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Chapter10 foundations of work teams
This document discusses work teams and their effectiveness in organizations. It begins by outlining the learning objectives which are to analyze the growing popularity of teams, contrast groups and teams, identify the five types of teams, characterize effective teams, develop team players, and determine when individuals are better. It then defines work teams and notes the increasing use of team structures in companies. The document differentiates groups from teams and analyzes why teams are becoming more popular for their flexibility, participation, and ability to quickly adapt. It outlines the five main types of teams - problem-solving, self-managed, cross-functional, and virtual - providing examples of each. The next sections identify factors that determine team success and how to effectively compose and develop team
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Chapter10 foundations of work teams
- 1. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. 18-1
- 2. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Chapter 10: Understanding Work Teams 10-2
- 3. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you should be able to: Analyze the growing popularity of teams in organizations. Contrast groups and teams. Contrast the five types of teams. Identify the characteristics of effective teams. Show how organizations can create team players. Decide when to use individuals instead of teams. 10-3
- 4. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Work teams Work teams are a group of individuals whose effort result in performance that is greater than the sum of the individuals inputs Almost all organizations use teamwork nowadays with some companies using team organizational structure 10-4
- 5. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Contrast Groups and Teams LO 2 10-5
- 6. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Analyze the Growing Popularity of Teams in Organizations To better compete, organizations are using teams. Teams: Offer a better way to use employee talents Are more flexible and responsive to changing events Can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband Facilitate participation in operating decisions LO 1 10-6
- 7. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Types of TeamsLO 3 10-7
- 8. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Types of teams Problem-solving teams: Typically composed of 5–12 hourly employees from the same department They meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment. These teams rarely have the authority to implement their suggested actions 10-8
- 9. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Types of Teams Self-managed teams: Are groups of employees who perform highly related or interdependent jobs They take on many of the responsibilities of supervisors. Cross-functional teams are made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task. 10-9
- 10. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Types of Teams Virtual teams use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal. Most of today’s teams use technology to communicate in a way or another Online teams face their own unique challenges While they are better at sharing unique information, overall they share less information 10- 10
- 11. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Identify the Characteristics of Effective Teams LO 4 10- 11
- 12. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Context: What factors determine whether teams are successful? Adequate Resources Leadership and Structure Climate of Trust Performance Evaluations and Rewards LO 4 10- 12 Identify the Characteristics of Effective Teams
- 13. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. In class discussion How can you evaluate individual performance as a part of a team? Would you reward individual performance, group performance or both? Why? 10- 13
- 14. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Team Composition: How should teams be staffed? Abilities of members Personality Allocating roles Diversity Size of teams Member preferences LO 4 10- 14 Identify the Characteristics of Effective Teams
- 15. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Team Processes Common Plan and Purpose Reflexivity meaning they reflect on and adjust their master plan when necessary Specific Goals Team Efficacy is when teams have confidence in themselves and believe they can succeed Mental Models: team members’ knowledge about how the team does things Conflict Levels Social Loafing LO 4 10- 15 Identify the Characteristics of Effective Teams
- 16. Copyright © 2015Pearson Education Ltd. Decide When to Use Individuals Instead of Teams When not to use teams… Ask: Can the work be done better by more than one person? A good indicator is the complexity of the work and the need for different perspectives Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group? Are the members of the group interdependent? the success of the whole depends on the success of each one. LO 6 10- 16
Editor's Notes
- #2 Welcome to this Organizational Behavior course that uses the 16th edition, Global Edition of the textbook, Organizational Behavior by Robbins and Judge. This is considered among the most widely used OB textbooks in the world. Robbins and Judge are recognized as definitive aggregators of OB concepts, applications, and practices. The course and this book will provide you with a resource that will benefit you throughout your degree program and your professional life. <number>
- #3 Chapter 10: Understanding Work Teams <number>
- #4 We begin this chapter with a definition of the six learning objectives, and will discuss each of them in some detail: Analyze the growing popularity of teams in organizations. Contrast groups and teams. Contrast the five types of teams. Identify the characteristics of effective teams. Show how organizations can create team players. Decide when to use individuals instead of teams. <number>
- #6 Groups and teams are not the same thing. Exhibit 10-1 shows that a work group interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to help members perform within his or her area of responsibility. In contrast, a work team generates positive synergy through coordinated effort. Individual efforts result in a level of performance that is greater than the sum of those individual inputs. <number>
- #7 Decades ago, it made news because no one else was doing it. Today, it is the organization that does not use teams that has become newsworthy. The current popularity of teams seems based on the evidence that teams allow organizations to better utilize employee talents. They are more flexible and responsive to changing events, and can quickly be assembled, deployed, refocused, and disbanded as needed. The motivational properties of teams is also a significant factor. The role of employee involvement is also a motivator, since teams facilitate employee participation in operating decisions. <number>
- #8 Exhibit 10-2 identifies four common types of teams. In additional, we’ll also describe multiteam systems. First are problem-solving teams. In the past, teams were typically composed of 5–12 hourly employees from the same department who met for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment. These problem-solving teams rarely had the authority to implement their suggested actions. Self-managed teams are groups of employees who perform highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of supervisors. Cross-functional teams are made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task. Virtual teams use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal. Finally, multiteam systems are collections of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal – they are a team of teams. <number>
