CH 9: Groups and Teams at Work

Cross-functional teams

Teams that involve individuals from different parts of the organization.

Steps to creating and maintaining a cohesive team

- Align the group with the greater organization - Let members have choices in setting their own goals - Define clear roles - Situate group members in close proximity to each other - Give frequent praise - Treat all members with dignity and respect. - Celebrate differences - Establish common rituals Having too much cohesion? Members may become conflict avoidant, focusing more on trying to please each other so as not to be ostracized. Superficial sense of harmony and less diversity of thought.

Social oriented roles

- Calibrator: creates new social norms for team processes - Communicator: creates a supportive social environment - Cooperator: conforms to expectations, supports others decisions

Prevention of Social Loafing

- Carefully choose the number of individuals you need to get the task done - Clearly define each members tasks in front of the entire group - Design and communicate to the entire group a system for evaluating each persons contribution - Build a cohesive group - Assign tasks that are highly engaging and inherently rewarding - Make sure individuals feel that they are needed

Barriers to effective teams

- Challenges of knowing where to begin: floundering often results from a lack of clear goals, so the remedy is to go back to the team's mission or plan and make sure that it is clear to everyone. What is holding us up? Do we need more data? Do we need assurance or support? Does anyone feel that we've missed something important? - Dominating team members: design a team evaluation to include a "balance of participation" inn meetings. - Poor performance of some team members: be sure that poor performers are dealt with in a way that is deemed fair by all the team members. - Lack of communication and coordination: important to do regular check-ins, information sharing, and debriefs. - Poorly managed team conflict: Ideally, teams should be designed to avoid bringing adversaries together on the same team. The next best solution is to have adversaries discuss their issues privately, so the teams progress is not disrupted. An important factor of how teams deal with conflict is how safe team members feel in expressing their concerns.

Task Oriented Roles

- Contractor: organizes and coordinates actions, allocates tasks - Creator: creates new structures or visions for processes - Contributor: provides necessary information or expertise - Completer: completes individual tasks, follows through - Critic: critically evaluates team decisions, questions

Boundary spanning roles

- Coordinator: manages outside interactions, coordinates with outside parties - Consul: represents the team and its goal favorably to outsiders, acquires information and resources for the team

Traditionally Managed Teams

- Leader resides outside of the team - Potential for low autonomy

Fundamental factors of group cohesion

- Similarity: the more similar group members are in terms of age, sex, education, skills, attitudes, values, and beliefs, the more likely the group will bond. - Stability: The longer a group stays together, the more cohesive it becomes. - Size: Smaller groups tend to have higher levels of cohesion - Support: When group members receive coaching and are encourages to support their fellow team members, group identity strengthens. - Satisfaction: Cohesion is correlated with how please group members are with each other's performance, behavior, and conformity to group norms. Does cohesion result in a higher performing team? It depends. Cohesive teams do the right things, but of course doing the right things may not always have positive results due to environmental constraints.

Self Directed Teams

- The team makes all decisions internally about leadership and how work is done - Potential for high autonomy

Self Managed Teams

- The team manages itself but still has a team leader - Potential fr low, medium, or high autonomy

Seven questions to ask when considering teams

1) Capability - do we have the right people with the right mix of knowledge, skills, and other attributes? 2) Cooperation - Do team members possess the right beliefs and attitudes about their team? 3) Coordination - Are team members exhibiting the necessary teamwork behaviors for team success? 4) Communication - Do members communicate effectively with each other and with people outside the team? 5) Cognition - Do team members possess a shared understanding about key factors such as priorities, roles, and vision? 6) Coaching - Does the leader and/or team members demonstrate the necessary leadership behaviors? 7) Conditions - Is the context in which the team operates favorable for performing effectively (ample resources, supportive culture)?

Six key things you can do BEFORE the meeting to ensure the team members get the most out of their meeting

1) Is the meeting needed? 2) Decide who should be at the meeting and only invite those 3) Decide how long the meeting should be, and keep it short 4) Create a distribute an effective agenda 5) Determine how all members can attend 6) Send a reminder prior to the meeting

Things you can do DURING the meeting to make sure the team starts and keeps on track

1) Start the meeting on time 2) Get on the same page 3) Follow the meeting agenda 4) Manage group dynamics for full participation 5) Summarize the meeting with action items 6) End the meeting on time After the meeting, follow up on the action items.

For simple questions for team performance after action reviews

1) What did we want or expect to happen? 2) What were the actual results? 3) What went well? 4) What can we sustain and improve upon and how?

Team

A cohesive coalition of people working together to achieve mutual goals. Team based organizations have more motivation and involvement, and teams can often accomplish more than individuals. To determine whether a team is needed, organizations should consider whether a variety of knowledge, skills, and abilities are needed, etc.

What is the difference between a group and a team?

A group is a collective of individuals. Within an organization, groups might consist of project-related collectives such as a product group or division, or they can encompass an entire store or branch of a company. A collection of people is not a team, thought they may learn to function in that way. A tea is a cohesive coalition of people working together to achieve mutual goals.

Groupthink

A group pressure phenomenon that creates a tendency to avoid a critical evaluation of ideas the group favors.

Which group would be the most effective from a performance standpoint?

A group with high group cohesion and high task commitment.

Collective Efficacy

A group's perception of its ability to successfully perform well.

