Syed Ahad Rizvi Groups and Teamwork MHR405 Chapter 7

MHR405 Chapter 7 Notes

Learning Objectives

 Discuss group development.

 Explain how group size and member diversity influence what occurs in groups.
 Review how norms, roles, and status affect social interaction.
 Discuss the causes and consequences of group cohesiveness.
 Explain the dynamics of social loafing.
 Discuss how to design and support self-managed teams.
 Explain the logic behind cross-functional teams and describe how they can operate effectively.
 Understand virtual teams and what makes them effective.

What Is a Group?

 A group consists of two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal.
o Interaction is the most basic aspect of a group.
o Interdependence means that group members rely to some degree on each other to
accomplish goals.
 Why is group membership important?
 Group membership is important because:
o Groups exert influence on us.
o Groups provide a context in which we are able to exert influence on others.

Formal Work Groups

 Formal work groups are groups that are established by organizations to facilitate the
achievement of the organizational goals.
o The most common formal group consists of a manager and the employees who report
to the manager.
o The hierarchy of most organizations is a series of formal, interlocked work groups.
 Other types of formal work groups include task forces, project teams, and committees.
 Task forces and project teams are temporary groups that meet to achieve particular goals or to
solve particular problems.
 Committees are usually permanent groups that handle recurrent assignments outside the
usually work group structures.

Informal Groups

 Informal groups are groups that emerge naturally in response to the common interests of
organizational members.
o They are seldom sanctioned by the organization.
o Their membership often cuts across formal groups.
Syed Ahad Rizvi Groups and Teamwork MHR405 Chapter 7

o Informal groups can either help or hurt an organization, depending on their norms for
behaviour.

Group Development

 Groups are complex social devices.

 They require a fair amount of negotiation and trial-and-error before individual members begin
to function as a true group.
 How do groups develop?

Typical Stages of Group Development

 Groups develop through a series of stages over time.

 Each stage presents the members with a series of challenges they must master to achieve the
next stage. The stages are: forming, storming, norming, performing, and then adjourning.
 Forming:
o Group members try to orient themselves by “testing the waters”.
o The situation is often ambiguous, and members are aware of their dependency on each
other.
 Storming:
o Conflict often emerges at this stage.
o Confrontation and criticism occur as members determine whether they will go along
with the way the group is developing.
o Sorting out roles and responsibilities is often at issue.
 Norming:
o Members resolve the issues that provoked the storming, and they develop social
consensus.
o Compromise is often necessary.
o Norms are agreed on and the group becomes more cohesive.
o Information and opinions flow freely.
 Performing:
o The group devotes its energies toward task accomplishment.
o Achievement, creativity, and mutual assistance are prominent themes at this stage.
 Adjourning:
o Rites and rituals that affirm the group’s previous successful development are common
(such as ceremonies and parties).
o Members often exhibit emotional support for each other.
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Typical Stages of Group Development (Cont’d)

 The stages model is a good tool for monitoring and troubleshooting how groups are developing.
 Not all groups go through these stages of development.
o The process applies mainly to new groups that have never met before.
 Well-acquainted task forces and committees can short-circuit these stages.
 Some organizational settings are so structured that storming and norming are unnecessary for
even strangers to coalesce into a team.

Punctuated Equilibrium Model

 A model of group development that describes how groups with deadlines are affected by their
first meetings and crucial midpoint transitions.
 Equilibrium means stability.
 Stretches of group stability punctuated by a critical first meeting, a midpoint change in group
activity, and a rush to task completion.
 Does this sequence of events sound familiar to you?
 Phase 1:
o Begins with the first meeting and continues until the midpoint in the group’s existence.
o The first meeting is critical in setting the agenda for what will happen in the remainder
of this phase.
o The group gathers information and holds meetings but makes little visible progress
toward the goal.
 Phase 2:
o Decisions and approaches adopted at the midpoint get played out in Phase 2.
o In concludes with a final meeting that reveals a burst of activity and a concern for how
outsiders will evaluate the product.
 Advice for managing teams:
o Prepare carefully for the first meeting.
o As long as people are working, do not look for radical progress during Phase 1.
o Manage the midpoint transition carefully.
o Be sure that adequate resources are available to actually execute the Phase 2 plan.
o Resist deadline changes.
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Group Structure and Its Consequences

