Honors Business Management
Chapter 13 – Groups and Teams
Key Questions
Section 13.1: How is one collection of workers different from any other?
Section 13.2: How does a group evolve into a team?
Section 13.3: How can I as a manager build an effective team?
Getting’ good
players is easy.
Gettin’ ‘em to
play together is
the hard part.
Section 13.4: Since conflict is a part of life, what should a manager know
about it in order to deal successfully with it?
Casey Stengel
Vocabulary
Group
Adjourning
Team
Division of labor
Formal group
Social loafing
Informal group
Role
Advice teams
Task role
Production teams
Maintenance role
Project teams
Norms
Action teams
Cohesiveness
Quality circles
Groupthink
Self-managed teams
Conflict
Forming
Negative conflict
Storming
Constructive conflict
Norming
Programmed conflict
Group cohesiveness
Devil’s advocacy
Performing
Dialectic method
Independent Section
 Manager’s Toolbox – p. 405
 Section 13.2 – pp. 411-412 (see notes page)
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Section 13.1 Groups & Teams
1. Why is teamwork important?
a. +
d. +
b. +
e. -
c. +
f.
-
2. Groups v. Teams
GROUPS
TEAMS
3. Types of Groups
a. Formal
b. Informal
4. Purposes of Groups
Group
Purpose
Examples
Advice
Production
Project
Action
5. Quality Circles:
6. Self-Managed Teams
Section 13.1 Homework: Complete the assignment for the article, Elite Teams Get the Job Done on
packet pages.7-14.
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Section 13.2 Stages of Group & Team Development
Stage
What Happens
What Should You Do?
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning
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Section 13.3 Building Effective Teams
1. Performance Goals and Feedback
2. Motivation thru Mutual Accountability requires
a.
b.
c.
d.
3. Size
Size
Small
Large
4. Roles:
a. Task
b. Maintenance
5. Norms:
a.
b.
c.
d.
6. Cohesiveness:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
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Advantages
Disadvantages
7. Groupthink:
a. Symptoms of Groupthink
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
b. Results of Groupthink
i.
ii.
c. Overcoming Groupthink
i.
ii.
Section 13.3 Homework: Complete the worksheet Can You Manage This? on packet page 14.
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Section 13.4 Managing Conflict
1. Conflict is the process in which one party ________________________ that its interests are being
_______________________ or ________________________ affected by another party.
a. Negative Conflict:
b. Constructive Conflict:
2. Seven Causes of Conflict
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
3. Five Conflict-Handling Styles
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
4. Stimulating Constructive Conflict
a.
b.
c.
d.
i. Devil’s Advocacy
ii. Dialectic Method
Section 13.4 Homework: Complete the worksheet Cohension or Dysfuntion on packet page 15.
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Directions:
1. Read Section One of the Article and answer these questions:
a. According to the article, what causes most teams to fail?
b. Bonus: To what does the shaded sentence refer?
c. What common elements of successful teams did the author identify?
d. What lessons did the author learn from each group? (You should have six lessons.) Which lesson
was identified as most crucial?
2. Select one of the remaining sections to read and answer these questions:
a. What connections can you make to what we have learned in class about teams and groups?
b. What challenges did your group face? How did/does the group respond to these challenges?
c. How does teamwork help your group achieve high-performance?
ELITE TEAMS GET THE JOB DONE
TEAM-BASED MANAGEMENT IS A LOT HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. HERE'S WHAT COMPANIES CAN LEARN FROM HIGHPERFORMANCE GROUPS OUTSIDE THE CORPORATE WORLD.
By KENNETH LABICH
REPORTER ASSOCIATE ERIN M. DAVIES
Forbes Magazine, February 19, 1996
Section One – Everyone Reads This Section
WEIRD FACT OF LIFE: for every problem we
face, someone has come up with a solution way too
slick to be true. So we've got fat-free mayonnaise
that tastes like rancid yak butter, and let's not talk
about bald guys who spray-paint their skulls.
In the corporate world, there's that supposed miracle
cure for ailing organizations--team-based
management. The notion hasn't been a total bust;
freewheeling, egalitarian teams have worked
wonders at companies like Boeing, Volvo, HewlettPackard, and Federal Express. But the story's a sad
one at more and more outfits that have taken up the
cause. Here's how a team leader from American
President Companies, responding in a focus group
conducted by Forum Corp., put it: "A team is like
having a baby tiger given to you at Christmas. It
does a wonderful job of keeping the mice away for
about 12 months, and then it starts to eat your kids."
At the heart of the problem, say most management
imams versed in the subject, is simple human nature.
