Team

Dynamics

McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e

Copyright 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

What are Teams?

Groups of two or more

people

Exist to fulfill a purpose

Interdependent -- interact
and influence each other

Mutually accountable for

achieving common goals

Perceive themselves as a
social entity

8-2

Many Types of Teams

Departmental teams

Task force (project)

teams

Production/service/
leadership teams

Skunkworks

Self-directed teams

Virtual teams

Advisory teams

Communities of practice

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Informal Groups

Groups that exist primarily for the benefit of

their members

Reasons why informal groups exist:

1. Innate drive to bond
2. Social identity -- we define ourselves by group

memberships
3. Goal accomplishment
4. Emotional support

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Advantages and Disadvantages of

Teams
Advantages
Make better decisions, products/services
Better information sharing
Higher employee motivation/engagement
- Fulfills drive to bond
- Closer scrutiny by team members
- Team members are benchmarks of comparison

Disadvantages
Individuals better/faster on some tasks
Process losses - cost of developing and

maintaining teams
Social loafing
8-5

How to Minimize Social Loafing

Make individual performance more

visible
Form smaller teams
Specialize tasks

Measure individual performance

Increase employee motivation

Increase job enrichment
Select motivated employees

8-6

Team Effectiveness Model

Team Design
Task characteristics

Team
Effectiveness

Team size
Organizational

Team composition

Satisfy member
needs

and Team
Environment

Accomplish tasks

Team Processes

Maintain team
survival

Team development
Team norms
Team cohesiveness
Team trust

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Organization/Team Environment

Reward systems

Communication systems

Organizational structure

Organizational leadership

Physical space

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Teams Task Characteristics

Teams work better when tasks are clear, easy

to implement
learn roles faster, easier to become cohesive
ill-defined tasks require members with diverse

backgrounds and more time to coordinate

Teams preferred with higher task

interdependence
Extent that employees need to share materials,

information, or expertise to perform their jobs.

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Levels of Task Interdependence

High

Reciprocal
B

Sequential

Resource

Pooled
Low

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Team Size

Smaller teams are better because:

need less time to coordinate roles and resolve

differences
require less time to develop more member
involvement, thus higher commitment

But team must be large enough to

accomplish task

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Shell Looks for Team Players

Shell holds the 5-day Gourami
Business Challenge in Europe,
North America, and Asia to
observe how well the
university students work in
teams. One of the greatest
challenges is for students from
different cultures and
educational specializations to
work together.

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Team Composition

Effective team members

must be willing and able
to work on the team

Effective team members

possess specific
competencies (5 Cs)

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Five Cs of Team Member

Competencies

8-14

Team Composition: Diversity

Team members have with diverse knowledge,

skills, perspectives, values, etc.
Advantages
better for creatively solving complex problems
broader knowledge base
better representation of teams constituents

Disadvantages
take longer to become a high-performing team
more susceptible to faultlines
increased risk of dysfunctional conflict

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Stages of Team Development

Performing

Norming

Storming

Forming

Existing teams
might regress
back to an
earlier stage of
development

Adjourning

8-16

Team Development as
Membership and Competence
Two central processes in team development
1. Team membership formation
Transition from them to us
Team becomes part of persons social identity

2. Team competence development

Forming routines with others
Forming shared mental models

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Team Roles

A set of behaviors that people are expected

to perform
Some formally assigned; others informally
Informal role assignment occurs during team
development and is related to personal
characteristics

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Team Building
Formal activities intended to improve the teams
development and functioning
Types of Team Building
Clarify teams performance goals

Improve teams problem-solving skills

Improve role definitions
Improve relations

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Team Norms

Informal rules and shared expectations team

establishes to regulate member behaviors

Norms develop through:

Initial team experiences
Critical events in teams history
Experience/values members bring to the team

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Preventing/Changing
Dysfunctional Team Norms

State desired norms when forming teams

Select members with preferred values

Discuss counter-productive norms

Reward behaviors representing desired

norms

Disband teams with dysfunctional norms

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Team Cohesion

The degree of attraction people feel toward the team

and their motivation to remain members

Both cognitive and emotional process

Related to the team members social identity

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Influences on Team Cohesion

Member
similarity

Similarity-attraction effect
Some forms of diversity have less effect

Team
size

Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive

Member
interaction

Regular interaction increases cohesion

Calls for tasks with high interdependence

8-23

Influences on Team Cohesion

(cont)

Somewhat
difficult entry

Team
success

External
challenges

Team eliteness increases cohesion

But lower cohesion with severe initiation

Successful teams fulfillmember needs

Success increases social identity with team

Challenges increase cohesion when not

overwhelming

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Team Cohesion Outcomes

1.

Motivated to remain members

2.

Willing to share information

3.

Strong interpersonal bonds

4.

Resolve conflict effectively

5.

Better interpersonal relationships

8-25

Team Cohesion and Performance

Team Norms
Support
Company
Goals

Team Norms
Oppose
Company
Goals

Moderately
high task
performance

High task
performance

Moderately
low task
performance

Low task
performance

Low Team
Cohesiveness

High Team
Cohesiveness
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Trust Defined
Positive expectations one person has of
another person in situations involving
risk

8-27

Three Levels of Trust

High

Identification-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust

Calculus-based Trust
Low

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Self-Directed Teams Defined

Cross-functional work groups organized around work

processes, that complete an entire piece of work
requiring several interdependent tasks, and that have
substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks.

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Self-Directed Team Success

Factors

Responsible for entire work process

High interdependence within the team
Low interdependence with other teams
Autonomy to organize and coordinate work
Technology supports team
communication/coordination

8-30

Virtual Teams
Teams whose members operate across space,
time, and organizational boundaries and are
linked through information technologies to
achieve organizational tasks
Increasingly possible because of:
- Information technologies
- Knowledge-based work
Increasingly necessary because of:
- Organizational learning
- Globalization

8-31

Virtual Team Success Factors

Member characteristics
Technology savvy
Self-leadership skills
Emotional intelligence

Flexible use of communication technologies

Opportunities to meet face-to-face

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Team Decision Making

Constraints

Time constraints
Time to organize/coordinate
Production blocking

Evaluation apprehension
Belief that others are silently evaluating you

Peer pressure to conform

Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms

Groupthink
Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus

at the price of decision quality

Concept losing favor -- consider more specific features
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General Guidelines for Team

Decisions

Team norms should encourage critical

thinking
Sufficient team diversity
Ensure neither leader nor any member
dominates
Maintain optimal team size
Introduce effective team structures

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Constructive Conflict

Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA

People focus their discussion on the issue while

maintaining respectfulness for others having different
points of view.

Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into

personal attacks
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Rules of Brainstorming
1.

Speak freely

2.

Dont criticize

3.

Provide as many ideas as possible

4.

Build on others ideas

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Evaluating Brainstorming

Strengths
Produces more creative ideas
Less evaluation apprehension when team supports

a learning orientation
Strengthens decision acceptance and team
cohesiveness
Sharing positive emotions encourages creativity

Weaknesses
Production blocking still exists
Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups
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Electronic Brainstorming

Relies on networked computers to submit and

share creative ideas
Strengths -- more creative ideas, minimal
production blocking, evaluation apprehension,
or conformity problems
Limitations -- too structured and technologybound

8-38

Nominal Group Technique

Describe
problem

Individual
Activity

Team
Activity

Individual
Activity

Write down
possible
solutions

Possible
solutions
described
to others

Vote on
solutions
presented

8-39