After-action Review

A meeting conducted at the end of a project or event, where team members discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what could have been done differently.Commonly used alternative names include "retrospective meeting," "Debriefing meeting," or post mortem

Task Force

A type of temporary team that is asked to address a specific issue or problem until it is resolved.

Team contract

Agreements on established ground rules, goals, and roles. Teams that create a contract are better equipped to face challenges that may arise within the team. It can serve as a road map when the team veers off course.

Process loss

Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits group functioning.

Idea-generation tasks

Creative tasks such as brainstorming as new direction or creating a new process.

Who are the best individuals for my team?

Ensure that all team members are qualified fr the roles they will fill for the team. This process often entails understanding the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) of team members as well as the personality traits needed before starting the selection process.

Stages of Group Development

Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning

Sequential Interdependence

In a team, when one person's output becomes another person's input.

Formal Work Group

Made up of managers, subordinates, or both with close associations among group members that influence the behavior of individuals in the group.

Problem solving tasks

Refers to coming up with plans for actions and making decisions.

How large should my team be?

Research has shown that regardless of teams size, the most active team member speaks 43% of the time. When deciding team size, a good rule of thumb is a size of 2-20 members. Groups with more than 20 members have less cooperation - the larger the team, the harder it is to coordinate and interact as a team. The team size should be matched to goals of the team.

Norms

Shared expectations about how things operate within a group or team. Norms are a powerful way of ensuring coordination within a team.

Norming

Stage when participants find it easy to establish their own ground rules (or norms) and define their operating procedures and goals. Members are more interdependent, individuality and differences are respected, and group members feel themselves to be part of a greater entity.

Storming

Stage when participants focus less on keeping their guard up as they shed social facades, becoming more authentic and more argumentative.

Forming

Stage when the group comes together for the first time. There us a level of formality, some anxiety, and a degree of guardedness as group members are not sure how they will fit into the group or how work will be conducted. Because of the large amount of uncertainty, members tend to be polite, conflict avoidant, and observant.

Different types of teams

Task forces, product development teams, cross-functional teams, and top management teams. Team leadership and autonomy vary, depending on whether the team is traditionally managed, self managed, or self directed. Teams are most effective when they comprise members with the right skills for the tasks at hand, are not too large, and contain diversity across team members.

What do team roles consist of?

Task, social, and boundary spanning roles.

Production tasks

Tasks that include actually making something such as a building, product, or marketing plan.

Pooled Interdependence

Tea members work independently and combine their efforts to create the team's output.

Product development teams

Team in charge of designing a new product.

Reciprocal Interdependence

Team members work together on each stage of a task.

Top Management Teams

Teams appointed by the chief executive officer (CEO) and, ideally, reflect the skills and areas that the CEO considers vital for the company.

Empowered teams

Teams that have the responsibility as well as the authority to achieve their goals. Team members have the power to control tasks and processes and to make decisions.

Self managed teams

Teams that manage themselves and do not report directly to a supervisor. Instead, team members select their own leader, and they may even take turns in the leadership role. Research has shown that employees in self managed teams have higher job satisfaction, increased self esteem, and grow more into the job. Increased productivity, increased flexibility, and lower turnover.

Virtual Teams

Teams where members are not located in the same physical place Despite potential benefits, virtual teams present special management challenges. It is important to devise evaluation schemes that focus on deliverables. Is the work getting done? Another challenge of virtual teams is building trust. Will team members deliver results just as they would in face-to-face teams?

Traditional manager-led teams

Teams where the manager serves as the team leader.

How diverse should my team be?

Teams whose members have complementary skills are often more successful, because members can see each other's blind spots. Diversity in team commotions can help teams come up with more creative and effective solutions. Teams that value diversity perform better than those who do not.

Cohesion

The degree of camaraderie within the group. Can be thought of as a kind of social glue. The more cohesive a group is, the more productive it will be and the more rewarding the experience will be for the group's members.

Task Interdependence

The degree that team members are dependent upon one another to get information, support, or materials from other team members to be effective.

Adjourning

The final stage when the group separates.

Social loafing

The tendency of individuals to put in less effort when working in a group context. Matter of perceiving that one will receive neither one's fair share of rewards if the group is successful nor blame if the group fails. "My own effort will have little effect on the outcome" etc.

Punctuated Equilibrium

The theory that change within groups occurs in rapid, radical spurts rather than gradually over time.

Characteristics of cohesive group members

They have a collective identity; they experience a moral bond and desire to remain part of the group; they share a sense of purpose, working together on a meaningful task to cause; and they establish a structured pattern of communication.

Best way of running effective meetings?

Think of what should happen before, during, and after meetings

Team Performance After Action Reviews

To maxmize effectiveness, it is recommended to engage in debriefs that encourage active self-learning and reflection, have a developmental intent, focus on specific events or team milestones, and include reflection on multiple sources of information regarding team challenges and successes.

Informal Work Groups

Two or more individuals who are associated with one another in ways not prescribed by the formal organization. Ex: a few people in the company who get together to play tennis on the weekend.

Outcome Interdependence

When the rewards that an individual receives depend on the performance of others.

Psychological Safety

refers to the perception that the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in workplace contexts are worth the risk Fosters the sharing of ideas, open communication such as engaging in voice behaviors, healthy levels of risk taking, and increased creativity.