ and explanations of a review of literature. The lessons learned from ‘Apollo 13’, which is an educational movie concerning teams that performed well in extremely challenging circumstances, could be applied to team management in the organizations.

This essay analyses and identifies some potential challenges facing managers in terms of team and teamwork. Challenges include swift-starting team issues, a range of team conflict arising from different aspects, and levels of team identification. Then the essay concludes with the main arguments. Based on the findings, there are implications for managers to promote teamwork by a series of possible ways.

Analysis

According to Samson & Draft (2012), the team term implies that a team is made up of two or more people; team members interact with each other, such as discussing and sharing; and a clear and specific performance goal is shared among the team members. Members in this team shared the common goals, which changed from circling the moon to getting back safely. The key to turning the potential crisis into a successful failure for Apollo 13 team was effective teamwork.

 Swift-starting team issues

It could be recognized that there are potential problems that teams may face, which are also challenges managers may face in the workplace. Initially, a swift-starting team is one of the challenges. Confronted with the unprecedented and complicated situations, swift-starting teams, consisted of team members who have not previously worked together, tend to encounter a wider range of unexpected problems (Zijlstra, Waller & Phillips, 2012)....