Teams and Teamwork

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Chapter 9

• Teams and Teamwork

INP3004/MAN3360 Dr. Steve
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Origins of Work Teams

• Change in org structure towards more flexibility
  with environmental forces
• Increase in available knowledge
• information age
• Change in workforce population
• higher education, more qualified to serve in work
  teams
• Increased rate of change in work related
  activities
• jobs need to be less static and more adaptive

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Organizational Workgroups

• Trend toward using workgroups, teams, committees,
  etc.
• What defines a group?

• 2 or more people
• Common goal or task
• Recognized membership
• Interdependence

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Level of Analysis
Organization
(macro)
Team
Individual
(micro)
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Types of Teams

• Problem Solving Teams Members assemble to solve
  a particular problem
• Must resolve problem to most peoples
  satisfaction, not own
• Creative Teams Assembled to come up with new
  ideas
• Brainstorming for new products ideas, marketing,
  etc.
• Tactical Teams Assemble to execute a plan
• Members have clearly defined roles (ex SWAT
  teams)
• Ad hoc Teams Assembled for a limited time to
  solve a specific problem
• Cross between a problem-resolution and a tactical
  team

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Principles of Effective Teamwork

• Members provide and accept feedback
• Should be constructive and flow up as well as
  down
• ex catcher suggests to pitcher which pitch to
  throw
• Members must be willing prepared to back up
  others
• Know when to jump in and help
• ex pitchers job doesnt end with the pitch
• Members view themselves as a group
• Success of team more important than individual
• ex sacrifice bunt
• Members are interdependent
• Rely on one another to carry out mission
• ex everyone must make their plays
• Team leadership is important
• Leaders dont just instruct, they serve as role
  models and influence team member behavior
• ex team captain leads by example and influence

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Team Structure

• Encompasses number of team members, demographic
  composition, and experience of team members
• Depending on the tasks, successful teams often
  show some diversity in their composition
• diversity in gender, race, culture, age, etc
• information diversity factual knowledge,
  experiences, etc
• value diversity- tastes, preferences, goals, etc

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Team Functions Roles

• Belbin proposed that effective teams are composed
  of members that serve unique functions and roles
• 1. Leadership Function
• leader responsible for overall performance
• shaper directs the teams effort, imposes shape
  to team activities
• 2. Work Production Function
• worker- devices practical working procedures
  carries them out
• creator invents new ideas/strategies, addresses
  problems in a creative way
• completer-finisher gets things done quickly,
  works on urgent issues
• 3. Team Maintenance Function
• team facilitator fosters a sense of team
  spirit, helps with communication
• monitor-evaluator analyzes problems, helps team
  to stay focused on the task
• 4. Liaison Function
• resource investigator deals with external
  contacts

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Team Processes

• Socialization process of mutual adjustment
  between the team and its members
• Based on evaluation, commitment role transition
• Socialization passes through 5 phases
• 1. Investigation team and individuals find a
  good match
• 2. Socialization individuals and team
  assimilate to each other
• 3. Maintenance both parties try to
  maximize their needs
• 4. Resocialization team and individual
  try to influence each other in
  order to satisfy team needs
• 5. Remembrance occurs if resocialization is
  not successful

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Interpersonal Processes in Teams

• 1. Communication
• Ideal communication is frank,
• continuous, regular
• 2. Conflict
• unavoidable in teams what is important
• is how teams deal with conflict
• conflict can be seen as beneficial (different
  ideas but willing to listen) or competitive (
  disagree with team members, not willing to listen
  to others opinion)
• 3. Cohesion
• team members feel attracted to their team and
  want to stay in it
• 4. Trust
• creates an environment where workers spend less
  time worrying about others and are more willing
  to allow other team members to help them

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Shared Mental Models

• Members have similar cognitive processes relating
  to acquiring, storing, using info
• Cannon-Bowers Salas (2001) identified 4 types
  of shared knowledge in mental models
• 1. task-specific knowledge a common
  understanding that team members have concerning
  necessary procedures and strategies to perform a
  specific task
• 2. task-related knowledge a common knowledge
  concerning task-related processes that can be
  generalized to other tasks
• 3. knowledge of teammates knowing teammates
  strengths weaknesses
• proper allocation of resources across teammates
• 4. attitudes/beliefs helps to enhance team
  cohesion, motivation, consensus

