2. A company organizes
employees around self-
directed teams,
responsible for a
particular department.
These teams have
considerable autonomy to
perform in their
respective section.
3. 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
• Perceiving themselves as a social entity
4. Many Types of Teams
Departmental Teams
Production/service/leadership
teams
Self-directed teams
Advisory Teams
Task force (project) team
Skunkworks
Virtual Teams
Communities of practice
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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. Team Effectiveness Model
Organizational
and Team
Environment
•Task characteristics
•Team size
•Team composition
Team Design
• Team development
• Team norms
• Team cohesiveness
• Team trust
Team Processes
•Accomplish tasks
•Satisfy member
needs
• Maintain team
survival
Team
Effectiveness
10. 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.
11. Levels of Task Interdependence
Reciprocal
Sequential
Pooled
High
Low
A
B C
A B C
Resource
A B C
12. 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
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)
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
16. Stages of Team Development
The forming stage
occurs when team
members first
come together as
a team
Adjourning
During the storming
stage,teams
discover teamwork
is more difficult
than they expeced
The norming stage
begins as the team
moves beyond the
storming stage and
begins to function as
a team
When a team
reaches the
performing stage,
it is functioning
as a high
performance team
Storming Norming Performing
Forming
Breaking up the
team when the
required task is
complete
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
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
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
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
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
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
23. Influences on Team Cohesion
Member
similarity
Team
size
Member
interaction
• Regular interaction increases cohesion
• Calls for tasks with high interdependence
• Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive
• Similarity-attraction effect
• Some forms of diversity have less effect
24. Influences on Team Cohesion (con’t)
Somewhat
difficult entry
Team
success
External
challenges
• Challenges increase cohesion when not
overwhelming
• Successful teams fulfillmember needs
• Success increases social identity with team
• Team eliteness increases cohesion
• But lower cohesion with severe initiation
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
26. Team Cohesion and Performance
Team Norms
Support
Company
Goals
Team Norms
Oppose
Company
Goals
Moderately
high task
performance
High task
performance
Moderately
low task
performance
Low task
performance
28. Three Levels of Trust
Identification-based Trust
Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
High
Low
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
36. Rules of Brainstorming
• Speak freely
• Don’t criticize
• Provide as many ideas as
possible
• Build on others’ ideas
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
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
Teams are groups of two or more people who interact and influence each other, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational
objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization. All teams exist to fulfill some purpose, such as assembling a product, providing a service,
designing a new manufacturing facility, or making an important decision. Team members are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to
achieve common goals. All teams require some form of communication so members can coordinate and share common objectives. Team members also influence each
other, although some members are more influential than others regarding the team’s goals and activities.
1.Departmental teams- Employees have similar or complementary skills located in the same unit of a functional structure; usually minimal task interdependence because each person works with employees in other departments.
2. Production/service/leadership teams-Typically multiskilled (employees have diverse competencies), team members collectively produce a common product/service or make ongoing decisions; production/service teams typically have an assembly line type of interdependence, whereas leadership teams tend to have tight interactive (reciprocal) interdependence.
3. Self-directed work teams- Similar to production/service teams except (1) they produce an entire product or subassembly that has low interdependence with other work units, and (2) they have very high autonomy (this type of team has no supervisors and usually controls inputs, flow, and outputs).
4.Advisory team- Entities that provide recommendations to decision makers, includes committees, advisory councils, work councils, and review panels; may be temporary, but often permanent, some with frequent rotation of members.
5.Task force (project) teams- Usually multiskilled, temporary entities whose assignment is to solve a problem, realize an opportunity, or develop a product or service.
6. Skunkworks- Multiskilled entities that are usually located away from the organization and are relatively free of its hierarchy; these teams are often initiated by an entrepreneurial team leader (innovation champion) who borrows people and resources (bootlegging)to create a product or develop a service.
7.Virtual teams- Formal teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries and are linked through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks; may be a temporary task force or a permanent service team.
8.Communities of practice- May be formally designed, but are usually informal groups bound together by shared expertise and passion for a particular activity or interest; often similar to virtual teams in that many rely on information technologies as a main source of interaction, but the purpose is to share information, not make a product or provide a service.
All teams are groups because they consist of people with a unifying relationship. But not all groups are teams; some groups are just people assembled together without any necessary interdependence or organizationally focused objective. Along with formal work teams, organizations consist ofinformal groups. Informal groups are not initiated by the organization and usually do not perform
organizational goals (thus they are “informal”). Instead they exist primarily for the benefit of their members. The groups you meet for lunch and chat with in the hallway are informal groups. In each case you associate with these groups for your own benefit.
Why People Belong to Informal Groups ?
Employees are not required to join informal groups, yet they exist throughout organizations. One reason is that human beings are social animals. Experts suggest
that our drive to bond is a hardwired evolutionary development, which includes the drive to belong to informal groups. This is evidenced by the fact that people invest
considerable time and effort in forming and maintaining social relationships without any special circumstances or ulterior motives. A second explanation is provided by
social identity theory, which states that individuals define themselves by their group affiliations. Thus we join informal groups—particularly groups viewed favorably by
others and that are similar to our existing values—because they shape and reinforce our self-images. A third reason why people join informal groups is to accomplish tasks that cannot be achieved by individuals working alone. For example, employees will sometimes form a group to oppose organizational changes because the group collectively has more power than individuals complaining alone. A fourth explanation for informal groups is that in stressful situations we are comforted by the mere presence of other people and are therefore motivated to be near them. When in danger, people congregate near each other even though it serves no apparent purpose. Similarly, employees tend to mingle more often when hearing rumors that the company might
A Model of Team Effectiveness
You might have noticed that we hedged our glorification of teams by saying that they are “potentially” better than individuals “under the right conditions.” The reason for
this cautious writing is that many organizations have introduced team structures that later became spectacular failures. Why are some teams effective while others fail?
This question has challenged organizational researchers for some time, and as you might expect, numerous models of team effectiveness have been proposed over the years. Let’s begin by clarifying the meaning of team effectiveness. Team effectiveness refers to how a team affects the organization, individual team members, and the
team’s existence.
First, most teams exist to serve some purpose relating to the organization or other system in which the group operates. Some informal groups also
have task-oriented (although not organizationally mandated) goals, such as sharing information in an informal community of practice.
Second, team effectiveness relies on the satisfaction and well-being of its members. People join groups to fulfill their personal needs, so effectiveness is partly measured
by this need fulfillment. Finally, team effectiveness includes the team’s viability—its ability to survive. It must be able to maintain the commitment of its members, particularly during the turbulence of the team’s development. Without this commitment, people leave and the team will fall apart. It must also secure sufficient resources and
find a benevolent environment in which to operate.
Exhibit 9.2
presents the model of team effectiveness that we will examine closely throughout the rest of this chapter. We begin by looking at elements of the team’s and
organization’s environment that influence team design, processes, and outcomes.
