Chapter 5: Groups and Teamwork

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Chapter 5Groups and Teamwork

• Amanda Tumbach
• Gary McInenly
• Raynard Enriquez
• Adam Baker

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Groups and Teams

• Groups vs. Teams
• 4 types of teams

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Groups and Teams

• used as a way to better utilize employee talents.
• outperform individuals
• potential for greater outputs without increasing
  inputs
• more flexible responsive

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Groups vs. Teams

• Group 2 or more individuals, interacting and
  interdependent, who have a stable relationship,
  common goal and perceive themselves as a group
• Team groups that work close together to a common
  objective, and are accountable to one another
• not all groups are teams, but all teams are
  groups

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Problem-Solving (or Process-Improvement)Teams

• groups of 5-12 employees from the same department
  who meet for a few hours each week to discuss
  ways of improving quality, efficiency and the
  work environment.
• ideas and suggestions are shared
• it is found that the use of teamwork varies by
  organizational size

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• Quality Circles
• most problem-solving teams use quality circles
• a work group of employees (about 8-10) who meet
  regularly to discuss their quality problems,
  investigate causes, recommend solutions, and take
  corrective actions
• employees participating in quality circles are
  required to learn further skills and methods to
  analyze and solve quality problems

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Self-Managed (or Self-Directed) Work Teams

• a group of 10-15 employees who take on
  responsibilities of their former managers
• These responsibilities include
• planning scheduling of work
• assigning tasks to members
• collectively controlling the pace of work
• making operating decisions
• taking action on problems
• teams select their own members and make
  evaluations on each other

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Cross-Functional (or Project) Teams

• a team made up of employees from about the same
  hierarchical level, but from different work areas
  who come together to accomplish a task
• an effective means of allowing individuals from
  diverse areas within an organization or between
  organizations to exchange info, develop new ideas
  and solve problems, and to coordinate complex
  projects
• downfall occurs in developmental stages

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• Includes
• Task forces temporary cross-functional teams
• Committees groups composed of members from
  across departmental lines
• Skunkworks cross-functional teams that develop
  spontaneously to create new products or work on
  complex problems
• work in isolation

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Virtual Teams

• use of computer technology to tie together
  physically dispersed members in order to achieve
  a common goal
• collaborate online using communication links
• can do all things that other teams do, and can
  often be more efficient due to ease of sharing
  info
• downfall in absence of paraverbal cues, nonverbal
  cues, and social contact

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From Individual to Team Member

• Roles
• Norms
• Status

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• In order for a team to function, individuals have
  to achieve some balance between their own needs
  and the needs of the team.
• Individuals bring
• Personality
• Previous Experience

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• Possible pressures individual group members put
  on each other through expectations.
• Roles
• Norms
• Status

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Roles

• A set of expected behaviour patterns attributed
  to someone occupying a given position in a social
  unit.
• Role Identity
• Role Perception
• Role Expectation
• Role Conflict

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• Psychological Contract
• An unwritten agreement that sets out what
  management expects from the employee and vice
  versa.

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Norms

• acceptable standards of behaviour within a group
  that are shared by the groups members
• means of influencing behaviour
• differ among groups, communities and societies
• but all entities have norms
• formalized norms are written up in organizational
  manuals that set out rules and procedures
• most norms in organizations are informal

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• Conformity
• adjusting your behaviour to align with the norms
  of a group
• Reference Groups

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Status

• a socially defined position or rank given to
  groups or group members by others
• motivation
• acquired, ascribed
• significance?

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Stages Of Group and Team Development

• The Five-Stage Model
• The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model

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Five-Stage Model

• 1. Forming
• The first stage of development, Characterized
  form the saying testing the waters
• 2. Storming
• The second stage of development, know as the
  power struggle or intragroup conflict stage

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• 3. Norming
• The third stage of development, Characterized by
  close relationships and cohesiveness
• 4. Performing
• The fourth stage of development, were the group
  of team is fully functional and accepted

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• 5. Adjourning
• The final stage of development for temporary
  groups or teams, characterized by concern with
  wrapping up activities rather than task
  performance

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The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model

• Phase 1
• The first meeting in which members of a team
  gather to set the direction of the group. These
  direction become written in stone , Known as
  the period of inertia
• Phase 2
• Team moves out of the inertia stage and
  recognizes that work needs to be completed

