Team work & Team building
 To
understand the basic concepts and ideas
of team work and team building.
 To appreciate the strengths and difficulties
of working as a team.
 To learn the basics of promoting team work
in the organization.
Types of Teams
 Formal
versus informal
 Mechanical versus organic
 Inter-team versus intra-team
 Inter-agency versus intra-agency
 Same discipline versus different disciplines
 User-involved versus user-led
Synergy of Teams
 Synergy:
the creation of a whole that is
greater than the sum of its parts.
 Usefulness of synergy includes:
–
–
–
–
–
increasing resources for problem solving
improving quality of decision making
enhancing members’ commitments to tasks
fostering creativity and innovation
satisfying individual needs for growth
Task Activities of a Team
 Initiating
 Information
sharing
 Summarizing
 Elaborating
 Opinion giving
 Distributed leadership
Maintenance Activities of a Team
 Gatekeeping
 Encouraging
 Harmonizing
 Reducing
tension
 Norming
 Self-managing
Avoidance of disruptive activities
or behavior
 Being
aggressive
 Blocking
 Self-confessing
 Seeking sympathy
 Competing
 Withdrawal
 Seeking recognition
Obstacles to Team Work
 Personality
conflicts: Individual differences in
personality and work style may disrupt the group.
 Task ambiguity: Unclear agendas and ill-defined
problems.
 Free riding: Diffusion of individual efforts and
responsibilities.
 Poor readiness to work: Wasting of time in
unprepared meetings
Characteristics of High
Performance Teams
A
clear and elevating goal
 A task-driven, result-oriented structure
 Competent and committed members
 A collaborative climate
 External support, recognition and
delegation
 Strong, principled and yet democratic
leadership
Team cohesiveness versus
performance norms
 Low
productivity: strong commitments to
harmful norms
 Low to moderate productivity: weak
commitments to harmful norms
 High productivity: strong commitments to
supportive norms
 Moderate productivity: weak commitments
to supportive norms
Teamthink/Groupthink
 Teamthink
or Groupthink is the tendency
for highly cohesive groups to lose their
critical evaluative capabilities for
undermining their weaknesses and
promoting their strengths. Because of
undesirable competition and disruption
between teams, alienation will be resulted
accordingly.
Symptoms of Groupthink
 Illusions
of group invulnerability
 Belief in inherent group morality
 Applying direct pressure to ‘deviants’ to conform
to group wishes
 Self-censorship by members
 Accepting consensus prematurely
 Protecting the team from hearing disturbing
viewpoints from outsiders
How to handle groupthink
 Encourage
a sharing of viewpoints
 Create subgroups to work on the same
problem and then share their proposed
solutions
 Assign one member to play a ‘devil’s
advocate’ role at each group meeting
 Review the decision after consensus is
apparently achieved
Inputs of Team building
 Organizational
setting: resources,
technology, structures, atmosphere
 Nature of task: clarity and complexity
 Group size: number of members
 Membership characteristics: abilities,
values and personalities
 User participation: primary versus
secondary users
Throughputs of team building
 The
way members interact and work
together to transform inputs into outputs.
 The process through which ideas and
contribution of team members are
recognized.
Outputs of team building
 Accomplishment
of desired outcomes as
follows:
- task performance and productivity
- human resource maintenance and
development
- prevention of disruptive groupthink and
team alienation
Task Functions
 Information
and opinion giver
 information and opinion seeker
 starter
 direction giver
 summariser
 co-ordinator
 diagnoser
 energiser
 reality tester
 evaluator
Task Needs
 Defining
the task
 Making a plan
 allocating work
 controlling work quality
 checking performance against the plan
 adjusting the plan
Maintenance Functions
encourager of participation
 Harmoniser
 tension reliever
 communication helper
 evaluator of emotional climate
 process observer
 standard setter
 active listener
 trust builder
 interpersonal problem solver

Maintenance Needs
 Setting
standards
 maintaining discipline
 building team spirit
 encouraging, motivating, giving a sense of
purpose
 ensuring communication with the group
 training the group as a group
Self-oriented Behaviour
 dominating
 blocking
 recognition
 pairing
seeking
up
 withdrawing
 playboying
Individual Needs
 attending
to personal problems
 encouraging individuals
 giving status
 recognising and using individual abilities
 training the individual