All too often team leaders revert to form and claim
the sandbox for themselves, refusing to share
authority with the other kids. Everyone else,
meanwhile, sets to bickering about peripheral things
like who gets credit for what the team produces. Old
habits cling to life.
Yet we've all come across teams outside the
corporate realm that have beaten such problems.
Like Justice Stewart watching naughty movies, we
know the real stuff when we see it. The Chicago
Bulls run a full-court fast break, capped by a
thunderous Scottie Pippen dunk. A police SWAT
team circles in on some crazed maniac barricaded
inside a house. U.S. Army engineers slap together a
pontoon bridge over a swollen river in Bosnia. You
can't watch such elite, high-performance teams
operate without wondering what these people know
that so many of their corporate counterparts have yet
to learn.
In search of that very answer, FORTUNE spent time
with seven highly successful, decidedly uncorporate
teams and their leaders this autumn and winter.
What we found, in each case, is that success at the
highest level has been hard won. All of these elite
groups think about and talk about working together
all the time. Some of the groups we visited perform
together almost without individual egos, like some
multiheaded organism, but none of them got to that
place without fierce effort--or hope to remain there
without intense vigilance.
On a trip to the U.S. Navy SEAL training base near
San Diego, we saw how effective teams can be when
everyone has an overriding compulsion to excel.
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From the offensive linemen of the Dallas Cowboys,
mammoth athletes who labor in virtual anonymity,
and from the four world-class musicians who form
the Tokyo String Quartet, we learned the value of
resisting the egotism rampant in their fields. Anson
Dorrance, the driven coach of the University of
North Carolina women's soccer team, made a strong
case for taking the trouble to discover what
motivates each individual he leads.
In Houston, the men who capped the raging Kuwaiti
oil wells after the Gulf war testified to the power of
group trust and absolute loyalty. The emergencytrauma team at Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston showed how a flexible team switches leaders
seamlessly, depending on the crisis at hand. Racecar team owner Richard Childress, who has slowly
put together the most potent crew on the Nascar
circuit, provided perhaps the most crucial lesson of
all: if you want to build a great team, you'd better
learn to be patient.
Section Two – Navy SEALs
HELL WEEK BEGINS at sundown on Sunday, at
the end of the fifth week of training. The U.S. Navy
SEAL recruits have already been through one of the
most punishing physical and mental regimens ever
devised, but for the next five days all that will seem
like nothing. They will run endless miles, wearing
boots, over sand. They will swim endless miles in
the cold night waters of the Pacific. They will paddle
rubber boats for hours, run a daunting obstacle
course over and over, perform grueling calisthenics
using 300-pound logs while instructors scream
insults at them. During the five days of Hell Week,
they will be allowed a total of perhaps four hours'
sleep.
After a couple days of this, hallucinations are
common. Captain Steve Ahlberg, 45, a SEAL and
now deputy chief of staff for the Navy's special
warfare command, recalls seeing a giant figure
walking across the water as he and his crew paddled
along in their rubber boat during his Hell Week. He
pointed out the phenomenon to his boat mates, and
they all seemed to find it unremarkable.
Lieutenant junior grade Jeff Eggers, a 24-year-old
former Rhodes scholar who entered SEAL training
this summer, recalls reaching some dark night of the
soul during his Hell Week. His boat was being
battered by eight-foot waves as he and his mates
tried to get out to sea, and some of the crew began to
lose it. "It brought me all the way down, and I had to
climb back up to survive," says Eggers. Says chief
boatswain's mate Pat Harwood, a chiseled, veteran
SEAL now working as an instructor at the unit's
seaside compound at Coronado, near San Diego:
"The worst thing about Hell Week is that there are
no parameters--you just don't know when the agony
will end, and it really messes with your mind. I like
to say that to get through this kind of challenge you
need to have a black heart, meaning you are the sort
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of person who will do anything--anything--to get
where you need to go."
And that's the point. Hell Week weeds out recruits
who can't or won't make a total commitment to the
group; about 30% of the trainees typically drop out
during the five days. Says Rear Admiral Raymond
Smith, the Navy's special-warfare commander: "We
are talking here about a seminal event, something
that is at the core of our vetting process."
The first phase of training that climaxes with Hell
Week is followed by seven weeks of rigorous
underwater training, another nine weeks of weapons
and explosives work, and then the three-week Army
parachute-jumping course at Fort Benning, Georgia.
After all that, the recruit must prove himself with an
active SEAL unit during a six-month probationary
period. Only about three of every ten recruits, all of
whom had to pass tough physical standards even to
begin training, eventually become SEALs. (The
acronym refers to these commandos' all-terrain
expertise: sea, air, land.) There are a total of about
500 SEAL officers and 1,800 enlisted men.
The one impossibility is predicting who will stay the
course. You can spot a few musclemen around the
campuslike Coronado compound, but most of the
commandos are of normal build and seemingly
normal temperament. The best athletes, the fastest
and strongest of the group, are sometimes the first to
quit; one world-class triathlete walked away within
the first few days of training this autumn. One
surefire way to wash out, say all the SEALs, is
trying to get by without the help of fellow recruits.
