CH 13 Groups & Teams

Ways to Build Cross Cultural Relationships

"Be sensitive to others' needs" and "Be cooperative" are tied for second place. 1.Be a good listener. 2.Be sensitive to others' needs. 3.Be cooperative, not overly competitive. 4.Advocate inclusive (participative) leadership. 5.Compromise rather than dominate. 6.Build rapport through conversations. 7.Be compassionate and understanding. 8.Avoid conflict by emphasizing harmony. 9.Nurture others (develop and mentor).

Building Effective Teams

"What is a high-performance team?" Answers to that question in a nationwide survey of team members from many organizations revealed several attributes: participative leadership, shared responsibility, sense of common purpose, trust and open communication, application of creative talents, seeing change as an opportunity for growth, task focus, and rapid acting on opportunities. Thus, as a future manager, the first thing you have to realize is that building a high-performance team is going to require some work. But the payoff will be a stronger, better-performing work unit. The most essential considerations in building a group into an effective team are (1) cooperation, (2) trust, and (3) cohesiveness. These are followed by (4) performance goals and feedback, (5) motivation through mutual accountability, (6) size, (7) roles, (8) norms, and (9) awareness of groupthink.

How to Build & Maintain Trust w/ Group Members

1.Communicate truthfully. Be candid about problems and limitations (including your own), explain decisions, provide accurate feedback. 2.Offer support—by being available. Be approachable, provide help, coaching, and support members' ideas. 3.Show respect—by delegating and listening. Respect members' decision making by delegating authority and actively listening. 4.Show fairness—by giving credit and being impartial. Give recognition when deserved, be objective when evaluating performance. 5.Show predictability—by keeping promises, both expressed and implied.

How to Enhance Cohesiveness in Teams

1.Keep the team small. 2.Encourage members' interaction and cooperation. 3.Emphasize members' common characteristics. 4.Strive for a favorable public image to enhance the team's prestige. 5.Give each member a stake in the team's success—a "piece of the action." 6.Point out threats from competitors to enhance team togetherness. 7.Ensure performance standards are clear, and regularly update members on team goals. 8.Frequently remind members they need each other to get the job done. 9.Direct each member's special talents toward the common goals. 10.Recognize each member's contributions.

Some Ways to Empower Self-Managed Teams

1.Managers should make team members accountable for their work, allow them to set their own team goals, and let them solve their own work-related problems. 2.The team should work with a whole product or service (not just a part), assign jobs and tasks to its members, develop its own quality standards and measurement techniques, and handle its own problems with internal and external customers. 3.Team members are cross-trained on jobs within their (and other) teams; do their own hiring, training, and firing; do their own evaluations of each other; and are paid (at least in part) as a team. 4.The team has access to important information and resources inside and outside the organization, is allowed to communicate with and draw support from other teams and departments, and sets its own rules and policies.

What a Group Is: A Collection of People Performing as Individuals

A group is defined as two or more freely interacting individuals who share collective norms, share collective goals, and have a common identity. A group is different from a crowd, a transitory collection of people who don't interact with one another, such as a crowd gathering on a sidewalk to watch a fire. And it is different from an organization, such as a labor union, which is so large that members also mostly don't interact.8 An example of a work group would be a collection of, say, 10 employees meeting to exchange information about various companies' policies on wages and hours.

Maintenance Roles: Keeping the Team Together

A maintenance role, or relationship-oriented role, consists of behavior that fosters constructive relationships among team members. Maintenance roles focus on keeping team members. If someone at a team meeting says, "Let's hear from those who oppose this plan," he or she is playing a maintenance role. Examples: Encouragers, who foster group solidarity by praising various viewpoints; standard setters, who evaluate the quality of group processes; harmonizers, who mediate conflict through reconciliation or humor; and compromisers, who help resolve conflict by meeting others "halfway."

