Chapter 8 - Team dynamics PDF

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Chapter 8: TEAM DYNAMICS 1. TEAM AND INFORMAL GROUPS a. Teams: groups of two or more people who interact and influence one another, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational objectives and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization. i. All team exist to fulfil some purpose, such as assembling product ii. Team member are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to achieve common goals. – all team require some form of communication so that members can coordinate and share common objectives. iii. Team members influence one another, though some members may be more influential than others regarding the team’s goals and activities. iv. A team exists when its member perceives themselves to be a team.

b. Type of teams in organization i. Team permanence: how long that type of team usually exist – many employees work in teams that exist indefinitely (e.g. departmental teams), an emerging trend in organizational is the formation of teams that exist briefly. ii. Skill differentiation: the degree to which individuals bring diverse skills and knowledge to the team. iii. Authority differentiation: the degree that decision-making responsibility is distributed throughout the team (low differentiation) or is vested in one or a few members of the team. (e.g. departmental teams tend to have high authority differentiation because they typically have a formal manager, where as self-directed teams have low authority differentiation because the entire team makes key decisions)

c. Informal group i. Many group do not satisfy our definition of teams, groups include people assembled together, whether or not they have any interdependence or organizationally focused objective (e.g. friends you meet for lunch are informal group – not team because they have little or no interdependence and no organizationally mandated purposes). ii. (+) Informal groups potentially minimize employee stress because group member provides emotional and informational social support. iii. (+) this stress reducing capability of informal group improves employee wellbeing, thereby improving organizational effectiveness. iv. (+) the backbone of social networks, which are important sources of trust building, information sharing, power, influence, and employee wellbeing in the workplace.

v. (+) Employees with strong informal networks tend to have more power and influence, because they receive better information and preferential treatment from others and their talent is more visible to key decision makers.

2. ADVANTAGES OF TEAMS a. (+) Teams make better decisions, develop better products and services and create a more engaged workforce than do employee working alone.

b. (+) team members can quickly share information and coordinate tasks, whereas these processes are slower and prone to more errors in traditional departments led by supervisors. c. (+) provide superior customer service because they provide more breadth of knowledge and expertise to customers than individual can offer. d. (+) people are more motivated when working in teams, because employees have a drive to bond and are motivated to fulfil the goals of groups to which they belong. – motivation is stronger when the team is part of the employee’s social identity e. (+) more motivated because they are accountable to fellow team members, who monitor performance more closely than a traditional supervisor. f. (+) performance improves when employees work near others, because coworkers become benchmarks of comparison. – Employees are also motivated to work harder because of apprehension that their performance will be compared against others’ performance.

3. DISADAVANTAGES OF TEAMS a. (-) process losses: Resources(including time and energy) expended towards team development and maintenance rather than task. – Team members need time and effort to resolve their disagreements, develop mutual understanding of their goals, determine the best strategy for accomplishing those goals, negotiate their specific roles and agree on informal rules of conduct. b. Process losses can make team less effective when a task can be performed alone. c. Process losses is amplified when more people are added or replace others on the team – the new team members consume time and effort figuring out how to work well with other team members. Performance of current team members also suffer because they divert attention to accommodating and integrating the newcomer. d. Process losses increase even after new member are integrated because larger teams require more coordination, more time for conflict, however, managers consistently underestimate the process losses. e. Social loafing: the problem that occurs when people exert less effort (and usually perform at lower level) when working in teams than when working alone.

f. Social loafing is higher when individual performance is hidden or difficult to distinguish from the performance of others. – hidden in very large team i. Less social loafing when each team members’ contribution is noticeable – can be achieved by reduce the team number ii. Less prevalent when task is interesting, because individuals are more motivated by the work itself to perform their duties. – when the team objective is important, individuals experience more pressure from coworkers to perform well. iii. Less among members who value team membership and believe working towards the team’s objectives.

4. A MODEL OF TEAM EFFECTIVENESS a. A team is effective when it benefits the organization and its members and when it survives long enough to accomplish its mandate. b. Teams exist to serve some organizational purpose, so effectiveness is partly measured by the achievement of those objectives. c. Team effectiveness relies on the satisfaction and wellbeing of its members. – people join groups to fulfil their personal needs, so is parlt measured by nedd of fulfilment. d. Team effectiveness includes the team’s ability to survive long enough to fulfil its purpose.

5. Organisational and team environment a. Represent all conditions beyond the team’s boundaries that influences it is effectiveness.

b. The environment is typically viewed as a resource pool that either supports or inhibits the team’s ability to function and achieve it is objectives. c. Team members tend to work together more effectively when: i. they receive team-based rewards, ii. when the organization’s leadership is supportive of team-oriented work structured, iii. when the organization’s structure assigns teams to distinctive clusters of work activity, iv. when information system support team coordination and when the physical layout of the team’s workspace encourages frequent communication d. The environment generates drivers for change within teams. External competition affects team dynamics, such as increasing the motivation of team members to work together. e. Change societal expectations, such as higher safety standards, which require teams to alter their norm of behavior. These external not only motivate teams to redesign themselves but also are the focus of the team’s attention.

