Team

Dynamics

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Teams at Ergon Energy

At Ergon Energy, teamwork is a
critical operational practice for
achieving excellent customer
service. The Queensland
company organises employees
into teams who are led by team
leaders. Teamwork is one of
Ergons six core values.
Teamwork is also reinforced
through company rewards.

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What are Teams?

Groups of two or more

people

Exist to fulfil a purpose

Interdependent interact
and influence each other

Mutually accountable for

achieving common goals

Perceive themselves as a
social entity

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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/Disadvantages of
Teams

Advantages
1. Make better decisions, products/services
2. Better information sharing
3. Increase employee motivation/engagement
- Fulfils drive to bond
- Closer scrutiny by team members
- Team members are benchmarks of comparison

Disadvantages
1. Individuals better/faster on some tasks
2. Process losses cost of developing and maintaining

teams
3. Social loafing
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How to Minimise Social

Loafing

Make individual performance more visible

Form smaller teams
Specialise tasks
Measure individual performance

Increase employee motivation

Increase job enrichment
Select motivated employees

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Team Effectiveness Model

Team Design
Organisational and
Team Environment

Rewards

Task characteristics
Team size
Team composition

Org leadership
Physical space

Accomplish tasks
Satisfy member
needs

Communication
Org structure

Team
Effectiveness

Team Processes
Team development

Maintain team
survival

Team norms
Team cohesiveness
Team trust

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Organisation/Team
Environment

Reward systems

Communication systems

Organisational structure

Organisational leadership

Physical space

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Teams Task Characteristics

Teams work better when tasks are clear and

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

Sequential

Resource

Pooled
A

Low
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Team Size

Smaller teams are better because they:

need less time to coordinate roles and resolve

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

But the team must be large enough to

accomplish the task

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Shell Looks for Team Players

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

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Team Composition

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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

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Team Composition: Diversity

Team members have diverse knowledge, skills,

perspectives, values, etc.

Advantages
view problems and possible solutions from different

perspectives
broader knowledge base
better representation of teams constituents

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

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Stages of Team Development

Performing
Norming

Storming
Existing teams
might regress
back to an
earlier stage of
development

Forming

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Adjourning

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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 behaviours 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 behaviours

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 behaviours 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

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Influences on Team Cohesion

(cont.)

Somewhat
difficult entry

Team
success

External
challenges

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Team eliteness increases cohesion

But lower cohesion with severe initiation

Successful teams fulfil member 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

6.

Better performance (if norms aligned)

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Team Cohesion and

Performance
Team norms
support
company
goals

Moderately
high task
performance

High task
performance

Team norms
oppose
company
goals

Moderately
low task
performance

Low task
performance

Low team
cohesion

High team
cohesion

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

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Three Levels of Trust

High

Identification-based trust

Knowledge-based trust
Calculus-based trust
Low

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Self-Directed Teams at Reckitt

Benckiser

Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare has become one

of the most productive pharmaceutical
operations in Europe due to lean management
practices and reliance on self-directed teams.
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Self-Directed Teams Defined

Cross-functional work groups organised 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 organise and coordinate work

Work site and technology support team

communication/coordination

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

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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 organise/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 favour consider more specific features
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General Guidelines for

Team Decisions
1.

Team norms should encourage critical

thinking

2.

Sufficient team diversity

3.

Ensure neither leader nor any member

dominates

4.

Maintain optimal team size

5.

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 criticise

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

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Nominal Group Technique

Individual
Activity

Describe
problem

Individual
Activity
Possible
solutions
described
to others

Write down
possible
solutions

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Vote on
solutions
presented

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Team
Dynamics

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