 Group structure refers to the characteristics of the stable social organization of a group – the
way a group is “put together.”
 The most basic structural characteristics along which groups vary are size and member diversity.
 Other structural characteristics are group norms, roles, status, and cohesiveness.
 Group Size:
o The smallest possible group consists of two people, such as a manager and a particular
employees.
o In practice, most work groups, including task forces and committees, usually have
between 3 and 20 members.
 Group Size and Satisfaction
o Members of larger groups consistently report less satisfaction with group membership
than those in smaller groups.
o The chance to work on and develop friendships decrease as size increases.
o Larger groups might prompt conflict and dissension.
o As size increases, the time available for verbal participation by each member decreases.
o Many people are inhibited about participating in larger groups.
o In large groups, individual members identify less easily with the success and
accomplishments of the group.
 Group Size and Performance
o Do large groups perform tasks better than small groups?
o The relationship between group size and performance depends on the task the group
needs to accomplish and on how we define good performance.
o Three types of groups tasks:
 Additive tasks
 Disjunctive tasks
 Conjunctive tasks
o Additive Tasks:
 Tasks in which group performance is dependent on the sum of the performance
of individual group members (e.g., building a house).
 For additive tasks, the potential performance of the group increases with group
size.
o Disjunctive Tasks:
 Tasks in which group performance is dependent on the performance of the best
group member (e.g., research team).
 The potential performance of groups doing disjunctive tasks increases with
group size.
 The probability that the group includes a superior performer is greater.
o Conjunctive Tasks:
 Tasks in which group performance is limited by the performance of the poorest
group member (e.g., assembly line).
 Both the potential and actual performance of conjunctive tasks will decrease as
group size increases.
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 As size increases, the probability of including a weak link in the group goes up.
 Process Losses:
o Process losses are performance difficulties that stem from the problems of motivating
and coordinating larger groups.
o As groups performing tasks get bigger, they tend to suffer from process losses.
o Problems of communication and decision-making increase with size.
o Potential performance and process losses increase with group size for additive and
disjunctive tasks.
o Actual performance increases with size up to a point and then falls off.
o The average performance of group members decreases as size gets bigger.
o Thus, up to a point, larger groups might perform better as groups, but their individual
members tend to be less efficient.

Group Size and Performance: Summary

 For additive and disjunctive tasks, larger groups might perform better up to a point but at
increasing costs to the efficiency of individual members.
 Performance on purely conjunctive tasks should decrease as group size increases.

Diversity of Group Membership

 Group diversity has a strong impact on interaction patterns.

 Diverse groups have a more difficult time communicating effectively and becoming cohesive.
 Diverse groups might take longer to do their forming, storming, and norming.
 Once they do develop, more and less diverse groups are equally cohesive and productive.
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 Diverse groups sometimes perform better on certain tasks such as those that require creativity
and innovation.
 In general, any negative effects of “surface diversity” in age, gender, or race seem to wear off
over time.
 “Deep diversity” in attitudes toward work or how to accomplish a goal can badly damage
cohesiveness.
 When organizations value and manage diversity, it offsets some of the initial process loss costs
of diversity and capitalizes on its benefits for group performance.
 One way to do this is to provide employees with training on working in diverse settings.
 Research has shown the benefits of such training, especially when it is integrated with other
efforts to foster diversity.

Group Norms

 Social norms are collective expectations that members of social units have regarding the
behaviour of each other.
 They are codes of conduct that specify the standards against which we evaluate the
appropriateness of behaviour.
 Changing norms is one way to change people’s behaviour.
 Most normative influence is unconscious; we are only aware of it in special circumstances such
as when we enter new social situations.
 We also become conscious of norms when we encounter ones that seem to conflict with each
other.