Says Eggers: "If you are the sort of person who
sucks all the energy out of the group without giving
anything back, then you are going to go away."
That sense of all-out teamwork is carried through in
the field. SEALs never operate on their own, and
their sense of identification with the group is all but
total. One great source of unit pride is that no dead
SEAL has ever been left behind on a battlefield.
A few of the SEALs' more spectacular feats have
become public. During the Vietnam war, three
SEALs--including current U.S. Senator Robert
Kerrey--won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and
12 more were awarded the Silver Star, all for acts of
conspicuous bravery. More recently a SEAL named
Howard Wasdin won a Silver Star in Somalia for
repeatedly returning under fire to pick up fallen
comrades, despite the multiple gunshot wounds he
had suffered.
Much of the SEALs' work overseas is--for them-relatively routine: teaching Namibian game wardens
how to track down poachers, training Singaporean
army regulars to combat potential terrorists. But
clandestine, highly classified missions take place all
the time. At any given moment groups of SEALs
may be out in the field doing jobs that are never
reported publicly. A rebel group is preparing to
ambush a food convoy heading for a refugee camp
in Rwanda; the only bridge the rebels can use to
reach the convoy suddenly blows up. A Libyan
trawler, lying in port before trying to run the Red
Sea blockade against Iraq, mysteriously explodes. A
band of drug smugglers is ambushed in the
Colombian jungle. When you meet these people, the
cliche is very true: You are glad they are on our side.
Section Three – Dallas Cowboys
THE PRESS IS ALLOWED into the Dallas
Cowboys locker room at midday on most
Wednesdays, and it can be a dubious privilege.
Players in various states of undress wander in and
out, chatting with one another in front of their
cluttered cubicles and carefully ignoring the cluster
of reporters and TV crews milling around in the
center of the large square room. On this particular
autumn Wednesday, a break in the tedium occurs
only when superstar defensive back Deion Sanders
saunters in and declares himself willing to speak.
The reporters close in as Sanders points the Nike
logo on his cap at the nearest lens, analyzes his new
Pepsi contract, and critiques his own performance on
the previous night's David Letterman show. When a
reporter poses a question about the next Cowboy
opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles, Sanders appears
to be annoyed.
The mob is so entranced by Deion's fandango that
hardly anyone notices when several of the Cowboys'
offensive linemen heave into view on the other side
of the room. It is a remarkable sight. These are huge
men, each at least six-three and 300 pounds. They
can seem as nimble as cats on the field, but their
great bulk seems inappropriate anywhere else. They
don't so much walk as glide majestically, like tall
ships entering a harbor.
Playing the offensive line is a largely anonymous
profession, no matter how good you might be at it.
Quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, even
defensive linemen gain far more notice. The
Cowboy starters on the offensive line--tackles Erik
Williams and Mark Tuinei, guards Larry Allen and
Nate Newton, center Ray Donaldson (injured late in
the season and replaced by Derek Kennard)--form
one of the finest such NFL units in years, yet only
the most rabid fans know their names. Happily, they
wouldn't have it any other way. These modest
behemoths get their greatest satisfaction from quietly
doing their jobs.
Accordingly, Tuinei and Allen seem a bit startled
when a reporter approaches them to ask a few
questions. Allen, a second-year, 325-pounder,
mumbles a platitude or two and wanders off, no
doubt in search of a serious lunch. Tuinei, a
towering 6-foot-5 native Hawaiian and 13-year
veteran, hangs in a bit longer. "Me and the other
guys are like a family," he says. The anonymity of
playing on the offensive line doesn't bother him a
bit, he adds. He says he and his colleagues are
especially proud that opponents have been able to
penetrate their protective curtain and dump
quarterback Troy Aikman on his fanny only about
once per game this season. "That's what makes us
feel good," he says. "Not talking about how terrific
we are."
Offensive line coach Hudson Houck, 53, a balding,
highly enthusiastic gentleman who has been working
with massive athletes like these for more than two
decades, is far less shy about singing the unit's
praises. Says he: "They are a team within a team, the
best I've ever been around." Crafty veterans Tuinei
and Newton have been particularly adept at
integrating younger players like Williams and Allen
into the system, says Houck. Anyone who doesn't
work hard all the time is shunned. Donaldson, a
durable, experienced player who came over from
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Seattle this season, was accepted immediately when
he showed the right attitude at practice.
