Management 11e John Schermerhorn

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Management 11e John Schermerhorn

• Chapter 16
• Teams and Teamwork

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Planning Ahead Chapter 16 Study Questions

• How do teams contribute to organizations?
• What are the current trends in the use of teams?
• How do teams work?
• How do teams make decisions?

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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 mutually accountable
  for performance results
• Teamwork
• The process of people actively working together
  to accomplish common goals
• Team and teamwork roles for managers
• Supervisor serving as the appointed head of a
  formal work unit
• Network facilitator serving as a peer leader an
  network hub for a special task force
• Participant serving as a helpful contributing
  member of a project team
• External coach serving as the external convenor
  or sponsor of a problem-solving team staffed by
  others

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Figure 16.1 Team and teamwork roles for managers
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Study Question 1 How do teams contribute 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 than could be achieved otherwise
• 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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Study Question 1 How do teams contribute 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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Study Question 1 How do teams contribute to
organizations?
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Study Question 1 How do teams contribute to
organizations?

• Formal teams
• Officially recognized and supported by the
  organization
• Specifically created to perform essential tasks
• Managers and leaders serve linking pin roles
• 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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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?
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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?

• 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
• 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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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?
Virtual teams Teams of people who work together
and solve problems through largely
computer-mediated rather than face-to-face
interactions
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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?
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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?

• Self-managing work teams
• Teams of workers whose jobs have been redesigned
  to create a high degree of task interdependence
  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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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?

• 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 team members

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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?
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Figure 16.2 Organizational and management
implications of self-managing work teams
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Study Question 2 What are the current trends in
the use of teams?

• Team Building
• Activities that analyze teams and make changes to
  improve performance
• May include meetings, games and outdoor
  activities
• Effective Teams
• Perform tasks
• Satisfy members
• Transform resource inputs into product outputs
• Pride in performance and accomplishments
• Members are willing to work together in the
  future

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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Resource input factors that influence group
  process in the pursuit of team effectiveness
• Resources and setting
• Nature of the task
• Team size
• Membership characteristics
• 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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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Team effectiveness may be summarized as

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Figure 16.3 An open-systems model of work team
effectiveness
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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Team diversity
• A variety of values, personalities, experiences,
  demographics, and cultures among members
• Greater variety of available ideas, perspectives,
  and experiences
• As team diversity increases, complexity of
  interpersonal relationships also increases

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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Stages of team development
• Forming
• initial orientation and interpersonal testing
• Storming
• conflict over tasks and ways of working as a team
  
• Norming
• consolidation around task and operating agendas
• Performing
• teamwork and focused task performance
• Adjourning
• task accomplishment and eventual disengagement

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Figure 16.4 Criteria for assessing the maturity
of a team
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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Norms
• Behavior expected of team members
• Rules or standards that guide behavior
• May result in team sanctions
• Cohesiveness
• Degree that members are attracted to and
  motivated to remain part of the team
• Desire to conform to norms

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Study Question 3 How do teams work?
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Figure 16.5 How cohesiveness and norms influence
team performance
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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Guidelines for increasing team cohesion
• Build 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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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• 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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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Maintenance activities
• Support emotional life of a team as an ongoing
  social system
• Include
• Gatekeeping
• Encouraging
• Following
• Harmonizing
• Reducing tension

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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• 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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Figure 16.6 Distributed leadership helps teams
meet task and maintenance needs
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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Dysfunctional activities that detract from team
  effectiveness
• Being aggressive
• Blocking
• Self-confessing
• Seeking sympathy
• Competing
• Withdrawal
• Horsing around
• Seeking recognition

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Study Question 3 How do teams work?

• Communication networks
• Decentralized
• All members communicate directly with one another
  
• 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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Figure 16.7 Interaction patterns and
communication networks in teams
Source John R Schermerhorn, Jr , James G Hunt,
and Richard N Osborn, Organizational Behavior,
8th ed (New York Wiley, 2003), p 347 Used by
permission
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Study Question 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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Study Question 4 How do teams make decisions?
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Study Question 4 How do teams make decisions?

• 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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Study Question 4 How do teams make decisions?

• Methods for dealing with groupthink
• Have each group member be a critical evaluator
• Dont appear to favor one course of action
• Create subteams 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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Study Question 4 How do teams make decisions?

• Creativity in team decision making
• Brainstorming
• Open and spontaneous discussion of problems and
  ideas
• Guidelines
• Go for quantity of ideas
• Dont criticize each other
• Welcome freewheeling
• Build on the ideas of others
• Nominal Group technique
• Meeting agenda structured to allow participation
  of all group members
• Individual contributions are brought to the group
  for discussion

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Chapter 16 Case

• NASCAR Fast cars, passion and teamwork create
  wins