Management 11e John Schermerhorn

Management11e John Schermerhorn Chapter 16 Teams and Teamwork

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? Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.1Team and teamwork roles for managers Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 1: How do teams contribute to organizations? Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 2: What are the current trends in the use of teams? Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.2 Organizational and management implications of self-managing work teams Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 3: How do teams work? • Team effectiveness may be summarized as Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.3An open-systems model of work team effectiveness Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.4Criteria for assessing the maturity of a team Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 3: How do teams work? Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.5How cohesiveness and norms influence team performance Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 3: How do teams work? • Task activities • Actions by team members that contribute directly to team’s performance purpose • Include: • Initiating • Information sharing • Summarizing • Elaborating • Opinion giving Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.6Distributed leadership helps teams meet task and maintenance needs Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Figure 16.7Interaction 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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 4: How do teams make decisions? • Methods of team decision making: • Lack of response • Authority rule • Minority rule • Majority rule • Consensus • Unanimity Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 4: How do teams make decisions? Management 11 Chapter 16

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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Study Question 4: How do teams make decisions? • Methods for dealing with groupthink: • Have each group member be a critical evaluator • Don’t 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 devil’s advocate role • Hold a second-chance meeting Management 11 Chapter 16

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 • Don’t 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 Management 11 Chapter 16

Chapter 16 Case • NASCAR: Fast cars, passion and teamwork create wins

Management 11e John Schermerhorn