Task Roles: Getting the Work Done

A task role, or task-oriented role, consists of behavior that concentrates on getting the team's tasks done. Task roles keep the team on track and get the work done. If you stand up in a team meeting and say, "What is the real issue here? We don't seem to be getting anywhere," you are performing a task role. Examples: Coordinators, who pull together ideas and suggestions; orienters, who keep teams headed toward their stated goals; initiators, who suggest new goals or ideas; and energizers, who prod people to move along or accomplish more are all playing task roles.

Action Teams

Action teams work to accomplish tasks that require people with (1) specialized training and (2) a high degree of coordination, as on a baseball team, with specialized athletes acting in coordination. Examples are hospital surgery teams, airline cockpit crews, mountain-climbing expeditions, police SWAT teams, and labor contract negotiating teams. (A unique challenge for action teams is to exhibit peak performance on demand.)

Advice Teams

Advice teams are created to broaden the information base for managerial decisions. Examples are committees, review panels, advisory councils, employee involvement groups, and continuous improvement teams (as we'll discuss).

3. Cohesiveness: The Importance of Togetherness

Another important characteristic of teams is cohesiveness, the tendency of a group or team to stick together. This is the familiar sense of togetherness or "we-ness" you feel, for example, when you're a member of a volleyball team, a fraternity or a sorority, or a company's sales force. Managers can stimulate cohesiveness by encouraging people to have face-to-face exchanges at work. A recent study found that patterns of communication among team members were the most important predictor of team success. Cohesiveness is also achieved by following the tips in the following table.

Groups & Teams: How Do They Differ?

Aren't a group of people and a team of people the same thing? By and large, no. One is a collection of people, the other a powerful unit of collective performance. One is typically management-directed, the other self-directed.

How to Stimulate Constructive Conflict

As a manager you are being paid not just to manage conflict but even to create some, where it's constructive and appropriate, in order to stimulate performance. Constructive conflict, if carefully monitored, can be very productive under a number of circumstances: when your work group seems afflicted with inertia and apathy, resulting in low performance; when there's a lack of new ideas and resistance to change; when there seem to be a lot of yes-men and yes-women (expressing groupthink) in the work unit; when there's high employee turnover; or when managers seem unduly concerned with peace, cooperation, compromise, consensus, and their own popularity rather than in achieving work objectives. The following four devices are used to stimulate constructive conflict:

4. Performance Goals & Feedback

As an individual, you no doubt prefer to have measurable goals and to have feedback about your performance. The same is true with teams. Teams are not just collections of individuals. They are individuals organized for a collective purpose. That purpose needs to be defined in terms of specific, measurable performance goals with continual feedback to tell team members how well they are doing. An obvious example are the teams you see on television at Indianapolis or Daytona Beach during automobile racing. When the driver guides the race car off the track to make a pit stop, a team of people quickly jack up the car to change tires, refuel the tank, and clean the windshield—all operating in a matter of seconds. The performance goals are to have the car back on the track as quickly as possible. The number of seconds of elapsed time—and the driver's place among competitors once back in the race—tells them how well they are doing.

1. Spur Competition Among Employees

Competition is, of course, a form of conflict, but competition is often healthy in spurring people to produce higher results. Thus, a company will often put its salespeople in competition with one another by offering bonuses and awards for achievement—a trip to a Caribbean resort, say, for the top performer of the year.

2. Change the Organization's Culture & Procedures

Competition may also be established by making deliberate and highly publicized moves to change the corporate culture—by announcing to employees that the organization is now going to be more innovative and reward original thinking and unorthodox ideas. Procedures, such as paperwork sign-off processes, can also be revamped. Results can be reinforced in visible ways through announcements of bonuses, raises, and promotions.

The Nature of Conflict: Disagreement Is Normal

Conflict is simply disagreement, a perfectly normal state of affairs. Conflicts may take many forms: between individuals, between an individual and a group, between groups, within a group, and between an organization and its environment. (To see what your own conflict-management style is, see the Self-Assessment at the end of this chapter.) Although all of us might wish to live lives free of conflict, it is now recognized that certain kinds of conflict can actually be beneficial. Let us therefore distinguish between dysfunctional conflict (bad) and functional conflict (good).

