Team Size
Smaller teams are better because:
• Less process loss -- need less time to coordinate roles and
resolve differences
• Require less time to develop
• More engaged with team – know members, more
influence on the team
• Feel more responsible for team’s success
But team must be large enough to accomplish task
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Composition
Cooperating
Effective team •Share resources
•Accommodate
members must be Conflict
others
willing and able to Resolving Coordinating
•Diagnose conflict •Align work with
work on the team sources others
•Use best conflict- Team Member •Keep team on
Effective team handling strategy Competencies track
members possess
Comforting Communicating
specific competencies •Show empathy •Share information
•Provide psych
(5 C’s in diagram) comfort
freely, efficiently,
respectfully
•Build confidence •Listen actively
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Composition: Diversity
Team members have diverse knowledge, skills,
perspectives, values, etc.
Advantages
• View problems/alternatives from different perspectives
• Broader knowledge base
• Better representation of team’s constituents
Disadvantages
• Take longer to become a high-performing team
• Susceptible to “faultlines” – less motivation to coordinate
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Roles and Transactive Memory
Role: A set of behaviors that people expected to perform
because they hold certain positions in a team and organization.
Formal Team Roles and Informal Team Roles
Transactive Memory system describes how task-relevant
knowledge is distributed within a team and the collective
awareness of who knows what.
• Clearly defined and complementary strengths make for a stronger team
but unless team members know who has what skill those skills might
get wasted and lead to processes.
• Teams with more well-developed transactive memory systems
outperform teams with less well-developed systems.
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations team establishes to
regulate member behaviors
Norms develop through:
• Initial team experiences
• Critical events in team’s history
• Experience/values members bring to the team
Preventing/Changing Dysfunctional Team Norms
• State desired norms when forming teams
• Select members with preferred values
• Discuss counter-productive norms
• Introduce team-based rewards that counter dysfunctional norms
• Disband teams with dysfunctional norms
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Cohesion
Team cohesion
• The degree of attraction people feel toward the team and
their motivation to remain members
Team cohesion is stronger/occurs faster with:
• Higher member similarity
• Smaller team size
• Regular/frequent member interaction
• Somewhat difficult team entry (membership)
• Higher team success
• More external competition/challenges
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Cohesion and Performance
High cohesion teams usually perform better because:
• Motivated to maintain membership and achieve team objectives
• Share information more frequently
• Higher coworker satisfaction
• Better social support (minimizes stress)
• Resolve conflict more swiftly and effectively
Contingencies of cohesion and performance
1. Task interdependence
• Cohesion motivates cooperation; less important with low
interdependence
2. Team norms consistent with organizational objectives
• Cohesion motivates conformity to team norms
• Cohesion motivates LOWER performance if norms oppose company
objectives Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Team Efficacy
The collective belief among team members if the team’s
capability to successfully completing a task is team efficacy.
Teams with high level of efficacy outperform teams with lower
level of efficacy.
• High efficacy leads to team members setting ambitious goals, put forth
greater effort, persist longer when faced with a challenge and view
negative feedback as an opportunity.
• Low team efficacy leads to team members feeling apathy, uncertainty
and a lack of direction.
In teams with high efficacy, individual team members are more
likely to display coordination and cooperative type behavior.
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
Three Levels of Trust
High
Identification-based Trust
Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
Low
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018
© Victor Biro/Alamy Stock Photo
Team Processes
Team processes: refers to the interactions and activities that
occur within a team as it works towards it goal.
Internal Team Processes
• Teamwork behaviour: Activities that are devoted to enhancing the
quality of interactions, interdependencies, cooperation and
coordination of teams
• Taskwork behaviour: Efforts devoted to understanding the task
requirements, discovering the rules, establishing patterns of interaction
, exchanging task-related information, developing solutions to problems
and so forth
External Team Processes
• Team boundary spanning: Team actions that establish or enhance
linkages and manage interactions with parties in the external
environment.
Copyright McGraw Hill Ryerson 2018