Discuss the three essential conditions for successful team performance described by

Thompson.  Are there other essential conditions that you think should be included in this

list? Thompson further discusses social loafing, sucker aversion, and free riding as threats

to team performance.  These three behaviors are often cited as reasons why people do not

like teamwork.  What causes social loafing?  How do you think the best way to combat this

problem is in a team setting?  Discuss your thoughts here in light of your own experiences. 

In the book, Making The Team, Leigh Thompson discusses the three essential conditions

for team performance. The three listed conditions are expertise, engagement, and execution.

Ultimately, if done correctly, these three conditions can determine productivity, cohesion,

learning, and integration. Expertise is known as knowledge, skills, education, and information.

Engagement can be intrinsic, internal motivation and persistence, or extrinsic, external influence.

Execution is communication and coordination. If a team holds relevant expertise to perform the

task and is internally and externally motivated to perform the task, with collaboration and

coordination with team members, the execution of the task should be successful. (Thomspon,

2018) I think that these three conditions do an amazing job at summarizing the key sources for

successful team performance, but if I were to add another condition it would be experienced. In

addition to the expertise condition, it is important to have the knowledge and skills, but it is even

more valuable to have experience practicing those skills and putting that knowledge to work. 

Three behaviors that tend to be threats to team performance and are the reason that

people may hate teamwork are social loafing, sucker aversion, and free riding. Social loafing is

the motivational loss in groups (Thompson, 2018, pg. 119). The idea of social loafing suggests

that the bigger the group of people, the less effort and motivation each individual group member

contributes. With this, comes “free riders” who are team members that benefit from the
necessary work done by other team members. The work done by a select few team members

determines the team’s success and performance, but every team member, contributing or not,

benefits. This is obviously an issue for team morale and productivity. The best way to combat

this problem in a team setting is for the leader to assign jobs and responsibilities to each

individual team member and set their own expectations. Doing so will make it obvious who is

doing their job and who is not, while also motivating everyone to do their own work so they are

not singled out for slacking. I have been a part of many teams and projects where work has not

been equally distributed, and it is very unfair and frustrating. I would have appreciated it if the

leader would have distributed work evenly and set punishments if work was not finished just for

that individual person. 

In Chapter 12, Thompson (2018) discusses some of the challenges of working in

virtual teams in terms of productivity, accountability, coordination, and conflict.  In this

class we will be working in virtual teams to complete a series of team projects.  As such, it

is important for us to consider and reflect upon the virtual challenges of teamwork that

may be different than challenges we experience in face-to-face settings.  Discuss three of

these challenges. What other challenges do you think virtual teams experience? What do

you think are some of the best practices to get people to work together compatibly and

productively in a virtual environment?

In Making The Team, Thompson explains the difficulties found when working with

virtual teams as far as productivity, accountability, coordination, and conflict. As I discussed

above, many times social loafing and free riders are a part of team work. From personal

experience, I feel that it is easier for people to loss motivation and accountability in an online

setting than in person, face-to-face. Three challenges that virtual teams may experience are loss
of informal communication, out-of-the-loop employees, and loss of informal modeling. Loss of

informal communication diminishes the aspect of friendship because it is difficult to connect

emotionally with a team online due to virtual distance. I feel that when I am in a face-to-face

setting and have a relationship with my team, I am more likely to work harder to help out my

team (and friends). Out-of-the-loop employees is another challenge of virtual teams due to being

left out of communication and time differences. When one employee may have a lower status

and are virtually distant in an area with a different time zone, they may be left out of some

crucial meetings with important information. In addition to this, many jobs are not being done

the correct way due to the loss of informal modeling. It is a very difficult transition to go from

learning and observing your job done in a physical setting to then maybe just listening to

instructions instead of watching them be done physically. I feel that one way to minimize these

challenges are to have frequent team building exercises and meetings. I feel that the more that

people feel included and seen, the harder that they will work, more productive and accountable

they will be and will likely alleviate reasons for conflict.