5. Motivation Through Mutual Accountability

Do you work harder when you're alone or when you're in a group? When clear performance goals exist, when the work is considered meaningful, when members believe their efforts matter, and when they don't feel they are being exploited by others—this kind of culture supports teamwork. Being mutually accountable to other members of the team rather than to a supervisor makes members feel mutual trust and commitment—a key part in motivating members for team effort. To bring about this team culture, managers often allow teams to do the hiring of new members.

What the Leader Should Do

During this stage, the leader should allow members the empowerment they need to work on tasks.

Dysfunctional Conflict

Dysfunctional conflict—bad for organizations. From the standpoint of the organization, dysfunctional conflict is conflict that hinders the organization's performance or threatens its interests. As a manager, you need to do what you can to remove dysfunctional conflict, sometimes called negative conflict.

Formal Groups

Formal groups—created to do productive work. A formal group is a group established to do something productive for the organization and is headed by a leader. A formal group may be a division, a department, a work group, or a committee. It may be permanent or temporary. In general, people are assigned to them according to their skills and the organization's requirements.

Functional Conflict

Functional conflict—good for organizations. The good kind of conflict is functional conflict, which benefits the main purposes of the organization and serves its interests. There are some situations in which this kind of conflict—also called constructive conflict or cooperative conflict—is considered advantageous.

Group Cohesiveness

Groups that make it through stage 2 generally do so because a respected member other than the leader challenges the group to resolve its power struggles so something can be accomplished. Questions about authority are resolved through unemotional, matter-of-fact group discussion. A feeling of team spirit is experienced because members believe they have found their proper roles. Group cohesiveness, a "we feeling" binding group members together, is the principal by-product of stage 3.

The Results of Groupthink: Decision-Making Defects

Groups with a moderate amount of cohesiveness tend to produce better decisions than groups with low or high cohesiveness. Members of highly cohesive groups victimized by groupthink make the poorest decisions—even though they show they express great confidence in those decisions. Among the decision-making defects that can arise from groupthink are the following: Reduction in alternative ideas. The principal casualty of groupthink is a shrinking universe of ideas. Decisions are made based on few alternatives. Once preferred alternatives are decided on, they are not reexamined, and, of course, rejected alternatives are not reexamined. Limiting of other information. When a groupthink group has made its decision, others' opinions, even those of experts, are rejected. If new information is considered at all, it is biased toward ideas that fit the group's preconceptions. Thus, no contingency plans are made in case the decision turns out to be faulty.

Symptoms of Groupthink

How do you know that you're in a group or team that is suffering from groupthink? Some symptoms include the following: Invulnerability, inherent morality, and stereotyping of opposition. Because of feelings of invulnerability, group members have the illusion that nothing can go wrong, breeding excessive optimism and risk taking. Members may also be so assured of the rightness of their actions that they ignore the ethical implications of their decisions. These beliefs are helped along by stereotyped views of the opposition, which leads the group to underestimate its opponents. Rationalization and self-censorship. Rationalizing protects the pet assumptions underlying the group's decisions from critical questions. Self-censorship also stifles critical debate. It is especially hard to argue with success, of course. But if enough key people, such as outside analysts, had challenged Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, when it seemed to be flying high, it might not have led to the largest bankruptcy filing in corporate history. Illusion of unanimity, peer pressure, and mindguards. The illusion of unanimity is another way of saying that silence by a member is interpreted to mean consent. But if people do disagree, peer pressure leads other members to question the loyalty of the dissenters. In addition, in a groupthink situation there may exist people who might be called mindguards—self-appointed protectors against adverse information. Groupthink versus "the wisdom of crowds." Groupthink is characterized by a pressure to conform that often leads members with different ideas to censor themselves—the opposite of collective wisdom, says James Surowiecki, in which "each person in the group is offering his or her best independent forecast. It's not at all about compromise or consensus."