Norm Development

 Why do norms develop?

o Norms provide regularity and predictability to behaviour.
o This consistency provides psychological security and permits us to carry out our daily
business with minimal disruption.
 What do norms develop about?
o Norms develop to regulate behaviours that re at least marginally important to their
supporters.
o Managers are likely to adopt norms regarding the performance and attendance of
employees.
o Less deviation is accepted from norms that concern more important behaviours.
 How do norms develop?
o Shared attitudes among members of a group form the basis for norms.
o Norms are collectively held expectations, depending on two or more people for their
existence.
 Why do individuals comply with norms?
o The norm corresponds to privately held attitudes.
o They often save time and prevent social confusion.
o Groups have a range of rewards and punishments available to induce conformity to
norms.
Syed Ahad Rizvi Groups and Teamwork MHR405 Chapter 7

 Some Typical Norms:

o Some types of norms that exist in most organizations and affect the behaviour of
members include:
 Dress norms
 Reward allocation norms (equity, equality, reciprocity, social responsibility)
 Performance norms

Roles

 Positions in a group that have a set of expected behaviours attached to them.

 Roles represent “packages” of norms that apply to particular group members.
 There are two basic kinds of roles in organization:
o Assigned roles
 Formally prescribed by an organization as a means of dividing labour and
responsibility to facilitate task achievement.
 Assigned roles indicate “who does what” and “who can tell others what to do.”
o Emergent roles
 Roles that develop naturally to meet the social-emotional needs of group
members or to assist in formal job accomplishment.

Role Ambiguity

 Role ambiguity exists when the goals of one’s job or the methods of performing it are unclear.
 There are a variety of elements that can lead to role ambiguity:
o Organizational factors
 Some roles are inherently ambiguous because of their function in the
organization such as middle management roles.
o The role sender
 Role senders might have unclear expectations of a focal person.
 Expectations might be ineffectively sent to the focal person.
o The focal person
 Role expectation might not be fully digested by the focal person.
 This occurs when the focal person is new to the role.
 What are the practical consequences of role ambiguity?
 The most frequent outcomes are job stress, dissatisfaction, reduced organizational
commitment, lowered performance, and intentions to quit.
o Managers can reduce role ambiguity by providing clear performance expectations and
performance feedback, especially for new employees and for those in more intrinsically
ambiguous jobs.
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Role Conflict

 Role conflict exists when an individual is faced with incompatible role expectations.
 Four types of role conflict:
o Intrasender role conflict
 A single role sender provides incompatible role expectations to a role occupant.
 This type of role conflict is especially likely to also provoke ambiguity.
o Intersender role conflict
 Two or more role senders provide a role occupant with incompatible
expectation.
 Employees who straddle the boundary between the organization and its clients
or customers are especially likely to encounter this form of conflict.
 It can also stem from within the organization.
o Interrole conflict
 Several roles held by a role occupant involve incompatible expectations.
 Competing demands for one’s time are a frequent symptom of Interrole
conflict.
 Conflicts between one’s work role and family role are common.
o Person-role conflict
 Role demands call for behaviour that is incompatible with the personality or
skills of a role occupant.
 Many examples of “whistle-blowing” are signals of person-role conflict. (The
organization has demanded some role behaviours that the occupant considers
unethical)
 Role Conflict: Consequences
o The most consistent consequences of role conflict are job dissatisfaction, stress
reactions, lowered organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.
o Managers can help prevent role conflict by:
 Avoiding self-contradictory messages
 Conferring with other role senders
 Being sensitive to multiple role demands
 Fitting the right person to the right role
o Although role ambiguity and role conflict often have negative consequences, they can
sometimes be used to one’s advantage (e.g., redefining one’s role).