To appreciate fully just how effective the quintet can
be, says Houck, you have to watch them pull off a
slant play, the classic running maneuver that has
helped back Emmitt Smith lead the league in rushing
several times in recent years. An opportunity to do
just that came the following Monday when the
Cowboys took on the Eagles. The play was called
late in the first quarter, and Tuinei and Newton,
working on the left side of the line, drove their
opponents back and away from the middle of the
action. Williams, at right tackle, did the same to his
man. Donaldson and Allen, meanwhile, doubleteamed the right defensive tackle for an instant,
before Allen slipped his block and took out the
opposing middle linebacker.
All eyes were on Smith as he burst through the gap
created by the various blocks for a long gain. You
had to be looking for the small signs of fulfillment-a head butt here, a high-five there--that the offensive
linemen allowed themselves as they moved back
into the huddle.
Section Four – Toyko String Quartet
FOR THE TOKYO STRING QUARTET, widely
recognized as one of the world's finest musical
ensembles, a particularly satisfying moment came in
1993. The group--violinists Peter Oundjian and
Kikuei Ikeda, cellist Sadao Harada, and violist
Kazuhide Isomura--had been performing a series of
Beethoven concerts at La Scala, the opera house in
Milan. On the final night of the series, the four
suddenly found themselves playing with greater
fluency and feeling than ever before. They had
completely left their individual selves and become
one with the music. The audience, sophisticated
musically, was soon transported as well. When the
final notes sounded, the crowd maintained an
awestruck silence for perhaps 15 seconds before
exploding into cheers. "I was crying, and then I
looked over and saw everyone else was crying as
well," says the impish Isomura. "It was extremely
emotional."
Such moments of transcendent unity may come
rarely, but members of the quartet, like those on
other elite teams, work hard to keep their individual
egos in check. Says Harada: "We don't think about
who gets to show off their great sound, their great
technique. We must project as one and put forth the
quartet's musical personality."
The group has found it's not always easy to stifle
their egos, especially since each of the four is skilled
enough to be considered a virtuoso soloist. It helps
that somewhere between 200 to 300 great classical
pieces have been written for chamber groups, far
more than any stringed-instrument soloist could
hope to encounter; the richness and variety of the
repertoire make it easier to find fulfillment when the
rigors of constant travel and incessant rehearsal wear
them down.
Because they have played together for decades, the
three Japanese members of the quartet long ago
developed natural ways of blending their skills.
Their moods, talents, preferences--all are known
territory. For a team in a profession that demands
continuous innovation, the downside of such lifelong
familiarity could be a sort of creative complacency.
But the quartet was rescued from that fate in 1981
when Canadian Peter Oundjian joined up after the
original first violinist dropped out. Oundjian brought
an outsider's perspective to the group, questioning
everything from musical selections to tour
destinations. With less flexible teammates, the
group's chemistry might have been destroyed by
such an intruder. Instead, the mix has been enriched.
Says Ikeda: "Because Peter brought with him a fresh
approach, we have been able to see ourselves more
objectively. We began to question everything along
with him, and it's been continually challenging. This
is what people should want in their work lives."
Section Five – UNC Women’s Soccer
ONE EVENING IN 1979, soon after he had taken
over as coach of the University of North Carolina
women's soccer team, Anson Dorrance was passing
time by reading Pat Conroy's novel The Great
Santini. Dorrance found himself stirred by the
hypermacho dialogue of the title character, a Marine
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Corps pilot, and he thought he might fire up his
players the next day by passing along some of the
rhetoric that had so moved him. "So I came to
practice and started yammering about releasing your
inner fury and eating life before it eats you," he says.
"It was a disaster. The women just sat there, staring
at me with blank faces." He has kept his reading
preferences to himself ever since.
Dorrance, 45, a strikingly intense, dark-haired man
who was himself a star UNC soccer player, clearly
learned his lesson exceedingly well. Over the past 17
seasons he has put together perhaps the most
dominant college athletic program in history. His
women's teams have compiled an extraordinary 34810-10 collegiate record since 1979, and this year's
team narrowly missed taking UNC's tenth straight
NCAA championship.
Dorrance traces much of that success to specific
motivational techniques he has developed over the
years. With women, he has found, the key is finding
what will trigger their self-confidence. Entering a
prestigious program like Carolina's, even the best
high school athletes will question their ability. "You
go from being the best around to a situation where
everybody was the best around," says Robin Confer,
a high-scoring sophomore forward from Clearwater,
Florida. To overcome any nagging doubts they may
have about their talent, Dorrance works his charges
ferociously at preseason practices. They will know
that at least they have outtrained their opponents, he
reasons.