1. Cooperation: "We Need to Systematically Integrate Our Efforts"

Human cooperation has a long history, with some hunter-gatherers in Tanzania—who live much as humans did about 10,000 years ago—living in social networks very much like ours—without the cellphones and other connections, of course. Indeed, unlike other animals (such as chimpanzees and monkeys), humans are able to build bigger and better tools by sharing knowledge and learning from one another—in short, by cooperating. Individuals are said to be cooperating when their efforts are systematically integrated to achieve a collective objective. One meta-analysis of 122 studies suggests that cooperation is superior to competition and individualistic efforts in promoting achievement and productivity.

Self-Managed Teams

In many places, such as the Texas Instruments electronics factory in Malaysia, the continuous improvement teams have evolved into a system made up almost entirely of self-managed teams, with routine activities formerly performed by supervisors now performed by team members. "Self-managed" does not, however, mean simply turning workers loose to do their own thing. Self-managed teams are defined as groups of workers who are given administrative oversight for their task domains. Administrative oversight involves delegated activities such as planning, scheduling, monitoring, and staffing. More than 75% of the top 1,000 U.S. companies currently use some form of self-managed work teams. Self-managed teams are an outgrowth of a blend of behavioral science and management practice. The goal has been to increase productivity and employee quality of work life. The traditional clear-cut distinction between manager and managed is being blurred as nonmanagerial employees are delegated greater authority and granted increased autonomy.

Stage 4: Performing—"Can We Do the Job Properly?"

In performing, members concentrate on solving problems and completing the assigned task. For individuals, the question here is "How can I best perform my role?" For the group/team, the issue is "Can we do the job properly?"

Stage 5: Adjourning—"Can We Help Members Transition Out?"

In the final stage, adjourning, members prepare for disbandment. Having worked so hard to get along and get something done, many members feel a compelling sense of loss. For the individual, the question now is "What's next?" For the team, the issue is "Can we help members transition out?"

Stage 3: Norming—"Can We Agree on Roles & Work as a Team?"

In the third stage, norming, conflicts are resolved, close relationships develop, and unity and harmony emerge. For individuals, the main issue is "What do the others expect me to do?" For the group, the issue is "Can we agree on roles and work as a team?" Note, then, that the group may now evolve into a team. Teams set guidelines related to what members will do together and how they will do it. The teams consider such matters as attendance at meetings, being late, and missing assignments as well as how members treat one another.

What the Leader Should Do

In this stage, the leader should encourage members to suggest ideas, voice disagreements, and work through their conflicts about tasks and goals.

Some ways in which intergroup conflicts are expressed are as follows:

Inconsistent goals or reward systems—when people pursue different objectives. It's natural for people in functional organizations to be pursuing different objectives and to be rewarded accordingly, but this means that conflict is practically built into the system. Example: The sales manager for a college textbook publisher may be rewarded for achieving exceptional sales of newly introduced titles. But individual salespeople are rewarded for how many books they sell overall, which means they may promote the old tried-and-true books they know. Ambiguous jurisdictions—when job boundaries are unclear. "That's not my job and those aren't my responsibilities." "Those resources belong to me because I need them as part of my job." When task responsibilities are unclear, that can often lead to conflict. Examples: Is the bartender or the waiter supposed to put the lime in the gin and tonic and the celery in the Bloody Mary? Is management or the union in charge of certain work rules? Is Marketing or Research & Development supposed to be setting up focus groups to explore ideas for new products? Status differences—when there are inconsistencies in power and influence. It can happen that people who are lower in status according to the organizational chart actually have disproportionate power over those theoretically above them, which can lead to conflicts. Examples: If a restaurant patron complains his or her steak is not rare enough, the chef is the one who cooked it, but the waiter—who is usually lower in status—is the one who gave the chef the order. Airlines could not hold their schedules without flight crews and ground crews working a certain amount of overtime. But during labor disputes, pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics may simply refuse

WHY TEAMWORK IS IMPORTANT

Increased productivity: At one GE factory, teamwork resulted in a workforce that was 20% more productive than comparable GE workforces elsewhere. Increased speed: Guidant Corp., maker of lifesaving medical devices, halved the time it took to get products to market. Reduced costs: Boeing used teamwork to develop the 777 at costs far less than normal. Improved quality: Westinghouse used teamwork to improve quality performance in its truck and trailer division and within its electronic components division. Reduced destructive internal competition: Men's Wearhouse fired a salesman who wasn't sharing walk-in customer traffic, and total clothing sales volume among all salespeople increased significantly. Improved workplace cohesiveness: Cisco Systems told executives they would gain or lose 30% of their bonuses based on how well they worked with peers and in three years had record profits.