- #11 multiteam systems are collections of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal – they are a team of teams. Would you go for virtuality in your teams? How and why <number>
- #12 Exhibit 10-3 summarizes what we know about what makes teams effective. There are two caveats. First, teams differ in form and structure. The model attempts to generalize across all types of teams, but avoids rigidly applying its predictions to all teams. Second, the model assumes that teamwork is preferable to individual work. <number>
- #13 Context means the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation Adequate resources are needed. All work teams rely on resources outside the group to sustain it. A scarcity of resources directly reduces the ability of the team to perform its job effectively. Second, leadership and structure must be present. Teams can’t function if they can’t agree on who is to do what and ensure all members share the workload. Leadership is especially important in multiteam systems, in which different teams coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome. Climate of trust must be created. Members of effective teams trust each other and exhibit trust in their leaders. When members trust each other, they are more willing to take risks and are more willing to commit to their leader’s goals and decisions. A performance evaluation and reward system must be in place. Individual performance evaluations and incentives may not be consistent with the development of high-performance teams. In addition to evaluating and rewarding employees for their individual contributions, management should modify the traditional, individually oriented evaluation and reward system to reflect team performance and focus on hybrid systems that recognize individual members for their exceptional contributions and reward the entire group for positive outcomes. Management should consider group-based appraisals, profit sharing, gainsharing, small-group incentives, and other system modifications that will reinforce team effort and commitment. <number>
- #15 Part of a team’s performance depends on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its individual members. Research reveals that when the task entails considerable thought, such as solving a complex problem like reengineering an assembly line, high-ability teams, composed of mostly intelligent members, do better than lower-ability teams, especially when the workload is distributed evenly. The ability of the team’s leader also matters. Smart team leaders help less-intelligent team members when they struggle with a task. But a less-intelligent leader can neutralize the effect of a high-ability team. Second is personality of members. Many of the dimensions identified in the Big Five personality model have shown to be relevant to team effectiveness. Teams that rate higher on mean levels of conscientiousness and openness to experience tend to perform better, and the minimum level of team member agreeableness also matters. Teams did worse when they had one or more highly disagreeable members. Third is allocating roles. Teams have different needs, and people should be selected for a team to ensure that there is diversity and that all various roles are filled. Managers need to understand the individual strengths that each person can bring to a team, select members with their strengths in mind, and allocate work assignments accordingly. Put your most able, experienced, and conscientious workers in the most central roles in a team. Fourth is the diversity of members. Many of us hold the optimistic view that diversity should be a good thing – diverse teams should benefit from differing perspectives and do better. Diversity in function and expertise are positively related to group performance, but these effects are quite small and depend on the situation. Proper leadership can improve the performance of diverse teams. When leaders provide an inspirational common goal for members with varying types of education and knowledge, teams are very creative. Cultural diversity does seem to be an asset for tasks that call for a variety of viewpoints, but culturally heterogeneous teams have more difficulty learning to work with each other and solving problems. The good news is that these difficulties seem to dissipate with time. When it comes to the size of teams, most experts agree that keeping teams small is a key to improving group effectiveness. In general, the most effective teams have five to nine members. When teams have excess members, cohesiveness and mutual accountability decline, social loafing increases, and more people communicate less. Finally, we come to the issue of member preferences. Not every employee is a team player. Given the option, many employees will select themselves out of team participation. High performing teams are likely to be composed of people who prefer working as part of a group. When people who prefer to work alone are required to team up, there is a direct and immediate threat to team morale and the individual member’s satisfaction <number>
- #16 Teams that establish a clear sense of what needs to be done and how consistently perform better. Effective teams show reflexivity, meaning they reflect on and adjust their master plan when necessary. Second, successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic performance goals. Specific goals energize the team, facilitate clear communication, and help teams maintain their focus on results. Team goals should be challenging. Effective teams have confidence in themselves and believe they can succeed—this is team efficacy. Management can increase team efficacy by helping the team to achieve small successes and skill training. Small successes build team confidence. The greater the abilities of team members, the greater the likelihood that the team will develop confidence and the capability to deliver that confidence. If team members have different ideas about how to do things (different mental models), the team will fight over how to do things rather than focus on what needs to be done. Conflict on a team isn’t necessarily bad. Relationship conflicts—those based on interpersonal incompatibilities, tension, and animosity toward others—are almost always dysfunctional. When teams are performing nonroutine activities, disagreements about task content (called task conflicts) stimulate discussion, promote critical assessment of problems and options, and can lead to better team decisions. Both too much and too little disagreement about how a team should initially perform a creative task can inhibit performance. Finally, social loafing occurs when individuals hide inside a group. Effective teams undermine this tendency by making members individually and jointly accountable for the team’s purpose, goals, and approach. Members should be clear on what they are individually and jointly responsible for. <number>
- #17 Teams are not always the answer to organizational productivity. Teamwork takes more time and often more resources than individual work. Teams have increased communication demands, conflicts to manage, and meetings to run. The benefits of using teams have to exceed the costs, and that’s not always the case. Before you rush to implement teams, carefully assess whether the work requires or will benefit from a collective effort. How do you know whether the work of your group would be better done in teams? You can apply three tests to see whether a team fits your situation: Soccer, for instance, is an obvious team sport. Success requires a great deal of coordination between interdependent players. Conversely, except possibly for relays, swim teams are not really teams; rather, they are groups of individuals performing individually, whose total performance is the aggregate summation of their individual performances. <number>