Then comes another problem, says Dorrance: Once
women begin to bond with teammates, they tend to
lose their competitive edge. Says he: "Men compete
naturally--we'd rather beat the hell out of a friend
than an enemy. Women prefer not to compete
against people they like." To counter that trait,
Dorrance and his assistants rate every player's
performance on every drill during practice, and put
out updated rankings each week. "The practices
become like war," says Angela Kelly, a star on
UNC's 1994 championship team.
None of his little tricks will work if he doesn't
establish a personal relationship with each player,
says Dorrance. He says that men respond to leaders
who demonstrate strength and competence, while
women want to experience a leader's humanity.
They do their best only if they believe they have a
personal connection to the leader.
This sense of connectedness goes well beyond
coach-player relations. The players themselves
maintain an intricate network of relationships that
allow them to handle the pressures of maintaining
the school's outrageous record of success. The
women are particularly sensitive to the internal
rhythms of the team; if two players are feuding, the
whole group is thrown out of whack. "When you
first get here, you don't understand the bonds you
have to build," says Staci Wilson, a sophomore
defensive whiz from Herndon, Virginia. "You really
do end up playing for each other."
Section Six – ER at Massachusetts General
THE CALLS STARTED coming in just before two
in the afternoon that autumn Monday. Two feuding
families from Boston's North End had held a wild
shootout in a Charlestown diner. At least five men
were down, and the ambulances were rolling toward
the emergency room at Massachusetts General
Hospital. As it turned out, four of the men died
before reaching the hospital, and only one had to be
treated. The place was a zoo nonetheless, with the
press outside howling for news of the survivor and a
dozen outraged relatives roaming the hallways. A
couple of days later you could still see the hole
someone had punched in the waiting-room wall.
That was by no means a normal day for Mass
General's emergency-trauma team. "We get a lot
more stabbings than shootings," says registered
nurse Ray Bisio, a nine-year veteran of the service.
But things stayed on an even keel because everyone
knew their job and continued to perform.
Somewhere around 200 patients show up daily at the
emergency room at Mass General, generally
acknowledged to be one of the world's finest
teaching hospitals. About one-third of those patients
will be admitted, and a score or so of the worst
cases, those whose well-being or lives are in serious
jeopardy, will wind up in the trauma center. There,
they will be stabilized and usually moved on to
surgery or the intensive-care unit. The flow of sick
and injured--and the stress of treating them--never
ends. On holidays like the Fourth of July, it seems
that half of Boston is blowing off extremities with
fireworks. The whole town seems intent on
slamming cars into brick walls on New Year's Eve.
The importance of seamless role-playing is
dramatically evident when a gurney rolls into the
small, brightly lit trauma center. A triage nurse has
already determined that the patient is in big trouble,
so there is never any time to lose. A team of doctors,
nurses, and technicians comes together, seemingly
by some strange kind of osmosis, and moves silently
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to the patient's side. Each person begins a task-talking to the patient, running an IV, checking out a
wound, hooking up a machine. Someone soon takes
charge and plots a strategy for treatment. Usually a
doctor, an attending physician or a senior resident,
takes the lead, but at Mass General the direction can
come from an intern or a nurse particularly well
versed in an applicable field. "Nobody bosses
everybody around," says attending physician
Frederick Volinsky. "If someone has a thought that's
useful, we are open to suggestions."
The key point is that someone has to take on the
responsibility--and live with the consequences. Says
Alasdair Conn, the genial, 48-year-old Scotsman
who presides over the trauma team as chief of
emergency services: "Making a decision, even a
wrong decision, is better than not making one at all."
The quandaries just keep coming. An 84-year-old
woman with a history of breathing problems is
wheeled in. If you hook her up to a respirator, she
may be stuck on one for life. If you don't, she may
die. A young man, just 24, has fallen off a roof onto
his back. He seems all right, but if a subtle spine
injury isn't recognized he could end up in a
wheelchair.
The stress can be unbearable for some, but the team
players at Mass General take solace in their
professionalism, in knowing their roles and
performing at the highest level. Conn says he looks
for people who have some outside interest--sculling,
numismatics--that they can use to escape the mental
rigors of their work life. Maryfran Hughes, manager
of the 55 to 60 nurses required to staff the hospital's
various emergency services, says an adaptive
personality can be as important as sheer competence.
Says she: "People have to deal with situations where
they have no control."
