Team Development

Chapter 5 - Cooperation and Competition

Chapter 8 - Power and Social Influence

Chapter 10 - Situational Leadership

March 26, 2015

The essence of teamwork is the cooperative interactions of team members. Team members should be working together toward a common

goal, but competition makes team members work against one another. (Levi, p. 82)

Cooperation and Competition

Rather than being cooperative or competitive, team members are often both simultaneously – a mixed motive situation

• In what sense was teamwork a mixed motive situation for team members in Remember the Titans?

• What strategies did the Coach use to deal with potentially negative effects of competition within the team?

Cooperation and CompetitionEven though working cooperatively on a team should prevent competition, competition often occurs anyway. Team members may misperceive the situation and turn a cooperative situation into a competitive one.

Levi asserts 3 reasons for this: Can you provide examples from the movie?

0 Culture

0 Personality

0 Organizational rewards

Unhealthy Agreement The Abilene Paradox (Harvey, 1988) has several symptoms:

0 Team members feel angry about the decisions the team is making

0 Team members agree in private that the team is making bad decisions

0 The team is breaking up into subgroups that blame others for the team’s problems

0 People fail to speak up in meetings or to communicate their real opinions.

Consider all those who were part of an “extended” team – coaches, assistants, players, as well as those in a position of influence. Were there any “trips to Abilene?” Why or why not?

Rules for Constructive Controversy – Do you have situations in which you can

apply them?0 Establish openness norms.0 Assign opposing views.0 Follow the golden rule of controversy (discuss issues

with others the way you want issues discussed with you).

0 Get outside information.0 Show personal regard (criticize ideas, but not a

person’s motivation or personality).0 Combine ideas (avoid either /or thinking – try to

combine ideas to create alternative solutions.)

Power and Social influence

What is the nature of conformity?Defined as a change in a person’s behavior

or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people.

What causes people to conform to group pressure?

What did Asch’s experiments on conformity tell us about how people behave?

Variables that Increase or Decrease conformity

Bases of Power

Cycle of Power

Power Styles

Leadership in teams

Situational leadership behaviorsS

up

po

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g B

eha

vio

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Directive Behaviorlow high

high

S1

S2S3

S4

Situational leadershipS

up

po

rtin

g B

eha

vio

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Directive Behaviorlow high

high

Hershey & Blanchard

Development Level of the Follower

Competence = Knowledge and SkillsCommitment = Motivation and Confidence