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4 Types of Shared Info in Mental Models
Shared attitudes beliefs
Knowledge of teammates
Task-related knowledge
Task-specific info
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Groupthink

• Deterioration in cognitive processing of info due
  to team members feeling threatened by external
  sources
• A negative aspect of team members thinking
  alike
• Team members consider consensus to be more
  important than rational, independent thinking

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Decision Making in Teams

• Info is distributed unequally among team members
  and must be integrated
• Must deal with ambiguity, compressed amounts of
  time, status differences
• Hollenbeck, LePine, Ilgen (1996) described a
  multilevel theory of team decision making
• 1. team informity how well the team is
  informed on issues they must address
• 2. staff validity the teams overall ability to
  make accurate decisions
• 3. dyadic sensitivity how much weight the
  leader gives to each team members input
• Leader must know which members input should be
  given more weight

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Virtual Teams

• As computer technology and electronic
  communication advance we are seeing more virtual
  teams
• Defining characteristics of virtual teams
  (Avolio, 2001)
• 1. communication takes place primarily
  electronically
• e.g., text, graphic, audio, video
• 2. team members are dispersed geographically
• not unusual to never meet face-to-face
• 3. may interact synchronously or asynchronously
• communicate at the same time vs. leave messages
  through email or an electronic bulletin
• These teams face the same challenges as
  face-to-face teams with added barriers such as
  cultural differences, time zone differences,
  supervision issues, and never meeting in person

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Future of I/O Psych and Teams

• If rely more heavily on teams to perform tasks,
  what impact will this have on selection of
  workers?
• Select based on ability to work with others,
  rather than just task skills
• Focus on KSAs that complement team, no need to
  possess all KSAs
• Increased importance of social skills
• Must be willing to accept and provide feedback
• Look for individuals who share groups ideals,
  goals, concerns

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Personnel Selection for Teams

• Successful selection of team members requires
  identifying the best mix of personnel for
  effective team performance
• Prieto (1993) describes 5 critical social skills
  for an individual in a team to possess
• 1. gain the group acceptance
• 2. increase group solidarity
• 3. be aware of the group consciousness
• 4. share the group identification
• 5. manage others impressions of him or her
• Examining relationship between personality
  variables and team effectiveness
• factors of conscientiousness agreeableness have
  been found to predict various dimensions of work
  team performance
• Stevens and Campion (1999) developed test to
  measure team related KSAs
• e.g., conflict resolution, collaborative problem
  solving, communication, planning

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Training for Teams

• A team task analysis is conducted to assess tasks
  that require coordination
• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are asked to
  provide info on each task that requires
  interdependency
• Info obtained is used to specify team training
  objectives
• Salas and Cannon-Bowers refer to team KSAs as
  thinking, doing, feeling
• Much of our knowledge on team training comes from
  military applications
• e.g., cross-training - exposure to and practice
  on other teammates tasks, results in increased
  knowledge regarding task responsibilities and
  coordination requirements

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The Structure of team trainingSalas
Cannon-Bowers, 1997
Team Performance
Cognition
Behaviors
Attitudes
Knowledge
Skills
Affect
Think
Do
Feel
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Performance Appraisal in Teams

• Team level of analysis is similar to individual,
  but includes some additional factors
• i.e., extent to which individuals will slacken
  their performance within the team
• Social loafing team members do less work,
  feeling as though they have less incentive to
  work hard within the team
• 3 ways in which lack of individual incentives
  contributes to social loafing (Locke 2001)
• 1. free riding when a team member benefits
  from the work of others
• can occur when a group receives one overall
  grade, not individual grades
• 2. sucker effect when a group member assumes
  that others will not be working hard, so they
  dont either
• 3. felt dispensability when team members
  reduce their efforts b/c they feel like other
  team members can do the task as good or better
  than them

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Eight Keys to Successful Group Meetings

• Take notes in finger paint
• Laugh uproariously at a quip made 3 minutes ago
  and say, Oh,-now-I get it!
• Wear a disposable paper face mask. Tell the
  group, you dont want to catch what Ive got!
• Make a face like the guy next to you passed gas.
• Spill coffee on the conference table. Sail a
  little paper boat down the table in it.
• Stay behind as everyone else, including the boss,
  leaves. Thank them for coming.
• Stand up and act indignant. Demand that the boss
  tell you the real reason the meeting was called.
• Complain loudly that your neighbor wont stop
  touching you. Demand that the boss make him/her
  stop doing it.