2. What are Teams?
Groups of two or more
people
Exist to fulfill a purpose
Interdependent -- interact
and influence each other
Mutually accountable for
achieving common goals
Perceive themselves as a
social entity
8-2
3. Many Types of Teams
• Departmental teams
• Production/service/
leadership teams
• Self-directed teams
• Advisory teams
• Task force (project)
teams
• Skunkworks
• Virtual teams
• Communities of practice
8-3
4. Informal Groups
Groups that exist primarily for the benefit of
their members
Reasons why informal groups exist:
1. Innate drive to bond
2. Social identity -- we define ourselves by group
memberships
3. Goal accomplishment
4. Emotional support
8-4
5. Advantages and Disadvantages of
Teams
Advantages
• Make better decisions, products/services
• Better information sharing
• Higher employee motivation/engagement
- Fulfills drive to bond
- Closer scrutiny by team members
- Team members are benchmarks of comparison
Disadvantages
• Individuals better/faster on some tasks
• Process losses - cost of developing and
maintaining teams
• Social loafing
8-5
6. How to Minimize Social Loafing
Make individual performance more
visible
• Form smaller teams
• Specialize tasks
• Measure individual performance
Increase employee motivation
• Increase job enrichment
• Select motivated employees
8-6
7. Team Effectiveness Model
•Task characteristics
•Team size
•Team composition
Team Design
• Accomplish tasks
• Satisfy member
needs
• Maintain team
survival
Team
Effectiveness
• Team development
• Team norms
• Team cohesiveness
• Team trust
Team Processes
Organizational
and Team
Environment
8-7
9. Team’s Task Characteristics
Teams work better when tasks are clear, easy
to implement
• learn roles faster, easier to become cohesive
• ill-defined tasks require members with diverse
backgrounds and more time to coordinate
Teams preferred with higher task
interdependence
• Extent that employees need to share materials,
information, or expertise to perform their jobs.
8-9
10. Levels of Task Interdependence
Sequential
Pooled
Reciprocal
Resource
A B C
A B C
A
B C
High
Low
8-10
11. Team Size
Smaller teams are better because:
• need less time to coordinate roles and resolve
differences
• require less time to develop more member
involvement, thus higher commitment
But team must be large enough to
accomplish task
8-11
12. Shell Looks for Team Players
Shell holds the 5-day Gourami
Business Challenge in Europe,
North America, and Asia to
observe how well the
university students work in
teams. One of the greatest
challenges is for students from
different cultures and
educational specializations to
work together.
8-12
13. Team Composition
Effective team members
must be willing and able
to work on the team
Effective team members
possess specific
competencies (5 C’s)
8-13
15. Team Composition: Diversity
Team members have with diverse knowledge,
skills, perspectives, values, etc.
Advantages
• better for creatively solving complex problems
• broader knowledge base
• better representation of team’s constituents
Disadvantages
• take longer to become a high-performing team
• more susceptible to “faultlines”
• increased risk of dysfunctional conflict
8-15
16. Existing teams
might regress
back to an
earlier stage of
development
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning
Stages of Team Development
8-16
17. Team Development as
Membership and Competence
Two central processes in team development
1. Team membership formation
• Transition from “them” to “us”
• Team becomes part of person’s social identity
2. Team competence development
• Forming routines with others
• Forming shared mental models
8-17
18. Team Roles
A set of behaviors that people are expected
to perform
Some formally assigned; others informally
Informal role assignment occurs during team
development and is related to personal
characteristics
8-18
19. Team Building
Formal activities intended to improve the team’s
development and functioning
Types of Team Building
• Clarify team’s performance goals
• Improve team’s problem-solving skills
• Improve role definitions
• Improve relations
8-19
20. Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations team
establishes to regulate member behaviors
Norms develop through:
• Initial team experiences
• Critical events in team’s history
• Experience/values members bring to the team
8-20
21. Preventing/Changing
Dysfunctional Team Norms
State desired norms when forming teams
Select members with preferred values
Discuss counter-productive norms
Reward behaviors representing desired
norms
Disband teams with dysfunctional norms
8-21
22. Team Cohesion
The degree of attraction people feel toward the team
and their motivation to remain members
Both cognitive and emotional process
Related to the team member’s social identity
8-22
23. Team
size
Member
interaction
• Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive
• Regular interaction increases cohesion
• Calls for tasks with high interdependence
Member
similarity
• Similarity-attraction effect
• Some forms of diversity have less effect
Influences on Team Cohesion
8-23
24. Team
success
External
challenges
• Successful teams fulfillmember needs
• Success increases social identity with team
• Challenges increase cohesion when not
overwhelming
Somewhat
difficult entry
• Team eliteness increases cohesion
• But lower cohesion with severe initiation
Influences on Team Cohesion
(con’t)
8-24
25. Team Cohesion Outcomes
1. Motivated to remain members
2. Willing to share information
3. Strong interpersonal bonds
4. Resolve conflict effectively
5. Better interpersonal relationships
8-25
28. Three Levels of Trust
Identification-based Trust
Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
High
Low
8-28
29. Self-Directed Teams Defined
Cross-functional work groups organized around work
processes, that complete an entire piece of work
requiring several interdependent tasks, and that have
substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks.
8-29
30. Self-Directed Team Success
Factors
Responsible for entire work process
High interdependence within the team
Low interdependence with other teams
Autonomy to organize and coordinate work
Technology supports team
communication/coordination
8-30
31. Virtual Teams
Teams whose members operate across space,
time, and organizational boundaries and are
linked through information technologies to
achieve organizational tasks
• Increasingly possible because of:
- Information technologies
- Knowledge-based work
• Increasingly necessary because of:
- Organizational learning
- Globalization
8-31
32. Virtual Team Success Factors
Member characteristics
• Technology savvy
• Self-leadership skills
• Emotional intelligence
Flexible use of communication technologies
Opportunities to meet face-to-face
8-32
33. Team Decision Making
Constraints
Time constraints
• Time to organize/coordinate
• Production blocking
Evaluation apprehension
• Belief that others are silently evaluating you
Peer pressure to conform
• Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms
Groupthink
• Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus
at the price of decision quality
• Concept losing favor -- consider more specific features
8-33
34. General Guidelines for Team
Decisions
Team norms should encourage critical
thinking
Sufficient team diversity
Ensure neither leader nor any member
dominates
Maintain optimal team size
Introduce effective team structures
8-34
35. Constructive Conflict
People focus their discussion on the issue while
maintaining respectfulness for others having different
points of view.
Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into
personal attacks
Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA
8-35
36. Rules of Brainstorming
1. Speak freely
2. Don’t criticize
3. Provide as many ideas as possible
4. Build on others’ ideas
8-36
37. Evaluating Brainstorming
Strengths
• Produces more creative ideas
• Less evaluation apprehension when team supports
a learning orientation
• Strengthens decision acceptance and team
cohesiveness
• Sharing positive emotions encourages creativity
Weaknesses
• Production blocking still exists
• Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups
8-37
38. Electronic Brainstorming
Relies on networked computers to submit and
share creative ideas
Strengths -- more creative ideas, minimal
production blocking, evaluation apprehension,
or conformity problems
Limitations -- too structured and technology-
bound
8-38