Status

 Status in the rank, social position, or prestige accorded to group members in terms of
prominence, prestige, and respect.
 It represents the group’s evaluation of a member.
 What is evaluated depends on the status system in question.
o All organizations have both formal and informal status systems.
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 Formal Status Systems:

o Represents the management’s attempt to publicly identify those people who have
higher status than others.
o Status symbols are tangible indicators of status (e.g., titles, pay packages, work
schedules).
o What are the criteria for achieving formal organizational status?
o Formal organizational status is based on seniority in one’s group and one’s assigned role
in the organization – one’s job.
o Organizations often go to great pains to tie status symbols to assigned roles.
o Why do organizations go to all the trouble to differentiate status?
 They serve as powerful magnets to induce members to aspire to higher
organizational positions.
 Reinforces the authority hierarchy in work groups and in the organization as a
whole (people pay attention to high-status individuals).
 Informal Status Systems
o Such systems are not well advertised, and they might lack the conspicuous symbols and
systematic support that people usually accord the formal system.
o They can operate just as effectively as formal status systems.
o Informal status is linked to job performance as well as other factors such as gender or
race.
 Consequences of Status Differences
o Most people like to communicate with others at their own status or higher, rather than
with people who are below them.
o Tendency for communication to move up the status hierarchy.
o If status differences are large, people can be inhibited from communicating upward.
 These opposing effects mean that much communication gets stalled.
o People pay attention to and respect status.
o Higher-status members do more talking and have more influence.
o However, the highest-status person might not be the most knowledgeable about the
problem at hand.
 Reducing Status Barriers
o Because they inhibit the free flor of communication, many organizations downplay
status differentiation by doing away with status symbols.
o The goal is to foster a culture of teamwork and cooperation across the ranks.
o Email and texting have reduced status barriers.

Group Cohesiveness

 Group cohesiveness refers to the degree to which a group is especially attractive to its
members.
 Group cohesiveness is a critical emergent property of groups.
 Members want to stay in the group, and they describe the group in favourable terms.
 Cohesiveness is a relative, rather than absolute, property of groups.
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Factors Influencing Cohesiveness

 What makes some groups more cohesive than others?

 Important factors include:
o Threat and competition
 External threat to the survival of the group increases cohesiveness.
 Honest competition with another group can also promote cohesiveness.
 The group becomes more cohesive because it improves communication and
coordination so they can better cope with the situation at hand.
o Success
 Groups become more cohesive when they successfully accomplish some
important goal.
 Cohesiveness will decrease after failure.
o Member diversity
 Groups that are diverse in terms of gender, age, and race can have a harder
time becoming cohesive than more homogeneous groups.
 If the group agrees about how to accomplish a task, its success will often
outweigh surface dissimilarity in determining cohesiveness.
o Group size
 Larger groups have a more difficult time becoming and staying cohesive.
 Large groups have a more difficult time agreeing on goals and more problems
communicating and coordinating efforts to achieve their goals.
o Toughness of initiation
 Groups that are tough to get into tend to be more attractive than those that are
easy to join.

 Consequences of Cohesiveness
o Is more or less group cohesiveness desirable?
o This depends on the consequences of group cohesiveness.
o What are the consequences of group cohesiveness?
o More participation in group activities
 There is more participation in cohesive groups in terms of lower voluntary
turnover and absenteeism, and a high degree of communication within the
group.
o More conformity
 Highly cohesive groups are able to induce greater conformity to group norms.
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 Members of cohesive groups are especially motivated to engage in activities

