Building Effective Teams
Week 7
Question
• Which adage would you agree with more:
– “Many hands make light work!” or
– “Too many cooks spoil the broth?”
• Teams are popular, but does a team mean
“Together Everyone Achieves More”?
Stages of Team Development
(Tuckman, 1965)
• Five-Stage Model
– Forming
• Everyone tests the waters, tries out their roles
– Storming
• Power struggles between people asserting their
dominance
– Norming
• Close relationships are formed (camaraderie)
• Unspoken assumptions now dictate behavior
– Performing
• All energies are directed to completion of tasks
– Adjourning
• Team prepares for disbanding
3
Punctuated Equilibrium
(Gersick, 1988)
• Phase 1
– First meeting sets the team’s direction
– Little progress is made
• Phase 2
– Turning point at the half-way mark
– A new direction is set
– Higher performance
• Criticisms taken seriously, views discussed openly
– Some additional revolutions will occur towards the end
4
Marketing Plan
• Form your “book project group” and pair up with
one other group.
• Each mega-team will have half of its members
outside the classroom: you can only communicate
with the technology that you have with you.
• 30 minutes to prepare.
• Your mega-team will have to come up with a
marketing plan for a new product: something that
would appeal to Pet Owners (e.g., “Uni-cat”)
• Your team will make a 10-minute PowerPoint
presentation to the rest of the class.
5
Marketing Plan
• The 4 Ps of marketing plans are:
– Product (e.g., features, details),
– Price,
– Placement (i.e., where/how it can be purchased),
and
– Promotion (e.g., advertising campaigns).
• Ten minutes (max) to present your ideas,
everyone presents.
Marketing Plan
• How was the coordination among team
members?
– and across “offices”, specifically?
• How did you make decisions?
• What did you do well / not so well?
8
Building Effective Teams
• Composition
– Personality
• Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience
• Agreeableness (in moderation)
– Knowledge, Skills, Abilities
• Technical expertise, problem-solving, and social skills
– Size
• Depends on task, but no bigger than necessary
9
Building Effective Teams
• Context
– Adequate resources
• Technology, staffing, information
– Leadership
• From a team member, or from many team members, or
an outsider
– Performance evaluation and rewards
• Team-based rather than individual-based
• Low pay dispersion
• Distributive, procedural, interpersonal, informational
justice
10
Building Effective Teams
• Process
– Common Purpose: specific goals
• From “goal setting theory”
– Team efficacy
• From “self efficacy”
– Conflict
• Too much is bad, too little is also bad, some is ok
• Relationship vs. Task Conflict
– Social Loafing
• Why do some people not do their share?
11
Social Loafing
• Members exert less effort when working in
teams than working alone
• Factors that affect:
– Team size (+)
– Team produces single output (e.g., report) (+)
– Interestingness of the task (-)
– Importance of objective (-)
– Value team membership and objectives (-)
12
How to Manage Social Loafing
• Discuss expectations
• Make individual performance more visible
– Specialize tasks
– Feeling that inputs are necessary for team success
• Increase performance feedback
– Might not be aware of poor performance
• Make tasks more interesting and important
– Divide tasks based on expertise and preference
• Punishment warnings in advance (deter)
13
Group Activity
• Develop a list of all the tasks that will be
necessary for your project. Divide the work up.
Who will do what? Everyone must agree to the
plan. What are your timelines?
• What will be the biggest challenges that your
team is likely to face, based on your prior
experiences with group work?
• Discuss how such challenges might best be
handled. What are your contingency plans?
• Be prepared to report at least THREE
recommendations to the class.
The Romance of Teams
• What is the main argument of the
article?
• What did you agree with?
• What did you disagree with?
• What else should the authors have
included?
• What is your overall assessment?