Chapter

6
Team Dynamics

1-1
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
 Comparing Work Groups and Work Teams
9-3
 Four Types of Teams
9-4
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
8-5
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
8-6
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

8-7
Team Effectiveness Model

Team Design

Team
•Task characteristics Effectiveness
•Team size
•Team composition • Accomplish tasks
Organizational
• Satisfy member
and Team needs
Environment Team Processes • Maintain team
survival
• Team development
• Team norms
• Team cohesiveness
• Team trust

8-8
Organization/Team Environment
Reward systems
Communication systems
Organizational structure
Organizational leadership
Physical space

8-9
 Team’s 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.

8-10
Levels of Task Interdependence
High A
Reciprocal
B C

A B C
Sequential

Resource
Pooled
Low A B C

8-11
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

8-12
Team Composition

Effective team members must

be willing and able to work
on the team
Effective team members
possess specific
competencies (5 C’s)

8-13
Five C’s 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 team’s constituents
Disadvantages
• take longer to become a high-performing team
• more susceptible to “faultlines”
• increased risk of dysfunctional conflict

8-15
 Stages of Team Development

Performing

Norming

Storming

Existing teams
Forming might regress Adjourning
back to an
earlier stage of
development
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 person’s social identity

2.Team competence development

• Forming routines with others
• Forming shared mental models

8-17
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

8-18
Team Building
Formal activities intended to improve the
team’s development and functioning
Types of Team Building
• Clarify team’s performance goals
• Improve team’s problem-solving skills
• Improve role definitions
• Improve relations

8-19
Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations team
establishes to regulate member behaviors

Norms develop through:

• Initial team experiences
• Critical events in team’s history
• Experience/values members bring to the
team
8-20
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

8-21
Influences on Team Cohesion

Member • Similarity-attraction effect

similarity • Some forms of diversity have less effect

Team
• Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive
size

Member • Regular interaction increases cohesion

interaction • Calls for tasks with high interdependence

8-22
Influences on Team Cohesion (con’t)

Somewhat • Team eliteness increases cohesion

difficult entry • But lower cohesion with severe initiation

Team • Successful teams fulfillmember needs

success • Success increases social identity with team

External • Challenges increase cohesion when not

challenges overwhelming

8-23
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
8-24
Team Cohesion and Performance

Team Norms
Support Moderately
High task
Company high task
Goals performance
performance

Team Norms Moderately

Oppose Low task
low task
Company performance
performance
Goals

Low Team High Team

Cohesiveness Cohesiveness

8-25
Trust Defined

Positive expectations one person has of

another person in situations involving risk

8-26
Three Levels of Trust

High

Identification-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust

Calculus-based Trust
Low

8-27
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

8-28
Virtual Team Success Factors
Member characteristics
• Technology savvy
• Self-leadership skills
• Emotional intelligence
Flexible use of communication
technologies
Opportunities to meet face-to-face

8-29
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

8-30
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
8-31
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

8-32
Rules of Brainstorming

1. Speak freely
2. Don’t criticize
3. Provide as many ideas as possible
4. Build on others’ ideas

8-33
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
8-34
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
technology-bound

8-35
 Nominal Group Technique

Individual Team Individual

Activity Activity Activity

Possible
Write down Vote on
Describe solutions
possible solutions
problem described
solutions presented
to others

8-36