Intro to Teamwork

7/30/2019 Intro to Teamwork

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Teamwork


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Study Question 1: How do teams contribute

to organizations?

Team

A small group of people with complementary

skills, who work together to achieve a shared

purpose and hold themselves mutuallyaccountable for performance results.

Teamwork

The process of people actively working

together to accomplish common goals


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to organizations?

Team and teamwork roles for managers:

Supervisorserving as the appointed head

of a formal work unit.

Network facilitatorserving as a peer leader

an network hub for a special task force.

Participantserving as a helpful contributing

member of a project team. External coachserving as the external

convenor or sponsor of a problem-solving

team staffed by others.


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Team and teamwork roles for managers.


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to organizations?

Common problems in teams: Personality conflicts.

Individual differences in work styles.

Ambiguous agendas.

Ill-defined problems.

Poor readiness to work. Lack of motivation.

Conflicts with other deadlines or priorities. Lack of team organization or progress.

Meetings that lack purpose or structure.

Members coming to meetings unprepared.


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to organizations?

Seven sins of deadly meetings: People arrive late, leave early, and dont take

things seriously.

The meeting is too long. People dont stay on topic.

The discussion lacks candor.

The right information isnt available, so

decisions are postponed. No one puts decisions into action.

The same mistakes are made meeting aftermeeting.


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to organizations?

Synergy

The creation of a whole that is greater

than the sum of its parts.A team uses its membership resources

to the fullest and thereby achieves

through collective action far more thancould be achieved otherwise.


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to organizations?

Usefulness of teams: More resources for problem solving.

Improved creativity and innovation.

Improved quality of decision making. Greater commitments to tasks.

Higher motivation through collective action.

Better control and work discipline.

More individual need satisfaction.


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to organizations?

Formal groups

Teams that are officially recognized and

supported by the organization for specificpurposes.

Specifically created to perform essential

tasks.

Managers and leaders serve linking pin

roles.


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to organizations?

Informal groups

Not recognized on organization charts.

Not officially created for an organizational purpose.

Emerge as part of the informal structure and from

natural or spontaneous relationships among people.

Include interest, friendship, and support groups.

Can have positive performance impact. Can help satisfy social needs.


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Study Question 2: What are the

current trends in the use of teams?

Committees, project teams, and task forces

Committees.

People outside their daily job assignments work together

in a small team for a specific purpose. Task agenda is narrow, focused, and ongoing.

Projects teams or task forces.

People from various parts of an organization work

together on common problems, but on a temporary basis.

Official tasks are very specific and time defined.

Disbands after task is completed.


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Guidelines for managing projects and

task forces:

Select appropriate team members.

Clearly define the purpose of the team.

Carefully select a team leader.

Periodically review progress.


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Cross-functional teams

Members come from different functional units

of an organization. Team works on a specific problem or task

with the needs of the whole organization in

mind.

Teams are created to knock down walls

separating departments.


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Employee involvement teams

Groups of workers who meet on a regular

basis outside of their formal assignments. Have the goal of applying their expertise and

attention to continuous improvement.

Quality circles represent a common form of

employee involvement teams.


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Virtual teams Teams of people who work together and

solve problems through largely computer-mediated rather than face-to-face

interactions.

Sometimes called

Computer-mediated groups

Electronic group networks


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Potential

advantages of

virtual teams:

Savings in time and

travel expenses.

Minimization or

elimination of

interpersonal

difficulties.

Ease of expansion.

Potential problems

of virtual teams:

Difficulty in

establishing good

working

relationships.

Depersonalization

of workingrelationships.


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Guidelines for managing virtual teams:

Virtual teams should begin with social

messaging.

Team members should be assigned clear

roles.

Team members must have positive attitudes

that support team goals.


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Self-managing work teams

Teams of workers whose jobs have been

redesigned to create a high degree of taskinterdependence and who have been given

authority to make many decisions about how

to do the required work.

Also known as autonomous work groups.


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Typical self-management responsibilities: Planning and scheduling work.

Training members in various tasks.

Sharing tasks. Meeting performance goals.

Ensuring high quality.

Solving day-to-day operating problems.

In some cases, hiring and firing teammembers.


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In self-managing work teams, members

Are held collectively accountable for performance

results.

Have discretion in distributing tasks within the team. Have discretion in scheduling work within the team.

Are able to perform more than one job on the team.

Evaluate one anothers performance contributions.

Are responsible for the total quality of team products.


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Study Question 3: How do teams

work?

Effective teams

Achieve and maintain high levels of task

performance.

Achieve and maintain high levels of member

satisfaction.

Retain viability for the future.


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3. How do teams work?

Resource input factors that influence

group process in the pursuit of team

effectiveness:

Nature of the task.

Organizational setting.

Team size.

Membership characteristics.


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3 - How do teams work?

Group process: The way the members of any team work together as

they transform inputs into outputs :

Also known as group dynamics.

Includes communications, decision making, norms,

cohesion, and conflict, among others.


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Team effectiveness may be summarized

as

Team Effectiveness =

Quality of Inputs + (Process Gains - Process Losses)


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Stages of team development:

Forminginitial orientation and interpersonal testing.

