UNDERSTANDING WORK TEAMS

WHY ARE TEAMS POPULAR?

WORK GROUP VS WORK TEAM
WORK GROUP VS WORK TEAM
TYPES OF TEAMS
IDENTIFY THE CHARACTERISTICS
OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Team Effectiveness

1. Team’s Productivity
2. Manager’s rating of team’s
performance
3. Aggregate measure of
member satisfaction
 CONTEXT

Context: What factors determine whether teams are

successful?
• Adequate Resources
• Leadership and Structure
• Climate of Trust
• Performance Evaluations and Rewards
 TEAM COMPOSITION

• Team Composition: How should teams be staffed?

• Abilities of members
• Personality
• Allocating roles
• Diversity
• Size of teams
• Member preferences
KEY ROLES
 TEAM PROCESSES

• Team Processes
• Common Plan and Purpose
• Reflexivity
• Specific Goals
• Team Efficacy
• Mental Models
• Conflict Levels
• Social Loafing
 HOW ORGANIZATIONS CAN
CREATE TEAM PLAYERS

• Creating Team Players

• Selecting: hire team players
• Training: create team players
• Rewarding: incentives to be a good team player
 DECIDE WHEN TO USE
INDIVIDUALS INSTEAD OF TEAMS

• When not to use teams…

• Ask:
• Can the work be done better by one person?
• Does the work create a common goal or purpose?
• Are the members of the group interdependent?
 SHOULD YOU USE SELF-MANAGED
TEAMS?
• Assume you work for a large tech company that has recently acquired a local start-
up firm.
• The local start-up has more expertise in a market your company is trying to enter.
• To utilize employees from the start-up fully, you are forming new teams with
members from parent and the newly acquired firm for your R&D.
• Many of the employees from the start-up were part of self-managed teams before
the company was acquired.

• Decide Whether to follow traditional management style or allows teams to be

self-managed?
• Do you think self-managed team will affect the productivity? If so, how will
you address?