that will keep the group cohesive.
 The group can apply pressure to deviants to get them to comply with group
norms.
 Cohesive groups react to deviants by increasing the amount of communication
directed at these individuals.
o More success
 Cohesiveness contributes to group success.
 Cohesive groups are good at achieving their goals.
 Group cohesiveness is related to performance.
 There is a reciprocal relationship with success and cohesiveness.
 Why are cohesive groups effective at goal accomplishment?
 A high degree of participation and communication, coupled with active
conformity to group norms and commitment, should ensure a high degree of
agreement about the goals the group is pursuing and the methods it is using to
achieve those goals.
 Should managers attempt to increase the cohesiveness of work groups?
 Cohesive groups are especially effective at accomplishing their own goals.
 If these goals correspond with those of the organization, increased
cohesiveness should have benefits for group performance.
 If not, organizational effectiveness might be threatened.
 In highly cohesive groups, the productivity of individual group members is
similar to other members; in less cohesive groups, there is more variation in
productivity.
 Highly cohesive groups tend to be more or less productive than less cohesive
groups, depending on a number of variables.
 If groups have productivity norms, more cohesive groups should be better able
to enforce them.
 If cohesive groups accept organizational norms for productivity, they
should be highly productive.
 Cohesiveness is more likely to pay off when the task requires more
interdependence.
o Cohesive groups are successful at accomplishing what they want to accomplish.
o Group cohesiveness on interdependent tasks should contribute to a high productivity
when there is a good labour relations climate.
o If the climate is marked by tension and disagreement, cohesive groups may pursue goals
that result in low productivity.
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Social Loafing

 The tendency to withhold physical or intellectual effort when performing a group task.
 Social loafing is a motivation problem.
 The tendency for social loafing is probably more pronounced in individualistic North America
than in more collective and group-oriented cultures.
 Social loafing has two different forms:
o The free rider effect
 In the free rider effect, people lower their effort to get a free ride at the expense
of their fellow group members.
o The sucker effect
 In the sucker effect, people lower their effort because of the feeling that others
are free riding.
 They are trying to restore equity in the group.
 What are some way to counteract social loafing?

Counteracting Social Loafing

 Make individual performance more visible

o Keep group size small
 Make sure that the work is interesting
o If work is involving, intrinsic motivation should counteract social loafing.
 Increase feelings of indispensability
o Use training and the status system to provide group members with unique inputs.
 Increase performance feedback
o Increase feedback from the boss, peers, and customers.
 Reward group performance
o Members are more likely to monitor and maximize their own performance and that of
their colleagues when the group receives rewards for effectiveness.

What Is a Team?

 The term “team” is generally used to describe “groups” in organizational settings.

 Teams have become a major building block of many organizations.
 Research has shown improvements in organizational performance in terms of both efficiency
and quality as a result of team-based work arrangements.

Collective Efficacy

 Collective efficacy consists of shared beliefs that a team can successfully perform a given task.
 When it comes to teams, collective efficacy is important to ensure high performance.
 An important contributor to collective efficacy is team reflexivity.
 In Remember the Titans, coach Boon’s speeches before every match contained something to
enhance collective efficacy.
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Team Reflexivity

 The extent to which teams deliberately discuss team processes and goals and adapt their
behaviour accordingly.
 It enhances team coordination and avoids the problems that derive from a lack of clear
communication.

Designing Effective Work Teams

 According to J. Richard Hackman, a work group is effective when:

o Its physical or intellectual output is acceptable to management and to other parts of the
organization that use this output.
o Group members’ needs are satisfied rather than frustrated by the group.
o The group experience enables members to continue to work together.
 What leads to group effectiveness?
 Group effectiveness occurs when:
o High effort is directed toward the group’s task.
o When great knowledge and skill are directed towards the task.
o When the group adopts sensible strategies for accomplishing its goals.
 One way to design groups to be more effective is to make them self-managed work teams.

Self-Managed Work Teams

 Work groups that have the opportunity to do challenging work under reduced supervision.
 The groups regulate much of their own members’ behaviour.
 Critical success factors of self-managed teams include:
o The nature of the task
o The composition of the group
o Support

Tasks for Self-Managed Teams

 Tasks assigned to self-managed work teams should be complex and challenging.

 They should require high interdependence among team members for accomplishment.
 The tasks should have the qualities of enriched jobs (e.g., task significance).
 Group members adopt roles that will make the group effective, not ones that are simply related
to a narrow speciality.