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• Transition
• This stage is in between phase 1 and 2. The
  stage acts like a alarm clock, heightening
  members awareness to get thing done. This stage
  is characterized by a concentrated burst of
  changes. That revise the direction of the team
  for phase 2

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Creating Effective Teams

• Model of Team Effectiveness
• - Work Design - Composition
• - Process - Context

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Model of Team Effectiveness
Work Design Autonomy Skill Variety Task
Identity Task significance
Composition Ability Personality Roles and
Diversity Size Flexibility Preference for teamwork
Team Effectiveness
Process Common Purpose Specific goals Team
efficacy Conflict
Context Adequate Resources Leadership Performance
Evaluation and Rewards
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Work Design

• Work together and collectively take
  responsibility for a goal or task.
• This includes
• Autonomy independence
• Skill Variety using different skills and talents
• Task Identity ability to complete a whole and
  identifiable task
• Task Significance participation that has a
  substantial impact

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Composition

• Select members with their strengths in mind and
  supply task that fit.
• This includes
• Ability
• Personality
• Roles and Diversity
• Size
• Flexibility
• Preference for teamwork

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• Ability
• technical expertise
• problem solving and decision making skills
• interpersonal skills

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• Personality
• Must be careful of team selection based on
  personality.
• This includes
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional Stability
• Groups with these characteristics are most likely
  to be successful.

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• Roles
• There are two types of roles
• 1. Task oriented roles performed by group
  members to ensure that tasks are accomplished
• Ex. initiators, Information seekers, information
  providers, elaborators, summarizers, consensus
  makers
• 2. Maintenance roles carried out to ensure that
  group members maintain good relations
• Ex. harmonizers, compromisers, gatekeepers,
  encouragers

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• Size
• The smaller the group the faster the
  productivity. (groups consisting of 7
  individuals)
• The larger the group the slower the productivity,
  but better for gaining diverse input.
• (groups consisting of 12 or more individuals)

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• Flexibility
• Individuals who can complete more then one task
  or another individuals task.

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Context

• Three factors that are most significant
• 1. Presence of adequate resources
• 2. Effective leadership
• 3. Performance evaluation/Reward system

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• Adequate Resources
• support from management and the organization
• This includes
• Technology
• Staffing
• Assistance
• Encouragement
• Information

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• Leadership
• This includes looking after such things as
• Scheduling
• Workload
• Skill Development
• Conflict resolve
• How to make/modify decisions
• higher expectation/positive mood greater
  productivity, lower turnover, better performance

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• Performance Evaluation and Rewards
• getting a member to be individually/jointly
  accountable
• Some evaluations of performance
• Team results
• Effectiveness/Team functioning
• Personal effectiveness

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Process

• Variables of the group include
• Common purpose
• Specific Goals
• Efficacy
• Accountability Conflict and Social Loafing

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• Common Purpose
• provides direction, momentum, and commitment for
  members
• broader then a goal
• Specific Goals
• facilitate clear communication
• help maintain employees focus on achieving
  results
• set milestones

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• Team Efficacy
• Success breads success
• Cohesiveness helps build team efficiency

Cohesiveness
Low High
Performance Norms

• What can be done to increase team efficiency?
• 1. helping the team to achieve small successes
  and skill training
• 2. provide training to improve workers technical
  and
• interpersonal skills

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• Conflict Levels
• Relationship conflict can effect a teams
  performance both positively and negatively.
• Task conflict can improve team effectiveness.
• Social Loafing and Accountability
• Social loafing is related to the size of the
  group.
• Social loafing tendency for individuals to
  expend less effort when working collectively then
  when working individually
• Successful teams make members individually and
  jointly accountable.

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Teams and Workforce Diversity

• Advantages Disadvantages

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Teams and Work Force Diversity

• Advantages
  Disadvantages
• Multiple Perspectives Ambiguity
• Greater openness to new ideas Complexity
• Multiple interpretations
  Confusion
• Increase creativity
  Miscommunication
• Increase Flexibility
  Difficulty reaching agreements
• Increase problem-solving skills Difficulty
  agreeing on
• 
  specific actions
• 
  
  

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Beware! Teams Arent Always the Answer

• How do you know if teams are for you ?
• Three tests can be applied
• 1. Can the work be done better by more then
  one person.
• 2. Does the work create a common purpose or
  set of goals for the people in the group that is
  more than aggregate of individual goals.
• 3. Are members of the group interdependent.