Section Seven – Boots & Coots Oil Well Firefighters
IT CAN HAPPEN anytime, for a hundred different
reasons. A spark from a rock striking metal. Static
electricity from clothes or work boots. Any kind of
mistake or mischance and it's all over. For Joseph
Carpenter, Martin Kelly, and Danny Strong, veteran
[firefighters] from the Houston firm Boots & Coots,
the end came at 3:15 in the afternoon this past June
10. The three were working on an out-of-control oil
well in the Syrian desert, about 25 kilometers east of
a town called Deir ez Zor. The blowout was
underground, and the Houston well cappers had
contained the surface oil in a large pit and were
drilling a relief shaft to stabilize pressure below the
crack. There was no reason to expect the sudden
explosion at the wellhead that ended the three men's
lives.
A few months later a noticeable gloom still clings to
the men who occupy the modest Boots & Coots
headquarters in north Houston. Like other elite
teams, these [firefighters] draw strength from the
high-tensile bonds of trust and loyalty they have
developed over the years. The loss of three brethren
was a hard blow. "It's more or less natural to have a
special thing with the other guys," says James
Tuppen, 38, a Boots & Coots senior firefighter.
"You spend a [darn] sight more time with them than
you do with your own family, and your life is in
their hands all the time."
Tuppen, a slim, sandy-haired man, and his burly
partner, David Thompson, 42, have taken over
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management of their enterprise from the semiretired
founders, Asger "Boots" Hansen and Edward Owen
"Coots" Matthews. Those two learned this curious
trade alongside the legendary Red Adair, now retired
as well. Only a few dozen people on the planet can
be called experts at controlling blowout wells, and
Tuppen and Thompson, along with affiliated
engineer John Wright, are among the most
experienced. About 20 to 25 times in a normal year
the phone rings in Houston, and one of the senior
[firefighters] gathers up a team and heads off to
some oil-soaked site, as close as west Texas or as far
away as east Africa.
They never know what they will find at a job site;
conditions are usually primitive and often
dangerous. They may wind up in Nigeria, trying to
cap a well while keeping an eye out for armed
bandits. Or in South America, dealing with obsolete
equipment and hostile government officials. Or on a
platform in the North Sea, coping with 50-foot
waves and subzero temperatures.
Then there is the food. Says Tuppen: "I remember
down in Venezuela one time when they gave us
some stuff to eat that was crawlin' with bugs. First
few days, I just threw it away. After that, I scraped
off the bugs and ate it. After a couple of weeks, I ate
it bugs and all--for the protein." He adds: "It's sort of
like the farmer who is feeding his dog a head of
cabbage when a neighbor stops by. 'I didn't know
that dog ate cabbage,' says the neighbor. 'He didn't at
first,' says the farmer."
obstacles. Says Tuppen: "We put out 128 of the
baddest sons of bitches over there."
The world at large became aware of the Texans'
exploits back in 1991-92, when Saddam Hussein
chose to ignite more than 700 Kuwaiti wells prior to
his troops' retreat into Iraq. Boots & Coots was one
of the first firms called in to contain the blazes after
the war, and the company's [firefighters] were
handed some of the toughest jobs because of their
experience. The fires themselves weren't the main
problem, though temperatures often topped 3,000¡ F.
at the wellheads. As Thompson explains it, "When a
well is on fire, it's already done the worst it can do."
More troubling were the land mines and unexploded
shells scattered about the oil fields, the lack of water
to damp down the flames, and the scarcity of heavy
machinery and other equipment. In the end, the
Boots & Coots crews overcame the various
What the Texans weren't ready for was the torrent of
publicity that followed their feats in the Gulf.
Suddenly, hundreds of resumes came pouring in.
Most of them went unread, for these [firefighters]
are fully aware that theirs is a craft for a very few.
Thompson talks about a neighbor who bugged him
repeatedly for a shot at a job. "I finally said all right,
and the guy quit on me three times the first day," he
says. "This is hot, dirty, nasty work." The company
maintains a core staff of about ten firefighters, and
Thompson and Tuppen say they are unlikely to add
anyone they haven't known for years and brought
along slowly, teaching him one trick at a time.
There's too much on the line for all concerned, too
much at stake to take on someone who hasn't earned
their trust.
Section 8 - NASCAR
IN THE FLASHY, high-profile world of
professional stock-car racing, no team-builder has
bided his time better than Richard Childress. A
brusque, broad-faced man from Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, Childress, 50, was a moderately
successful driver during the 1970s and early 1980s.
But he has found his gear as an owner-entrepreneur,
building the sport's most dominant crew. Since
hooking up with top driver Dale Earnhardt in 1984,
Childress has taken home six Winston Cup
championships, the sport's top prize. In 1995,
Childress's GM Goodwrench team finished a close
second after digging a deep hole with early season
crashes.
Taking a cue from his own slow climb, Childress
looks for young talent that he can mold to his team's
needs. "I'd rather train them our way than try to
break old habits," he says. One team member who
fabricates new body parts had been making wood
stoves. Childress found a top engine man doing scut
work at a Chevy dealer.