6. TEAM DESIGN ELEMENTS

a. Task characteristics i. Company relies a lot on teams because project undertaken by employees are complex. – teams are particularly well suited for complex work that can be divided into more specialized roles and where team members require frequent coordination ii. Task complexity demands teamwork, but teams also work better when the teamwork is well-structured rather than ambiguous. 1. For example, assembling automobiles consists of wellstructured tasks, whereas a team performing a new medical procedure would have less structured work activities 2. (+) well-structured task makes it is easier to coordinate the work among several people. 3. (+) teams can perform ambiguous task well when they have well-structured roles.

iii. Task related influence on team effectiveness: TASK INTERDEPENDENCE iv. Task interdependence: the extent to which the team members must share materials, information or expertise to perform their jobs.

1. Pooled interdependence (lowest) a. Occurs when an employee or work unit shares a common resources, such as machinery, administrative support or a budget, with other employees or work units. b. Occur in a team setting in which each member works alone but shared raw materials or machinery to perform his/ her otherwise independent tasks. 2. Sequential interdependence a. The output of one person becomes the direct input for another person or unit b. Occurs when the team members are organized in an assembly line 3. Reciprocal interdependence a. Work output is exchanged back and forth among individuals, produces the highest degree of interdependence. b. People who design a new product or service would typically have reciprocal interdependence because their design affect others involved in the design process. (e.g. decision made by the design engineering would influence the work of manufacturing engineering) c. Should be organized into team to facilitate coordination in their interwoven relationship. v. The higher the level of task interdependence, the greater the need to organize people into teams rather than have them work alone.

vi. Team structure improves interpersonal communication and thus result in better coordination. vii. Higher task interdependence also motivates most people to be part of the team, however, team members have to have same task goals as the rule. – different goals might create excessive conflict.

b.Team size i. Teams should be large enough to provide the necessary competencies and perspectives to perform the work, yet small enough to maintain efficient coordination and meaningful involvement of each member ii. Small teams operate effectively because they have less process loss. iii. Small teams tend to feel more enganged because they have more influence on the group’s norms and goals and feel more responsible for the team’s success and failure. iv. They get to know one another better, which improves mutual trust and perception of support, help, assistance from this team member.

c. Team composition i. Employees must have more than technical skills; they must also be able and willing to work in a team environment. ii. Five C’s: Cooperating, coordinating, communicating, conflict resolving, comforting (characteristics or behaviors of effective team member) iii. Menlo innovations (8.1 pg.250) uses a group process to identify applicants with the best team skills. 1. Cooperating a. Effective team members are willing and able to work together rather than alone. – includes sharing resources and being sufficiently adaptive or flexible to accommodate the needs and preferences of other team members (e.g. rescheduling use of machinery so other member with a tighter deadline can use it)

2. Coordinating a. Actively manage the team’s work so it is performed effectively and harmoniously. (e.g. keep track and help integrate the work performed by different members. – knowing other members works) 3. Communicating a. Transmit information freely, effectively (using the best channel and language), respectfully (minimizing arousal or negative emotions). Listen actively to co-workers 4. Comforting a. Help co-workers maintain a positive and healthy psychological state. Show empathy, provide psychological comfort, and build co-workers’ feelings of confidence and self-worth

5. Conflict resolving a. Have the skills and motivation to resolve disagreements among team members. b. Requires the effective use of various conflict-handling styles, as well as diagnostic skills to identify and resolve the structural source of conflict i. Employees with high conscientiousness and extraversion personal traits as well as emotional intelligence tend to have team competencies. ii. One team member lack of these teamwork competencies may undermine the dynamics of the entire team. 6. Time diversity a. (+) they make better decision than do homogeneous teams in some situations – people from different background see problem or opportunity from different angels. (main) b. Different mental models, they are more likely to identify viable solution to difficult problems. c. Have a broader pool of technical competencies. d. diverse teams also provide better representation of the team’s constituents, such as other departments or clients from similarly diverse background – brings different viewpoints to the decision; gives stakeholder a belief that they have a voice in the decision process. i. Constituents feel the decision is fairer when the decision making team includes members with similar surface or deep-level diversity e. (-) take longer to become a high-performing team, because bonding is slower among people who are different, especially when team have deep-level diversity. f. (-) susceptible to ‘fault lines’- hypothetical diving lines that may split a team into subgroups along gender, ethnic, professional or other dimensions. – reduce the motivation to communicate and coordinate with teammates on the other side of hypothetical divisions. g. (+) minimal diversity experience = higher satisfaction, less conflict & better interpersonal relations. h. (+) tend to be more effective on tasks requiring a high degree of cooperation and coordination, such as emergency response teams.

