BUILDING THE TEAM
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
Team as a collection of
individuals
Team as a collection of
individuals with a shared
common vision
 Alignment of purpose
Groups versus Teams
 All teams are groups
 Some groups are just people assembled
together
 Teams have task interdependence whereas
some groups do not (e.g., group of
employees enjoying lunch together)
Many Types of Teams
 Departmental teams
 Production/service/ leadership teams
 Self-directed teams
 Advisory teams
 Skunkworks
 Task force (project) teams
 Virtual teams
 Communities of practice
Why Informal Groups Exist
1. Innate drive to bond
2. Social identity
 We define ourselves by group memberships
3. Goal accomplishment
4. Emotional support
Advantages of Teams
Compared with individuals working alone, teams
tend to:
 Make better decisions
 Make better products and services due to
more knowledge and expertise
 Increase employee engagement
The Trouble With Teams
 Individuals better/faster on some tasks
 Process losses - cost of developing and
maintaining teams
 Brooks’ Law -- more delays when adding
members to a team already behind schedule
 Social loafing
 Occurs when individuals exert less effort when
working in groups than alone
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
TEAM EFFECTIVENESS MODEL
AND COMPONENTS
Team Effectiveness Model
Team Design
•Task characteristics
•Team size
Organizational
•Team composition
and Team
Environment
Team Processes
•Team development
•Team norms
•Team cohesiveness
•Team trust
Team
Effectiveness
• Achieve
organizational
goals
• Satisfy member
needs
• Maintain team
survival
Team’s Task and Size
 Task characteristics
 Better when tasks are clear, easy to implement
 Share common inputs, processes, or outcomes
 Task interdependence
 Team size
 Smaller teams are better
 But large enough to accomplish task
Levels of Task Interdependence
High
A
Reciprocal
B
Sequential
A
C
B
C
Resource
Pooled
Low
A
B
C
Team Composition
 Effective team members must be willing and able to work
on the team
 Effective team members are good at the 5 C’s:
 Cooperating
 Coordinating
 Communicating
 Comforting (psych support)
 Conflict resolving
 Team diversity
 Homogeneous or heterogeneous, depending on task
requirements
Team Development
 Team development involves:
 Interpersonal knowledge and trust
 Understand and agree on roles
 Discover appropriate behaviors
 Learn to coordinate with each other
 Develop team mental models
Stages of Team Development
Performing
Norming
Storming
Forming
Existing teams
might regress
back to an
earlier stage of
development
Adjourning
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
Changing Team Norms
 Introduce norms when forming teams
 Select members with preferred values
 Discuss counter-productive norms
 Reward behaviors representing desired
norms
 Disband teams with dysfunctional norms
Team Cohesion
 The degree of attraction people feel toward
the team and their motivation to remain
members
 Calculative -- members believe the team will
fulfill goals and needs
 Emotional -- team is part of person’s social
identity
Influences on Team Cohesion
Member
similarity
• Similarity-attraction effect
• Some forms of diversity have less effect
Team
size
• Smaller teams more cohesive
Member
interaction
• Regular interaction increases cohesion
• Calls for tasks with high interdependence
Influences on Team Cohesion
(con’t)
Somewhat
difficult entry
• Team eliteness increases cohesion
• But lower cohesion with severe initiation
Team
success
• Successful teams fulfill member needs
• Success increases social identity with team
External
challenges
• Challenges increase cohesion when not
overwhelming
Team Cohesiveness Outcomes
1. Want to remain members
2. Willing to share information
3. Strong interpersonal bonds
4. Resolve conflict effectively
5. Better interpersonal relationships
Cohesiveness and Performance
Team Norms
Support Goals
Moderately
high task
performance
High task
performance
Team Norms
Oppose Goals
Moderately
low task
performance
Low task
performance
Low Team
Cohesiveness
High Team
Cohesiveness
Trust Defined
A psychological state comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based
upon positive expectations of the intent or
behavior of another person
Three Levels of Trust
High
Identity-based Trust
Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
Low
Three Levels of Trust
(con’t)
 Calculus-based trust
 Based on deterrence
 Fragile, limited, dependent on punishment
 Knowledge-based trust
 Based on predictability and competence
 Fairly robust, develops over time
 Identification-based trust
 Based on common mental models and values
 Increases with person’s social identity with team
SELF-DIRECTED TEAMS AND
VIRTUAL TEAMS
Self-Directed Team Attributes
Formal groups that complete an entire piece of work
requiring several interdependent tasks and have substantial
autonomy over the execution of these tasks.
1. Complete an entire piece of work requiring
interdependent tasks
2. Substantial autonomy over execution of the team’s tasks
Self-Directed Team Success
Factors
 Responsible for entire work process
 High interdependence within the team
 Low interdependence with other teams
 Autonomy to organize and coordinate work
 Technology supports team
communication/coordination
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:
 Knowledge management
 Globalization
Virtual Team Success Factors
 Member characteristics
 Technology savvy
 Self-leadership skills
 Emotional intelligence
 Flexible use of communication technologies
 Opportunities to meet face-to-face
TEAM
DECISION MAKING
Team Decision Making Constraints
 Time constraints
 Time to organize/coordinate
 Production blocking
 Evaluation apprehension
 Belief that other team members are silently evaluating you
 Conformity to peer pressure
 Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms
 Groupthink
 Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus at the
price of decision quality
 Concept is losing favor -- need to consider specific features
instead (e.g. overconfidence)
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
Constructive Conflict
 Occurs when team members debate their
different perceptions about an issue in a way
that keeps the conflict focused on the task
rather than people.
 Problem: constructive conflict easily slides
into personal attacks
Rules of Brainstorming
1. Speak freely
2. Don’t criticize
3. Provide as many ideas as possible
4. Build on others’ ideas
Evaluating Brainstorming
 Strengths
 Produces more innovative ideas
 Strengthens decision acceptance and team
cohesiveness
 Sharing positive emotions encourages creativity
 Higher customer satisfaction if clients participate
 Weaknesses
 Production blocking still exists
 Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups
 Fewer ideas generated than when people work alone
Electronic Brainstorming
 Participants share ideas using software
 Usually in the same room, but may be
dispersed
 Question posted, then participants submit
their ideas or comments on computer
 Comments/ideas appear anonymously on
computer screens or at front of room
Evaluating Electronic Brainstorming
 Strengths




Less production blocking
Less evaluation apprehension
More creative synergy
More satisfaction with process
 Weaknesses




Too structured
Technology-bound
Candid feedback is threatening
Not applicable to all decisions
Nominal Group Technique
Describe
problem
Individual
Activity
Team
Activity
Write down
possible
solutions
Possible
solutions
described
to others
Individual
Activity
Vote on
solutions
presented