Nearly all team members start at the bottom-cleaning up after the mechanics in the garage,
running errands. Even when they get to go on the
road with the team, they are assigned to menial tasks
like stacking tires and filling water bottles. All the
while, they are being judged less for their
performance than for their ability to work with the
team. Says Danny "Chocolate" Myers, a Childress
team member since its inception: "Attitude is more
important than expertise--you've got to have people
who won't let you down." The employees who don't
make the cut are usually those who won't take the
time to master the team's values and mores,
according to team crew chief David Smith. "They
come in with a self-centered attitude, livin' in the
'me' world," says Smith, who has worked his way up
the team ladder since 1981.
One true test of any racing team's mettle is the
facility of its pit crew. Winston Cup races are often
settled by fractions of a second, and any delays in
the pit can blow away a team's chances. A top crew-seven men over the wall working on the car itself,
another eight to ten on the other side handing them
things and clearing away equipment--can change all
four tires, power-pump 21 gallons into the tank,
clean the windshield, and give the driver a drink of
water, all in under 20 seconds. More sensitive
maneuvers like adjusting tire pressure or changing
the aerodynamics of the front end take more time,
but not much more.
We are talking here about teamwork at a rarefied
level, a swarm of people acting as one. These folks
have checked their self-interest back in the garage
somewhere and moved to another zone. It's a state in
which team members--be they musicians,
commandos, or athletes--create a collective ego, one
that gets results unattainable by people merely
working side by side. It's all about humility, of
course. Is that why it's such a scarce thing in the
business world?
13
Worksheet - Can You Manage This?
Last month, Carlos Allgood was promoted from word processing associate to word processing
supervisor. The former supervisor was being transferred because she wasn’t able to get sufficient
production from the word processing group. Carlos has been promoted because the department head,
Lyle Waggoner, believed Carlos was a natural leader, knew the people in the group well, and knew the
tricks they used to keep production down. Lyle was confident in Carlos’s abilities and willing to support
his efforts.
Lyle was right. Carlos did know the tricks. In fact, he started many of them! The work group practiced
their tricks, not because they disliked their supervisor, but because they all thought it was fun and a
challenge to outwit her. For example, they used signals to let each other know when she was coming so
they would all look like they were hard at work. Then they would take it easy again when she left.
They’d also pretend not to understand some new procedure so she’d go to great lengths to demonstrate
and explain it. That way, they could stand around instead of work. They would complain to each other
about working conditions, even though, Carlos knew, there was no justification for their complaints. At
lunch, they’d ridicule the company and plan new ways to harass their supervisor. To them, it was a big
joke.
Now Carlos is the one who’s on the outside of the group, and the jokes are not so funny. He is
determined to convince the group to work for the company, not against it. He knows how smart and
talented this group really is and how loyal they are to each other. He believes they could produce a well
above-average product if they are properly motivated.
Of course, now that he’s the boss, his former colleagues are rather cool to him. That doesn’t bother him;
he thinks he can overcome that in a few weeks. What does worry him is that Linda Allen has taken over
as chief, and now they are trying to trick Carlos like they tricked their old supervisor.
1. Did Lyle make a good choice when he promoted Carlos? Why or why not?
2. What suggestions would you make to Carlos to turn this group into a team?
14
Worksheet – Cohesion or Dysfuntion?
Directions: Consider a group that you’ve worked with for a school project. Then answer the questions.
1. What norms did the group have?
2. What roles were present?
3. How much conflict did the group experience?
4. Which of the sources of conflict presented in this chapter were present?
5. Which conflict handling styles did each group member have (list the member, the style, and which
behaviors were demonstrated that support your assessment of their style).
6. Finally, what could you have done, specifically, to stimulate more conflict in your group?
15
Chapter Review
General Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
How do groups and teams differ? Answer in detail.
Why is it important for a manager to know and at times “manage” informal groups?
List the four purposes of teams and provide an example of each.
How are quality circles and self-directed teams related?
Summarize each of the stages of group and team development.
What are the things a manager should consider when transforming a group into a team?
What eight things can a manager do to build cohesive teams?
What is the optimal team size?
Define the two types of team roles.
List two reasons why norms are enforced.
Compare and contrast negative and constructive conflict.
Summarize what happens to an organization when it experiences too little or too much conflict.
Answer one of the following:
a. Have you ever experienced groupthink? Describe your experience.
b. Have you ever experienced constructive conflict? Describe your experience.
Vocabulary Review
Directions: Answers may be used only once.
