Chapter 6

TEAM

DYNAMICS

TeamDynamics

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

McShane/Von Glinow OB

5eCopyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

reserved.

Teams at Whole Foods Markets

Whole Foods Markets

organizes employees

around self-directed teams,

responsible for a particular

store area. These teams

have considerable

autonomy to operate their

store section.

8-3

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

Perceive themselves as a

social entity

8-4

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

8-5

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

8-6

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

8-7

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

8-8

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

8-9

Organization/Team Environment

Reward systems

Communication systems

Organizational structure

Organizational leadership

Physical space

8-10

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.

8-11

Levels of Task Interdependence

Sequential

Pooled

Reciprocal

Resource

A B C

A B C

A

B C

High

Low

8-12

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

8-13

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.

8-14

Team Composition

Effective team members

must be willing and able

to work on the team

Effective team members

possess specific

competencies (5 C’s)

8-15

Five C’s of Team Member Competencies

8-16

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

8-17

Existing teams

might regress

back to an

earlier stage of

development

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Adjourning

Stages of Team Development

8-18

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

8-19

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

8-20

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

8-21

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

8-22

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

8-23

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

8-24

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

8-25

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)

8-26

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

8-27

Team Norms Support

CompanyGoals

Team Norms Oppose

CompanyGoals

High Team Cohesiveness

Low Team Cohesiveness

Team Cohesion and Performance

Low task

performance

Moderately

high task

performance

Moderately

low task

performance

High task

performance

8-28

Trust Defined

Positive expectations one person has of

another person in situations involving

risk

8-29

Three Levels of Trust

Identification-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust

Calculus-based Trust

High

Low

8-30

Self-Directed Teams at Reckitt Benckiser

Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare has become one of the most productive pharmaceutical operations in Europe due to lean management practices and reliance on self-directed teams.

8-31

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.

8-32

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

8-33

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

8-34

Virtual Team Success Factors

Member characteristics

• Technology savvy

• Self-leadership skills

• Emotional intelligence

Flexible use of communication technologies

Opportunities to meet face-to-face

8-35

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

8-36

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

8-37

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

8-38

Rules of Brainstorming

1. Speak freely

2. Don’t criticize

3. Provide as many ideas as possible

4. Build on others’ ideas

8-39

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

8-40

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

8-41

Describe

problem

Individual

Activity

Team

Activity

Individual

Activity

Write down

possible

solutions

Possible

solutions

described

to others

Vote on

solutions

presented

Nominal Group Technique

8-42

TeamDynamics

8-43

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

McShane/Von Glinow OB

5eCopyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

reserved.