Stormingconflict over tasks and ways of working as

a team. Normingconsolidation around task and operating

agendas.

Performingteamwork and focused task

performance.

Adjourningtask accomplishment and eventualdisengagement.


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Norms

Behavior expected of team members.

Rules or standards that guide behavior.

May result in team sanctions.

Performance norms

Define the level of work effort and

performance that team members areexpected to contribute to the team task.


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Criteria for assessing the maturity of a

team.


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Guidelines for building positive norms:

Act as a positive role model.

Reinforce the desired behaviors with rewards.

Control results by performance reviews and regularfeedback.

Orient and train new members to adopt desiredbehaviors.

Recruit and select new members who exhibit desired

behaviors. Hold regular meetings to discuss progress and ways of

improving.

Use team decision-making methods to reachagreement.


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Cohesiveness

The degree to which members are attracted

to and motivated to remain part of a team.

Can be beneficial if paired with positive

performance norms.


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Effects of team cohesiveness and norms:

Positive norms + high cohesiveness high

performance and strong commitments topositive norms.

Positive norms + low cohesiveness

moderate performance and weak

commitments to positive norms.


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3 -How do teams work?

Effects of team cohesiveness and norms

(cont.):

Negative norms + low cohesiveness low to

moderate performance and weakcommitments to negative norms.

Negative norms + high cohesiveness low

performance and strong commitments to

negative norms.


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How cohesiveness and norms

influence team performance.


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Guidelines for increasing team cohesion: Induce agreement on team goals.

Increase membership homogeneity.

Increase interaction among members. Decrease team size.

Introduce competition with other teams.

Reward team rather than individual results.

Provide physical isolation from other teams.


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Task activities Actions by team members that contribute

directly to teams performance purpose.

Include: Initiating

Information sharing

Summarizing

Elaborating

Opinion giving


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Maintenance activities Support emotional life of a team as an ongoing

social system.

Include: Gatekeeping

Encouraging

Following

Harmonizing

Reducing tension


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Distributed leadership roles

Make every member responsible for recognizing when

task and/or maintenance activities are needed and

taking actions to provide them.

Leading through task activities focuses on solving

problems and achieving performance results.

Leading through maintenance activities helps

strengthen and perpetuate the team as a social system.


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Distributed leadership helps teams

meet task and maintenance needs.


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Dysfunctional activities that detract fromteam effectiveness: Being aggressive

Blocking Self-confessing

Seeking sympathy

Competing

Withdrawal Horsing around

Seeking recognition


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Communication networks Decentralized

All members communicate directly with oneanother.

Centralized Activities are coordinated and results pooled by

central point of control.

Restricted

Polarized subgroups contest one another. Subgroups may engage in antagonistic relations.


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4 - How do teams make decisions?

Methods of team decision making:

Lack of response

Authority rule

Minority rule

Majority rule

Consensus

Unanimity


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Assets of team decision making:

Greater amounts of information, knowledge,

and expertise.

Expands number of action alternatives

considered.

Increases understanding and acceptance.

Increases commitment to follow through.


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Potential disadvantages of team decision

making:

Social pressure to conform.

Individual or minority group domination.

Time requirements.


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Symptoms of groupthink:

Illusions of group invulnerability.

Rationalizing unpleasant and disconfirming

data.

Belief in inherent group morality.

Negative stereotypes of competitors.

Pressure to conform.

Self-censorship of members.

Illusions of unanimity.

Mind guarding.


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Methods for dealing with groupthink:

Have each group member be a critical evaluator.

Dont appear to favor one course of action.

Create sub-teams to work on the same problems. Have team members discuss issues with outsiders.

Have outside experts observe and provide feedback on

team activities.

Assign a member to the devils advocate role.

Hold a second-chance meeting.


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Creativity in team decision making

guidelines for brainstorming:

All criticism is ruled out.

Freewheeling is welcomed.

Quantity is important.

Building on one anothers ideas is

encouraged.


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Creativity in team decision makingsteps in the

nominal group technique:

Participants work alone, identifying possible solutions.

Ideas are shared in a round-robin fashion without anycriticism or discussion.

Ideas are discussed and clarified in a round-robin

sequence.

Members individually and silently follow a written voting

procedure. The last two steps are repeated as needed.


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5 - What are the challenges of leading

high-performance teams?

Team building

A sequence of planned activities used

to gather and analyze data on thefunctioning of a team and to implement

constructive changes to increase its

operating effectiveness.


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Steps in a cyclical team-building process:

Step 1problem awareness.

Step 2data gathering.

Step 3data analysis and diagnosis.

Step 4action planning.

Step 5action implementation.

Step 6evaluation.


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Steps in the team-building process: case of the

hospital top management team.


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Characteristics of high-performing teams:

A clear and elevating goal.

A task-driven, results-oriented structure.

Competent and committed members who

work hard.

A collaborative climate.

High standards of excellence. External support and recognition.

Strong and principled leadership.


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Effective team leaders act to:

Establish clear vision.

Create change.

Unleash talent.

Documents

Intro to Teamwork