Chapter 12
Managing Team Performance
Learning Objectives
 Describe why managers form working groups
to achieve results
 Explain the characteristics of teams
 Explain team dynamics and its relationship to
performance
 Compare and contrast productive and
unhealthy conflict as it relates to
organizational results
 Develop a strategic plan to increase team
performance
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How Teams Make a Difference (p. 302)
 Team
• Purposeful group formed to accomplish a project,
task, or goal
• Help solve cross-disciplinary problems, traverse
cultural boundaries, and drive initiatives
• Social loafing – members of a team contribute less
effort than they would if they were individually
responsible
• Teams can work as long as there is a reason for
them to exist in the first place
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How Teams Make a Difference (cont.)
 Power of teams (p. 303)
• If managed the right way, teams can be effective in
attaining goals
• Formal team – working group formed by an
organization’s management to achieve specific,
agreed-upon strategies, plans, and outcomes
• Informal team – working group, generally not
intended to be permanent, formed by team
members to accomplish self-defined tasks and
objectives
 May operate outside the constraints of the working
environment
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Team Characteristics (p. 304)
 Different types of teams
• Functional team – formal, longstanding working
group organized around specific tasks, processes,
or roles
 Also known as vertical or command teams
• Cross-functional team – formal, longstanding
working group with representation from diverse
divisions, departments, and levels of authority
 Members represent a wide set of skills, roles, and
perspectives
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Team Characteristics (cont.)
Figure 12.1
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Team Characteristics (cont.)
 Different types of teams (cont.)
• Management team – functional or cross-functional working
group of managers formed to plan, organize, lead, and control
organizational performance (p. 305)
• Self-directed team – operates without hierarchical
management supervision
 Defined by specific outcomes and timetables
• Problem-solving team – working group formed to minimize
the negative impacts of a specific organizational challenge (p.
306)
• Task-based team – working group established to accomplish a
specific objective, with a tightly defined time frame for
completion
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Team Characteristics (cont.)
 Quality circle (p. 306)
• Working group comprised of management and
staff with the purpose of minimizing performance
errors and variance
 Virtual teams
• Working group that conducts the majority of its
collaborations via electronic communications
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Team Characteristics (cont.)
 Size and roles (p. 307)
• Small teams tend to be more cohesive
• Larger teams more likely to instill social loafing
• Role – behavioral and performance expectation that is
consciously or unconsciously defined by a group
• Role structure – prescribed set of behavioral and
performance expectations for a position or job
• Role ambiguity – confusion that arises from an employee not
understanding the expectations, intentions, or purposes of
her/his position
• Overload – behavioral and system strains that occur when
expectations for positions or working groups exceed their
capacity to perform
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Team Characteristics (cont.)
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Team Dynamics (p. 308)
 Largely unseen forces that can influence the
way a team operates and performs
 Conformity
• An individual or group adheres to organizational
policies, procedures, cultural dynamics, and
performance standards
 Generalization
• An individual or group perspective that is formed
through limited data or experience
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Team Dynamics (cont.)
 Stages of group development (p. 308)
• Four-stage process by which teams become more
effective and efficient over time
• Forming – team members meet each other for the
first time and get a feel for the type of team that they
have joined
 Norms – expectations implicitly or explicitly defined by a
group that result in a consistent set of behaviors or beliefs
• Storming – a measure of conflict may arise (p. 309)
 Conflict – resistance or hostility arising from two or more
parties focusing on and attempting to reconcile differing
opinions
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Team Dynamics (cont.)
 Stages of group development (cont.)
• Norming – team members settle into their new
roles and, by mutual agreement, decide how to
achieve their goals and objectives (p. 309)
 Cohesiveness – degree to which individuals in a
working group exhibit loyalty and norm consistencies
 Socialization – processes by which individuals attain
the knowledge, skills, cultural distinctions, and values to
adapt to a group’s norms
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Team Dynamics (cont.)
 Stages of group development (cont.)
• Performing – team working at optimal level,
loyalty is high, and each member is invested in
achieving the goal (p. 309)
 affiliation – person’s perceived connection to a group,
based on purpose, demographics, function, and other
intangible dimensions
• Team development can revert to earlier stages due
to negative factors
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Managing Conflict (p. 311)
 Variation
• System-level changes that inevitably occur that may require
individuals and groups to respond
 Unhealthy conflict (p. 312)
• Certain changes (e.g., high turnover, new group members)
can affect group dynamics and serve as a catalyst for
unhealthy conflict
 Encouraging healthy conflict
• Negotiation- process by which two or more parties with
differing objectives, desires, or perspectives go through to
find a mutually agreeable solution
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Managing Conflict (cont.)
 Key dimensions of ‘good conflict’ (p. 313)
• Emotion is left out of the equation
• Get ‘buy in’ from each member of the group on
the vision they propose to encourage productive
debate
• Debate should be focused on the future rather than
the past
 However, learn how past conflicts have been resolved
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Strategies to Increase Performance
(p. 315)
 Effective meeting flow options
Figure 12.2
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Strategies to Increase Performance
(cont.)
 Effective meetings (p. 316)
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Strategies to Increase Performance
(cont.)
 Performance development (p. 316)
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Strategies to Increase Performance
(cont.)
 Recognizing excellence (p. 316)
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Copyright
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