Composition of Self-Managed Teams

 How should organizations assemble self-managed teams to ensure effectiveness?

 Stability
 Size
 Expertise
 Diversity
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 Stability
o High cohesiveness, stable members (no rotation)
o Self-managed teams require considerable interaction and high cohesiveness, and this
requires understanding and trust.
o Group membership should be fairly stable.
o Rotating members into and out of the group will cause it to fail to develop a true group
identity.
 Size
o Small to reduce social loafing and coordination issues.
o Self-managed teams should be as small as feasible.
o The goal is to keep coordination problems and social loafing to a minimum.
o These negative factors can be especially difficult for self-managed groups.
 Expertise
o Group members should have a high level of expertise about the task at hand as well as
social skills.
o The group as a whole should be very knowledgeable about the task.
o All members should possess to some degree social skills.
 Diversity
o Group members should be similar enough to work well together and diverse enough to
bring a variety of perspectives and skills to the task at hand.
 One way of maintaining appropriate group composition is to let the group choose its own
members.
 The selection stage is critical as it is important to avoid turnover problems in self-managed
groups.
 “Fit” is important and it is work expanding the extra effort to find the right people.
 High cohesiveness and the development of group norms that stress group effectiveness is key.
 The development of trust among team members is critical for high team performance.

Supporting Self-Managed Teams

 The number of support factors can assist self-managed teams in becoming and staying effective.
 The main support factors include:
o Training
o Rewards
o Management
 Training
o Members of self-managed teams require extensive training.
o The kind of training depends on the exact job design and the needs of the workforce.
o Common areas of training:
 Technical training
 Social skills
 Language skills
 Business training
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 Rewards
o Rewards should be tied to team accomplishment rather than to individual
accomplishment while still providing team members with some individual performance
feedback to counteract social loafing.
o Skill-based pay is especially attractive because it rewards the acquisition of multiple
skills that support the team.
 Management
o Self-management will not receive the best support when managers feel threatened.
o Management should mediate relations between teams, and deal with union concerns,
and coach teams to be independent.

Effectiveness of Self-Managed Work Teams

 Research has shown improvements in team productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, and
safety following the implementation of self-managed work teams.

Cross-Functional Teams

 Work groups that bring people with different functional specialities together to better invent,
design, or deliver a product or service.
 Members have to be experts in their own area but able to cooperate with others.
 Cross-functional teams are best known for their success in product development.
 The general goals of using cross-functional teams include some combination of innovation,
speed, and quality that come from early coordination among the various specialities.

Principles for Effectiveness

 Research has discovered a number of factors that contribute to the effectiveness of cross-
functional teams:
o Composition (all relevant specialities included)
o Superordinate goals
o Physical proximity
o Autonomy
o Rules and procedures (only some basic decision produce to avoid anarchy)
o Leadership (strong people skills and task related skills to resolve highly likely conflicts)
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 Composition
o Effective teams are sure not to overlook anyone (e.g., labour representatives, suppliers,
clients).
 Superordinate Goals
o Attractive outcomes that can only be achieved by collaboration.
o They override detailed functional objectives that might be in conflict.
 Physical Proximity
o Team members have to be located close to each other to facilitate informal contact.
 Autonomy
o Cross-functional teams need some autonomy from the larger organization.
o Functional specialists need some authority to commit their function to project decisions.
 Rules and Procedures
o Petty rules and procedures should be avoided.
o Some basic decision procedures must be laid down to prevent anarchy.
 Leadership
o Cross-functional team leaders need especially strong people skills in addition to task
expertise because of the potential for conflict.
 Shared Mental Models
o One of the goals of these principles is to ensure that team members share mental
models.
o Shared mental models mean that team members share identical information about how
they should interact and what their task is.
o They enhance coordination and contribute greatly to effective team performance.
o They are a particular challenge to instill in cross-functional teams due to the divergent
backgrounds of team members.