7. TEAM PROCESSES a. Team development

i. Team members must resolve several issues and pass through several stages of development before emerging as an effective work unit. ii. Need to now, trust each other, understand and agree on their perspective roles, discover appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and learn how to coordinate. iii. The longer team members works, the better they develop common or complementary models, mutual understanding, effective performance routines

b. Tuckman’s model of team development i. Forming 1. A period of testing and orientation in which members learn

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about one another and evaluate the benefits and costs of continued membership. – tend to be polite, defer to authority, try to find out what is expected of them, how they will fit into the team Storming 1. Marked by interpersonal conflict as members become more proactive and compete for various team roles. – try to establish norms of appropriate behavior and performance standards. Norming 1. Team develops its first real sense of cohesion as roles are established and a consensus forms around group objectives and a common or complementary team-based mental model Performing 1. Team have learned to efficiently coordinate and resolve conflicts. a. High-performing teams, members are highly cooperative, have high level of trust in one another, committed to group objectives and identify the teams. Adjourning 1. Occurs when the team is about to disband – shift their attention away from task orientation to a relationship focus.

c. Punctuated equilibrium model of team development i. The reason work teams may follow different development path: 1. They are often brought together to work on specific projects 2. The organizational context provides them with strong existing norm so they may be able to skip over the ‘norming’ stage ii. The model put together from the observations of naturally occurring project groups, suggest that short-term organizational groups develop differently. iii. Group development can be divided into distinct phase that are ‘punctuated’ by a transition from relatively unfocused and task-

unrelated activity to highly focused and goal-directed activity. – always occurs at the mid-point of a group’s life span.

iv. Stage of group development: 1. Inertia a. Characteristics by clarification and definition of the task, and the identification of task-related strategies and information sources. b. Members are inwardly focused, and task definition and clarification rely solely on group members. c. At the end, they have identified a small set of alternative strategies for achieving their goals 2. Transition point a. Brings a shift in focus: groups now move quickly to identify potential solutions b. Become more outwardly focused, assessing the acceptability of specific solutions to people outside of the group. c. At th end, projects groups have a specific plan in place 3. Redirection a. Group focuses on implementing that plan

d. Developing team identities and mental models i. Developing team identity 1. Team development is apparent when it’s members shift from viewing the team as something strange to something that is part of themselves – it occurs when employees take ownership of the team’s success and make the team part of their social identity ii. Developing team mental models 1. Team development includes developing habitual routines with teammates and forming shared complementary mental models 2. Meta-analysis support the view that teams are more effective when their team members share common mental models of their work 3. Mental models ate visual or relational mental images that shared by the team members.

e. Team roles i. An important part of team development is forming and reinforcing team roles

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Role: A set of behaviors that people are expected to perform because they hold certain positions in a team and organization. Some roles help team achieve its goals; others maintain relationship within the team. – some team are formally assigned to specific people. (e.g. leaders are usually expected to initiate discussion) Team members are assigned specific roles within their formal job responsibilities. – members assume informal roles, which suit their personality and values as well as the wishes of other team members. Informal roles range from supporting others to initiating new ideas. – shared, but many eventually are associated with one or two people on the team

f. Accelerating team development through team building

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Team building: A process that consists of formal activities intended to improve the development and functioning of a work team. It attempts to speed up the team development process. – may be applied to new teams, but more common introduced for existing teams that have regressed to earlier stages of team development due to membership turnover or loss of focus. Team building interventions is task-focused – clarify the team’s performance goals, increase the team’s motivation to accomplish these goals and establish a mechanism for systematic feedback on the team’s goal performance. Clarify and reconstruct each member’s perceptions of her or his role, as well as the role expectations that member has of other team members. (+) helps team develop shared mental models Team process and performance depend on how well team members share common or complementary mental models about how they should work together. – common type of team building id aimed at helping team members learn more about each others, build trust in one another and develop ways to manage conflict within the teams.

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Most effective team building tactics is in which employees receive training on specific team competencies, such as coordination, conflict resolution and communication. – best activities are those that identify and address specific weaknesses within the tean.

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Short-term intervention such as an obstacle course will be less effective than ongoing reflection on the team’s work experiences and willingness to experiment with just-in-time learning for team development.

8. TEAM NORMS

a. Norms: the informal rules and shared expectations that group establish to regulate the behavior of their members. i. It applys on to behavior not to private thoughts or feelings.

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Exists only for behavior that are important to the team Directly reinforced through praise from high status member, more access to values resources or other rewards available to the team. – members o...