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8-1 TEAMS - groups of two or more people who interact
with and influence each other, are mutually
accountable for achieving common goals associated
with organizational objectives, and perceive themselves
as a social entity within an organization
TYPES OF TEAMS IN ORGANIZATION:
1. TEAM PERMANENCE refers to how long that type of
team usually exists.
2. SKILL DIVERSITY team has high skill diversity when
its members possess different skills and knowledge,
whereas low diversity exists when team members
have similar abilities and, therefore, are
interchangeable.
3. AUTHORITY DISPERSION refers to the degree that
decision-making responsibility is distributed
throughout the team (high dispersion) or is vested
in one or a few members of the team (low 8-2 TASK INTERDEPENDENCE the extent to which team
dispersion). members must share materials, information, or
expertise in order to perform their jobs
a. POOLED INTERDEPENDENCE, lowest level of
interdependence. It occurs when an employee or
work unit shares a common resource, such as
machinery, administrative support, or a budget,
with other employees or work units.
b. SEQUENTIAL INTERDEPENDENCE, in which the
output of one person becomes the direct input for
another person or unit.
c. RECIPROCAL INTERDEPENDENCE, in which work
output is exchanged back and forth among
individuals, produces the highest degree of
interdependence
INFORMAL GROUPS are also the backbone of social 5 C’s of effective Team Member Behavior:
networks, which are important sources of trust building, 1. Cooperating. Effective team members are willing
information sharing, power, influence, and employee and able to work together rather than alone.
well-being in the workplace 2. Coordinating. Effective team members actively
PROCESS LOSSES resources (including time and energy) manage the team’s work so that it is performed
expended toward team development and maintenance efficiently and harmoniously
rather than the task 3. Communicating. Effective team members transmit
information freely (rather than hoarding), efficiently
BROOKS’S LAW the principle that adding more people (using the best channel and language), and
to a late software project only makes it later respectfully (minimizing arousal of negative
emotions).
SOCIAL LOAFING the problem that occurs when people
4. Comforting. Effective team members help
exert less effort (and usually perform at a lower level)
coworkers maintain a positive and healthy
when working in teams than when working alone
psychological state
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5. Conflict handling. Conflict is inevitable in social FOUR CATEGORIES OF TEAM BUILDING:
settings, so effective team members have the skills
1. GOAL SETTING. team members clarify the team’s
and motivation to resolve disagreements among
performance goals, increase the team’s motivation
team members.
to accomplish these goals, and establish a
FAULTLINES—hypothetical dividing lines that may split mechanism for systematic feedback on the team’s
a team into subgroups along gender, ethnic, goal performance
professional, or other dimensions 2. PROBLEM SOLVING: This type of team building
focuses on decision making, including how the team
8-3 TEAM PROCESSES, includes team development,
identifies problems and searches for alternatives.
norms, cohesion, and trust. These elements represent
3. ROLE CLARIFICATION: This type of team building
characteristics of the team that continuously evolve.
clarifies and reconstructs each member’s
STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT: perceptions of her or his role as well as the role
expectations of other team members
1. FORMING, is a period of testing and orientation in 4. INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS: This is the oldest and
which members learn about each other and still the most common type of team building. It tries
evaluate the benefits and costs of continued to help team members learn more about each
membership other, build trust in each other, manage conflict
2. STORMING stage is marked by interpersonal within the team, and strengthen team members’
conflict as members become more proactive and social identity with the team
compete for various team roles.
3. NORMING, the 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
4. PERFORMING, team members have learned to
efficiently coordinate and resolve conflicts
5. ADJOURNING occurs when the team is about to
disband. Team members shift their attention away
from task orientation to a relationship focus.
ESSENCE OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT: NORMS the informal rules and shared expectations that
groups establish to regulate the behavior of their
1. DEVELOPING TEAM IDENTITY - occurs when members
employees make the team part of their social
identity and take ownership of the team’s success TEAM COHESION the degree of attraction people feel
2. DEVELOPING TEAM MENTAL MODELS AND toward the team and their motivation to remain
COORDINATING ROUTINES – members
Team mental models are knowledge structures 6 INFLUENCES OF TEAM COHESION:
mutually held by team members about expectations 1. Member similarity - similarity-attraction effect
and ideals of the collective task and team dynamics. occurs because we assume that people are more
ROLE a set of behaviors that people are expected to trustworthy and more likely to accept us if they look
perform because they hold certain positions in a team and act like us. We also believe that these similar
and organization others will create fewer conflicts and violations of
our expectations
TEAM BUILDING a process that consists of formal 2. Team size. Smaller teams tend to have more
activities intended to improve the development and cohesion than larger teams. One reason is that it is
functioning of a work team
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easier for a few people to agree on goals and EVALUATION APPREHENSION a decision-making
coordinate work activities. problem that occurs when individuals are reluctant to
3. Member interaction. Teams tend to have more mention ideas that seem silly because they believe
cohesion when their members interact with each (often correctly) that other team members are silently
other fairly regularly evaluating them
4. Somewhat difficult entry. Teams tend to have more
TEAM EFFICACY the collective belief among team
cohesion when entry to the team is restricted.
members in the team’s capability to successfully
5. Team success. Team cohesion increases with the
complete a task
team’s level of success because people are
attracted to groups that fulfill their needs and goals IMPROVING CREATIVE DECISION MAKING IN TEAMS
6. External competition and challenges. Teams tend
to have more cohesion when they face external 1. BRAINSTORMING a freewheeling, face-to-face
competition or a challenging objective that is meeting where team members aren’t allowed to
important criticize but are encouraged to speak freely,
generate as many ideas as possible, and build on
TRUST refers to positive expectations one person has the ideas of others
toward another person in situations involving risk 2. BRAINWRITING a variation of brainstorming
whereby participants write (rather than speak
1. CALCULUS-BASED TRUST represents a logical
about) and share their ideas.
calculation that other team members will act
3. ELECTRONIC BRAINSTORMING a form of
appropriately because they face sanctions if their
brainwriting that relies on networked computers for
actions violate reasonable expectations.
submitting and sharing creative ideas
2. KNOWLEDGE-BASED TRUST is based on the
4. NOMINAL GROUP TECHNIQUE a variation of
predictability of another team member’s behavior.
brainwriting consisting of three stages in which
This predictability refers only to “positive
participants (1) silently and independently
expectations” as the definition of trust states
document their ideas, (2) collectively describe these
because you would not trust someone who tends to
ideas to the other team members without critique,
engage in harmful or dysfunctional behavior.
and then (3) silently and independently evaluate
3. IDENTIFICATION-BASED TRUST is based on mutual
the ideas presented
understanding and an emotional bond among team
members. It occurs when team members think, feel,
and act like each other.
8-4 SELF-DIRECTED TEAMS (SDTS) cross-functional work
groups that are organized around work processes,
complete an entire piece of work requiring several
interdependent tasks, and have substantial autonomy
over the execution of those tasks
VIRTUAL TEAMS. Teams whose members operate
across space, time, and organizational boundaries and
are linked through information technologies to achieve
organizational tasks
8-5 PRODUCTION BLOCKING a time constraint in team
decision making due to the procedural requirement that
only one person may speak at a time
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