Virtual Teams

 Virtual teams are work groups that use technology to communicate and collaborate across time,
space, and organizational boundaries.
 With globalization and the advent of high-tech communication in virtual teams have emerged as
critical for organizational success.
 Along with the reliance on computer and electronic technology, the primary feature of virtual
teams is the lack of face-to-face contact between team members due to geographic dispersion.
 Virtual teams are often cross-functional and the technology they use can be either
asynchronous or synchronous.

Advantages of Virtual Teams

 Why are virtual teams becoming so popular?

 Virtual teams have a number of advantages:
o Around-the-clock work
o Reduced travel time and cost
o Larger talent pool
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 Around-the-clock work
o Globally, using a virtual team can create a 24-hour team that never sleeps.
 Reduced Travel Time and Cost
o Virtual teaming reduces travel time and costs associated with face-to-face meetings.
o It can lead to significant savings of time, money, and security concerns over air travel.
 Larger Talent Pool
o Virtual teams allow companies to expand their potential labour markets and go after the
best people, even if those people have no interest in relocating.
o They can give employees added flexibility and better work-life balance.

Challenges of Virtual Teams

 Managers must recognize that virtual teams present unique challenges and should not be
treated as regular teams that just happen to use technology:
o Trust
o Miscommunication
o Isolation
o Management issues
 Trust
o Trust is difficult to develop between virtual team members due to the lack of physical
contact and socialization.
o Trust is even more important in virtual teams than in conventional teams to achieve
high team effectiveness.
 Miscommunication
o The loss of face-to-face communication presents certain risks for virtual teams.
o Using technology, the richness to face-to-face communication is lost and
miscommunication can result.
o These risks can be particularly high on global virtual teams.
 Isolation
o Casual interactions between co-workers are usually not possible for virtual teams.
o A lack of casual interactions among team members can lead to feelings of isolation and
detachment.
 Management Issues
o For managers, virtual teams can create new challenges in terms of dealing with
subordinates who are no longer in view.
 A review of research on information sharing in virtual teams versus face-to-face teams found
that:
o Virtual teams engaged in a lower volume of information sharing.
o Virtual teams were more likely to share unique information which was not known by
other team members.
o The performance of virtual teams was especially dependent upon them also having a
high volume of open communication to complement unique ideas.
o Hybrid teams that combine face-to-face interaction with virtual interaction were found
to be especially likely to share information.
Syed Ahad Rizvi Groups and Teamwork MHR405 Chapter 7

Lessons Concerning Virtual Teams

 A number of lessons have emerged about what managers must do or keep watch for when
developing virtual teams:
o Recruitment (attitude, personality, good interpersonal and intercultural skills)
 Choose team members carefully in terms of attitude and personality so they are
excited about these types of teams and can handle the independence and
isolation of them.
 Find people with good interpersonal and intercultural skills, not just technical
expertise.
o Training (interpersonal and intercultural skills)
 Invest in training for both technical and interpersonal skills.
o Personalization (encourage members to know each other personally)
 Encourage team members to get to know each other through informal
communication or face-to-face meetings.
 Reduce feelings of isolation.
o Leadership
 Virtual team leaders should define goals clearly, set rules for communication
standards and responses, and provide feedback to keep team members
informed of progress and the big picture, resolve conflict, and evoke shared
mental models.
 The key is recognizing the ways in which virtual teams are different from those based in a single
office environment but not falling into the trap of focusing solely on technology.
 Virtual teams must be real teams, if not by location, then in mind and spirit.

A Word of Caution: Teams as a Panacea

 Switching from a traditional structure to a team-based configuration is not a cure-all for an

organization’s problems.
 The team approach can put unwanted pressure and responsibilities on workers.
 Many organizations have rushed to deploy teams with little planning, often resulting in
confusion and contradictory signals to employees.
 Good planning and continuing support are necessary for the effective use of teams.