B0H4M

1. B0H4M CHAPTER 15

2. 15.1 Teams in Organization • 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

3. 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 convener or sponsor of a problem-solving team staffed by others.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Formal groups • Teams that are officially recognized and supported by the organization for specific purposes. • 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.

8. 15.2 Trends in the use of teams • Committees, project teams, and task forces • Cross-functional teams • Virtual teams • Self-managing work teams • Team building

9. 15.3 how 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.

10. Resource input factors that influence group process in the pursuit of team effectiveness: • Nature of the task. • Organizational setting. • Team size. • Membership characteristics.

11. Team effectiveness may be summarized as … Team Effectiveness = Quality of Inputs + (Process Gains - Process Losses) Management 2e - Chapter 15

12. Group process • Team diversity • 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.

13. Norms • Behaviour expected of team members. • Rules or standards that guide behaviour. • May result in team sanctions. • Performance norms • Define the level of work effort and performance that team members are expected to contribute to the team task.

14. 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.

15. Effects of team cohesiveness and norms: • Positive norms + high cohesiveness  high performance and strong commitments to positive norms. • Positive norms + low cohesiveness  moderate performance and weak commitments to positive norms. • Negative norms + low cohesiveness  low to moderate performance and weak commitments to negative norms. • Negative norms + high cohesiveness  low performance and strong commitments to negative norms.

16. Task activities • Actions by team members that contribute directly to team’s performance purpose. • Include: • Initiating • Information sharing • Summarizing • Elaborating • Opinion giving

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

18. 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.

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

20. 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.

21. 15.4 Decision making in teams • Methods of team decision making: • Lack of response • Authority rule • Minority rule • Majority rule • Consensus • Unanimity

22. 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.

23. Methods for dealing with groupthink: • Have each group member be a critical evaluator. • Don’t appear to favour 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 devil’s advocate role. • Hold a second-chance meeting.

24. Creativity in team decision-making • Brainstorming • Engages group members in an open, spontaneous discussion of problems and ideas. • Nominal group technique • Structures interaction among team members discussing problems and ideas.

25. 15.5 Conflict • Conflict. • A disagreement between people on: • Substantive issues regarding goals and tasks, allocation of resources, distribution of rewards, policies and procedures, and job assignments. • Emotional issues arising from feelings of anger, distrust, dislike, fear, and resentment, as well as personality clashes. • Conflict that is well managed can help promote creativity and high performance.

26. Functional conflict. • Moderately intense conflict. • Constructive and stimulates people toward greater work efforts, cooperation, and creativity. • Dysfunctional conflict. • Low-intensity and very high-intensity conflict. • Destructive and hurts task performance.

27. Causes of conflict: • Role ambiguities. • Resource scarcities. • Task interdependencies. • Competing objectives. • Structural differentiation. • Unresolved prior conflicts. • RESOLVING CONFLICTS

28. People’s conflict management styles reflect different combinations of cooperative and assertive behaviour. • Cooperativeness is the desire to satisfy the other party’s needs and concerns. • Assertiveness is the desire to satisfy one’s own needs and concerns.

29. Conflict management styles: • Avoidance (withdrawal). • Uncooperative and unassertive. • Accommodation (smoothing). • Cooperative and assertive. • Competition (authoritative command). • Uncooperative and assertive. • Compromise. • Moderately cooperative and assertive. • Collaboration (problem solving). • Cooperative and assertive. • Lose-lose conflict. • Management by avoidance or accommodation. • Win-lose conflict. • Management by competition and compromise. • Win-win conflict. • Management by collaboration.

30. 15.6 NEGOTIATION • Negotiation the process of making joint decisions when the parties involved have different preferences. • All negotiation situations are susceptible to conflict and require exceptional communication and interpersonal skills. • Negotiation goals and approaches: • Substance goals. • Relationship goals. • Effective negotiations • Distributive negotiation • Principled (or integrative) negotiation

31. Gaining integrative agreements: • Separate the people from the problem. • Focus on interests, not on positions. • Generate many alternatives before deciding what to do. • Insist that results are based on some objective standard.

32. Gaining integrative agreements: • Separate the people from the problem. • Focus on interests, not on positions. • Generate many alternatives before deciding what to do. • Insist that results are based on some objective standard.

33. Approaches to avoiding negotiation pitfalls: • Mediation • Involves a neutral third party who tries to improve communication between negotiating parties and keep them focused on relevant issues. • Arbitration • Involves a neutral third party who acts as a judge and issues a binding decision.

34. Ethical issues in negotiation • High ethical standards should be maintained. • Profit motive and the competitive desire to win sometimes lead to unethical behaviour. • Unethical negotiating behaviour can lead to short-term gains but long-term losses.