teams contribute to organizations

PowerPoint Presentation to Accompany Chapter 16 of

Management, 8/eJohn R. Schermerhorn, Jr.

Prepared by: Michael K. McCuddyValparaiso University

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Management 8/e - Chapter 16 2

Planning Ahead — Chapter 16 Study Questions

How do teams contribute to organizations?

What are the current trends in the use of teams?

How do teams work?

How do teams make decisions?

What are the challenges of leading high-

performance teams?

Study Question 1: How do teams contribute to organizations?

Team – A small group of people with complementary

skills, who work together to achieve a shared purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable for performance results.

Teamwork – The process of people actively working

together to accomplish common goals

Team and teamwork roles for managers:– Supervisor — serving as the appointed head of a formal

work unit.– Network facilitator — serving as a peer leader an

network hub for a special task force.– Participant — serving as a helpful contributing member

of a project team.– External coach — serving as the external convenor or

sponsor of a problem-solving team staffed by others.

Figure 16.1 Team and teamwork roles for managers.

Common problems in teams:– Personality conflicts.– Individual differences in work styles.– Ambiguous agendas.– Ill-defined problems.– Poor readiness to work.

• Lack of motivation.• Conflicts with other deadlines or priorities.• Lack of team organization or progress.• Meetings that lack purpose or structure.• Members coming to meetings unprepared.

Seven sins of deadly meetings:– People arrive late, leave early, and don’t take things

seriously.– The meeting is too long.– People don’t stay on topic.– The discussion lacks candor.– The right information isn’t available, so decisions are

postponed.– No one puts decisions into action.– The same mistakes are made meeting after meeting.

Synergy– The creation of a whole that is greater

than the sum of its parts.– A team uses its membership resources to

the fullest and thereby achieves through collective action far more than could be achieved otherwise.

Usefulness of teams:– More resources for problem solving.– Improved creativity and innovation.– Improved quality of decision making.– Greater commitments to tasks.– Higher motivation through collective action.– Better control and work discipline.– More individual need satisfaction.

Formal groups —– Teams that are officially recognized and

supported by the organization for specific purposes.

– Specifically created to perform essential tasks.

– Managers and leaders serve “linking pin” roles.

Informal groups —– Not recognized on organization charts.

– Not officially created for an organizational purpose.

– Emerge as part of the informal structure and from natural or spontaneous relationships among people.

– Include interest, friendship, and support groups.

– Can have positive performance impact.

– Can help satisfy social needs.

Study Question 2: What are the current trends in the use of teams?

Committees, project teams, and task forces —– Committees.

• People outside their daily job assignments work together in a small team for a specific purpose.

• Task agenda is narrow, focused, and ongoing.

– Projects teams or task forces.• People from various parts of an organization work together on

common problems, but on a temporary basis.• Official tasks are very specific and time defined.• Disbands after task is completed.

Guidelines for managing projects and task forces:– Select appropriate team members.

– Clearly define the purpose of the team.

– Carefully select a team leader.

– Periodically review progress.

Cross-functional teams —– Members come from different functional units

of an organization.

– Team works on a specific problem or task with the needs of the whole organization in mind.

– Teams are created to knock down “walls” separating departments.

Employee involvement teams —– Groups of workers who meet on a regular basis

outside of their formal assignments.

– Have the goal of applying their expertise and attention to continuous improvement.

– Quality circles represent a common form of employee involvement teams.

Virtual teams —– Teams of people who work together and solve

problems through largely computer-mediated rather than face-to-face interactions.

– Sometimes called …• Computer-mediated groups

• Electronic group networks

Potential advantages of virtual teams:– Savings in time and

travel expenses.– Minimization or

elimination of interpersonal difficulties.

– Ease of expansion.

Potential problems of virtual teams:– Difficulty in

establishing good working relationships.

– Depersonalization of working relationships.

Guidelines for managing virtual teams:

– Virtual teams should begin with social

messaging.

– Team members should be assigned clear roles.

– Team members must have positive attitudes

that support team goals.

Self-managing work teams —– Teams of workers whose jobs have been

redesigned to create a high degree of task interdependence and who have been given authority to make many decisions about how to do the required work.

– Also known as autonomous work groups.

Typical self-management responsibilities:– Planning and scheduling work.– Training members in various tasks.– Sharing tasks.– Meeting performance goals.– Ensuring high quality.– Solving day-to-day operating problems.– In some cases, hiring and firing team members.

In self-managing work teams, members …– Are held collectively accountable for performance

results.– Have discretion in distributing tasks within the team.– Have discretion in scheduling work within the team.– Are able to perform more than one job on the team.– Evaluate one another’s performance contributions.– Are responsible for the total quality of team products.

Figure 16.2 Organizational and management implications of self-managing work teams.

Study Question 3: How do teams work?

Effective teams …– Achieve and maintain high levels of task

performance.

– Achieve and maintain high levels of member satisfaction.

– Retain viability for the future.

Resource input factors that influence group process in the pursuit of team effectiveness:– Nature of the task.

– Organizational setting.

– Team size.

– Membership characteristics.

Group process:

– The way the members of any team work

together as they transform inputs into outputs :

– Also known as group dynamics.

– Includes communications, decision making,

norms, cohesion, and conflict, among others.