Informal Groups

Informal groups—created for friendship. An informal group is a group formed by people seeking friendship and has no officially appointed leader, although a leader may emerge from the membership. An informal group may be simply a collection of friends who hang out with one another, such as those who take coffee breaks together, or it may be as organized as a prayer breakfast, a bowling team, a service club, or other voluntary organization.

Can Too Little or Too Much Conflict Affect Performance?

It's tempting to think that a conflict-free work group is a happy work group, as indeed it may be. But is it a productive group? In the 1970s, social scientists specializing in organizational behavior introduced the revolutionary idea that organizations could suffer from too little conflict. Too little conflict—indolence. Work groups, departments, or organizations that experience too little conflict tend to be plagued by apathy, lack of creativity, indecision, and missed deadlines. The result is that organizational performance suffers. Too much conflict—warfare. Excessive conflict, on the other hand, can erode organizational performance because of political infighting, dissatisfaction, lack of teamwork, and turnover. Workplace aggression and violence are manifestations of excessive conflict. Thus, it seems that a moderate level of conflict can induce creativity and initiative, thereby raising performance, as shown in the diagram below. As might be expected, however, the idea as to what constitutes "moderate" will vary among managers.

Preventing Groupthink

Janis believes it is easier to prevent groupthink than to cure it. As preventive measures, he suggests the following: Allow criticism. Each member of a team or group should be told to be a critical evaluator, able to actively voice objections and doubts. Subgroups within the group should be allowed to discuss and debate ideas. Once a consensus has been reached, everyone should be encouraged to rethink his or her position to check for flaws. Allow other perspectives. Outside experts should be used to introduce fresh perspectives. Different groups with different leaders should explore the same policy questions. Top-level executives should not use policy committees to rubber-stamp decisions that have already been made. When major alternatives are discussed, someone should be made devil's advocate to try to uncover all negative factors.

What the Leader Should Do

Leaders typically mistake this honeymoon period as a mandate for permanent control, but later problems may force a leadership change. During this stage, leaders should allow time for people to become acquainted and to socialize.

Stages of Group & Team Development

Managers often talk of products and organizations going through stages of development, from birth to maturity to decline. Groups and teams go through the same thing. One theory proposes five stages of development: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning. Let us consider these stages in which groups may evolve into teams—bearing in mind that the stages often aren't of the same duration or intensity or even necessarily always in this sequence.

What a Team Is: A Collection of People with Common Commitment

McKinsey & Company management consultants Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith say it is a mistake to use the terms group and team interchangeably. Successful teams, they say, tend to take on a life of their own. Thus, a team is defined as a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. "The essence of a team is common commitment," say Katzenbach and Smith. "Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance." An example of a team would be a collection of 2-10 employees who are studying industry pay scales, with the goal of making recommendations for adjusting pay grades within their own company.

Conflict

Mistakes, pressure-cooker deadlines, increased workloads, demands for higher productivity, and other kinds of stress—all contribute to on-the-job conflict. Most people envision conflict as meaning shouting and fighting, but as a manager you will encounter more subtle, nonviolent forms: opposition, criticism, arguments. Thus, a definition of conflict seems fairly mild: Conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

8. Norms: Unwritten Rules for Team Members

Norms are more encompassing than roles. Norms are general guidelines or rules of behavior that most group or team members follow. Norms point up the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Although some norms can be made explicit (as the example below shows), typically they are unwritten and seldom discussed openly; nevertheless, they have a powerful influence on group and organizational behavior.

