E I G H TC H A P T E R

Team dynamics

• 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

• Departmental teams

• Production/service/ leadership teams

• Self-directed teams

• Advisory teams

• Task force (project) teams

• Skunkworks

• Virtual teams

• Communities of practice

•All teams are groups

•Some groups are just people assembled together

•Teams have task interdependence whereas some groups do not (e.g., group of employees enjoying lunch together)

• 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

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

• Make individual performance more visible

– Form smaller teams

– Specialize tasks

– Measure individual performance

• Increase employee motivation

– Increase job enrichment

– Select motivated employees

Team effectiveness model

•Task characteristics

•Team size

•Team composition

Team design

• Achieve

organisational

goals

• Satisfy member

needs

• Maintain team

survival

Team

effectiveness

•Team development

•Team norms

•Team roles

•Team cohesiveness

Team processes

Organisational and

team environment

• Reward systems

• Communication

systems

• Physical space

• Organisational

environment

• Organisational

structure

• Organisational

leadership

Task characteristics

Team composition

Team size

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.

Levels of Task Interdependence

Sequential

Pooled

Reciprocal

Resource

A B C

A B C

A

B C

High

Low

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

Five C’s of Team Member Competencies

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

Homogeneous vs heterogeneous teams

• Higher satisfaction

• Less conflict

• Faster team development

• More efficient coordination

• Performs better on simple tasks

• More conflict

• Slower team development

takes longer to agree on

norms and goals

• Better knowledge and

resources for complex tasks

• Tend to be more creative

• Higher potential for support

outside the team

Homogeneous teams Heterogeneous teams

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Existing teams

might regress

back to an

earlier stage of

development

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Adjourning

Stages of Team Development

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

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

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

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

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

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

Team

cohesiveness

• Smaller teams tend to be

more cohesive

• Regular interaction increases

cohesion

• Calls for tasks with high

interdependence

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Member

similarity

Member

interaction

Team

size

Somewhat

difficult entry

Team

success

External

challenges

Causes of team cohesiveness

• Similarity-attraction effect

• Some forms of diversity have

less effect

• Team eliteness increases

cohesion

• But lower cohesion with severe

initiation

• Successful teams fulfillmember needs

• Success increases social identity with team

• Challenges increase cohesion when not

overwhelming

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

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

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Team Cohesion and Performance

Team norms support firm’sgoals

Team norms oppose firm’sgoals

High team cohesiveness

Low team cohesiveness

Low task

performance

Moderately

high task

performance

Moderately

low task

performance

High

task

performance

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

TrustTrust Defined

Positive expectations one person has of

another person in situations involving risk

Team Processes

Development

Norms

Cohesion

Trust

Three Levels of Trust

Identification-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust

Calculus-based Trust

High

Low

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.

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

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

Virtual Team Success Factors

• Member characteristics

– Technology savvy

– Self-leadership skills

– Emotional intelligence

• Flexible use of communication technologies

• Opportunities to meet face-to-face

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

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

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

Rules of Brainstorming

1. Speak freely

2. Don’t criticize

3. Provide as many ideas as possible

4. Build on others’ ideas

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

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

Describe

problem

Individual

Activity

Team

Activity

Individual

Activity

Write down

possible

solutions

Possible

solutions

described

to others

Vote on

solutions

presented

Nominal Group Technique