A. Adjourning
F. Formal
B. Conflict
G. Informal
C. Cross-functional team
H. Maintenance
D. Dialectic methods
I. Negative
E. Division of labor
J. Norming
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
Performing
Programmed
Quality circles
Self-managed teams
Storming
_____ 1. A role-playing criticism to test whether a proposal is workable.
_____ 2. Characterized by the emergence of individual personalities and roles and conflicts within the group.
_____ 3. Consists of small groups of volunteers or workers and supervisors who meet intermittently to discuss
the workplace and quality-related concerns.
_____ 4. Group established to do something productive for the organization and is headed by a leader.
_____ 5. Group formed by people seeking friendship.
_____ 6. Groups of workers who are given administrative oversight for their task domains.
_____ 7. Involves resolving conflicts, developing closer relationships and emerging unity and harmony.
_____ 8. Known as a relationship-oriented role.
_____ 9. Process in which one party perceives that its interest are being opposed or negatively affected by
another party.
_____ 10. Team staffed with specialists pursuing a common objective.
_____ 11. Type of conflict designed to elicit different opinions without inciting people’s personal feelings.
_____ 12. Type of conflict that hinders the organization’s performance and threatens its interests.
_____ 13. When members concentrate on solving problems and completing the assigned task.
_____ 14. When members prepare for disbandment.
_____ 15. When the work is divided into particular tasks that are assigned to particular workers.
16
Multiple Choice
_____ 1. Which of the following is one of the disadvantages of large teams?
a. Division of labor
c. Fewer resources
b. Lower morale
d. All of the above
_____ 2. All of the following are ways managers can enhance team cohesiveness except:
a. Keep the team small
b. Encourage interaction
c. Regularly update the team’s goals
d. Make sure only certain members have a “piece of the action”
_____ 3. All of the following are reasons for enforcing norms except:
a. To help the group survive
b. To clarify role expectations
c. To help individual avoid embarrassing situations
d. To help the group stick together
_____ 4. Which of the following is a symptom of groupthink?
a. Invulnerability
b. Illusion of unanimity
c. Rationalization
d. All of the above
_____ 5. Which of the following is not a cause of conflict?
a. Competition for scarce resources
b. Time pressure
c. Clear job boundaries
d. Individual differences can’t be resolved
_____ 6. Which of the following statements regarding conflict is true?
a. There can never be too much conflict
b. Conflict is always negative
c. Too little conflict leads to indolence
d. Too much conflict leads to social loafing
_____ 7. Which of the following is NOT a device for stimulating constructive conflict?
a. Spurring the competition among employees
b. Bringing in existing employees for different perspectives
c. Using non-programmed conflict
d. Changing the organization’s structure so that it embraces conflict
_____ 8. What can teamwork achieve?
a. Increased costs
b. Increased destructive internal competition
c. Increased speed
d. Less workplace cohesiveness
_____ 9. Which of the following is true regarding the differences between groups and teams?
a. They don’t differ.
b. Groups are freely interacting with a common goal and teams have complementary skills and
commitment to a common purpose.
c. Teams are formal and groups are informal.
d. Teams are larger than groups.
_____ 10. Which of the following is true regarding team size?
a. Smaller teams have better interaction.
b. Smaller teams have lower morale.
c. Larger groups produce possibly less innovation.
d. Larger groups lead to unfair work distribution.
17
True and False
T
F
1. Self-censorship is a symptom of groupthink.
T
F
2. You can prevent groupthink by allowing criticism and other perspectives.
T
F
3. Norms are enforced to help individuals embrace embarrassing situations.
T
F
4. Advice teams are quality circles.
T
F
5. A group is a collection of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose.
T
F
6. A formal group is a group established by the organization.
T
F
7. The dialectic method is a role-play criticism to test whether a proposal is workable.
T
F
8. Inconsistent goals can lead to conflict.
T
F
9. Too much conflict leads to indolence.
T
F
10. There is positive and negative conflict.
T
F
11. The best constructive teams are composed of people who did not know each other prior to joining
the team.
Matching
Directions: Match the recommended manager actions to the stage of team development.
_____ 1. Allow time for people to socialize
A. Adjourning
_____ 2. Emphasize lessons learned during a
ritual celebration
B. Forming
_____ 3. Emphasize unity and help identify
team goals
D. Performing
_____ 4. Empower members to work on tasks
C. Norming
E. Storming
_____ 5. Encourage members to express ideas
and voice disagreements
Matching
Directions: Match the statement to the conflict handling style. Place a star next to the style that is best.
_____ 1. Let’s cooperate to reach a solution
that benefits both of us.
A. Accommodating
B. Avoiding
_____ 2. Let’s do it your way.
C. Collaborating
_____ 3. Let’s split the different.
D. Compromising
_____ 4. Maybe the problem will go away.
E. Forcing
_____ 5. You have to do it my way.
18