Team effectiveness may be summarized as …

Team Effectiveness =

Quality of Inputs + (Process Gains - Process Losses)

Figure 16.3 An open-systems model of work team effectiveness.

Stages of team development:– Forming — initial orientation and interpersonal testing.– Storming — conflict over tasks and ways of working as

a team.– Norming — consolidation around task and operating

agendas.– Performing — teamwork and focused task performance.– Adjourning — task accomplishment and eventual

disengagement.

Norms – Behavior expected of team members.– Rules or standards that guide behavior.– May result in team sanctions.

Performance norms– Define the level of work effort and performance

that team members are expected to contribute to the team task.

Figure 16.4 Criteria for assessing the maturity of a team.

Guidelines for building positive norms:– Act as a positive role model.– Reinforce the desired behaviors with rewards.– Control results by performance reviews and regular

feedback.– Orient and train new members to adopt desired

behaviors.– Recruit and select new members who exhibit desired

behaviors.– Hold regular meetings to discuss progress and ways of

improving.– Use team decision-making methods to reach agreement.

Cohesiveness

– The degree to which members are attracted to

and motivated to remain part of a team.

– Can be beneficial if paired with positive

performance norms.

Effects of team cohesiveness and norms:– Positive norms + high cohesiveness high

performance and strong commitments to positive norms.

– Positive norms + low cohesiveness moderate performance and weak commitments to positive norms.

Effects of team cohesiveness and norms (cont.):– Negative norms + low cohesiveness low to

moderate performance and weak commitments to negative norms.

– Negative norms + high cohesiveness low performance and strong commitments to negative norms.

Figure 16.5 How cohesiveness and norms influence team performance.

Guidelines for increasing team cohesion:– Induce agreement on team goals.– Increase membership homogeneity.– Increase interaction among members.– Decrease team size.– Introduce competition with other teams.– Reward team rather than individual results.– Provide physical isolation from other teams.

Task activities– Actions by team members that contribute

directly to team’s performance purpose.– Include:

• Initiating• Information sharing• Summarizing• Elaborating• Opinion giving

Maintenance activities– Support emotional life of a team as an ongoing

social system.– Include:

• Gatekeeping• Encouraging• Following• Harmonizing• Reducing tension

Distributed leadership roles …– Make every member responsible for recognizing when

task and/or maintenance activities are needed and taking actions to provide them.

– Leading through task activities focuses on solving problems and achieving performance results.

– Leading through maintenance activities helps strengthen and perpetuate the team as a social system.

Figure 16.6 Distributed leadership helps teams meet task and maintenance needs.

Dysfunctional activities that detract from team effectiveness:– Being aggressive– Blocking– Self-confessing– Seeking sympathy– Competing– Withdrawal– Horsing around– Seeking recognition

Communication networks– Decentralized

• All members communicate directly with one another.– Centralized

• Activities are coordinated and results pooled by central point of control.

– Restricted• Polarized subgroups contest one another.• Subgroups may engage in antagonistic relations.

Figure 16.7 Interaction patterns and communication networks in teams.

, Jr.,

Study Question 4: How do teams make decisions?

Methods of team decision making:– Lack of response

– Authority rule

– Minority rule

– Majority rule

– Consensus

– Unanimity

Assets of team decision making:– Greater amounts of information, knowledge,

and expertise.

– Expands number of action alternatives considered.

– Increases understanding and acceptance.

– Increases commitment to follow through.

Potential disadvantages of team decision

making:

– Social pressure to conform.

– Individual or minority group domination.

– Time requirements.

Symptoms of groupthink:– Illusions of group invulnerability.– Rationalizing unpleasant and disconfirming data.– Belief in inherent group morality.– Negative stereotypes of competitors.– Pressure to conform.– Self-censorship of members.– Illusions of unanimity.– Mind guarding.

Methods for dealing with groupthink:– Have each group member be a critical evaluator.– Don’t appear to favor one course of action.– Create subteams to work on the same problems.– Have team members discuss issues with outsiders.– Have outside experts observe and provide feedback on

team activities.– Assign a member to the devil’s advocate role.– Hold a second-chance meeting.

Creativity in team decision making — guidelines for brainstorming:– All criticism is ruled out.

– Freewheeling is welcomed.

– Quantity is important.

– Building on one another’s ideas is encouraged.

Creativity in team decision making — steps in the nominal group technique:– Participants work alone, identifying possible solutions.– Ideas are shared in a round-robin fashion without any

criticism or discussion.– Ideas are discussed and clarified in a round-robin

sequence.– Members individually and silently follow a written voting

procedure.– The last two steps are repeated as needed.

Study Question 5: What are the challenges of leading high-performance teams?

Team building – A sequence of planned activities used to

gather and analyze data on the functioning of a team and to implement constructive changes to increase its operating effectiveness.

Steps in a cyclical team-building process:– Step 1 — problem awareness.– Step 2 — data gathering.– Step 3 — data analysis and diagnosis.– Step 4 — action planning.– Step 5 — action implementation.– Step 6 — evaluation.

Figure 16.8 Steps in the team-building process: case of the hospital top management team.

Characteristics of high-performing teams:– A clear and elevating goal.– A task-driven, results-oriented structure.– Competent and committed members who work hard.– A collaborative climate.– High standards of excellence.– External support and recognition.– Strong and principled leadership.

Effective team leaders act to:

– Establish clear vision.

– Create change.

– Unleash talent.

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