Why Norms Are Enforced: Four Reasons

Norms tend to be enforced by group or team members for four reasons: To help the group survive—"Don't do anything that will hurt us." Norms are enforced to help the group, team, or organization survive. Example: The manager of your team or group might compliment you because you've made sure it has the right emergency equipment. To clarify role expectations—"You have to go along to get along." Norms are also enforced to help clarify or simplify role expectations. Example: At one time, new members of Congress wanting to buck the system by which important committee appointments were given to those with the most seniority were advised to "go along to get along"—go along with the rules in order to get along in their congressional careers. To help individuals avoid embarrassing situations—"Don't call attention to yourself." Norms are enforced to help group or team members avoid embarrassing themselves. Examples: You might be ridiculed by fellow team members for dominating the discussion during a report to top management ("Be a team player, not a show-off"). Or you might be told not to discuss religion or politics with customers, whose views might differ from yours. To emphasize the group's important values and identity—"We're known for being special." Finally, norms are enforced to emphasize the group, team, or organization's central values or to enhance its unique identity. Examples: Nordstrom's department store chain emphasizes the great lengths to which it goes in customer service. Every year a college gives an award to the instructor whom students vote best teacher.

9. Groupthink: When Peer Pressure Discourages "Thinking Outside the Box"

On a hot day, as the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch in Coleman, Texas, the father-in-law suggests taking a 53-mile trip to Abilene for dinner. Though the rest of the family—wife, husband, and mother-in-law—would rather not make the long, hot drive, they keep their preferences to themselves and agree to the trip. Later, back home after suffering a good deal of discomfort (including bad food), the mother-in-law says she would rather have stayed home. The husband and wife chime in that they agreed only to keep the others happy; the father-in-law then announces he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. This, says scholar James Harvey, is what he calls the Abilene paradox—the tendency of people to go along with others for the sake of avoiding conflict. The Abilene paradox shows that cohesiveness isn't always good. An undesirable by-product that may occur, according to psychologist Irvin Janis, is groupthink—a cohesive group's blind unwillingness to consider alternatives. In this phenomenon, group or team members are friendly and tight-knit, but they are unable to think "outside the box." Their "strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action," said Janis. Examples: The Senate Intelligence Committee said groupthink was a major factor in the U.S. invasion of Iraq because too many people in the government had tended to think alike and therefore failed to challenge basic assumptions about Iraq's weapons capability. Investors in Silicon Valley often show a herd mentality to be part of "the next big thing." It cannot be said, however, that group opinion is always risky. Indeed, financial writer James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, argues, "Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." As evidence, he cites how groups have been used to predict the election of the president of the United States, find lost submarines, and correct the spread on a sporting event.

Some particular kinds of personality conflicts are the following:

Personality clashes—when individual differences can't be resolved. Personality, values, attitudes, and experience can be so disparate that sometimes the only way to resolve individual differences—personality clashes—is to separate two people. Example: Are you easygoing, but she's tense and driven? Does he always shade the facts, while you're a stickler for the truth? If you're basically Ms. Straight Arrow and he's Mr. Slippery, do you think you could adapt your personality to fit his? Maybe you should ask for a transfer. Competition for scarce resources—when two parties need the same things. Within organizations there is often a scarcity of needed resources—for example, funds, office space, equipment, employees, and money for raises. When resources are scarce, being a manager becomes more difficult and conflict more likely.82 Example: There are lots of computer glitches but not enough on-site technicians to fix them. Time pressure—when people believe there aren't enough hours to do the work. Setting a deadline is a useful way of inducing people to perform. Or it can be a source of resentment, rage, and conflict if employees think their manager has unrealistic expectations. Example: If you're in the business of marketing Christmas items to department stores and gift shops, it's imperative that you have your product ready for those important trade shows at which store buyers will appear. But the product-ready deadline for Marketing may be completely unworkable for your company's Production Department, leading to angry conflict. Communication failures—when people misperceive and misunderstand. The need for clear communication is a never-ending, ongoing process. Even under the best of circumstances, people misunderstand others, leading to conflict.

Production

Production teams are responsible for performing day-to-day operations. Examples are mining teams, flight-attendant crews, maintenance crews, assembly teams, data processing groups, and manufacturing crews.

4. Use Programmed Conflict: Devil's Advocacy & the Dialectic Method

Programmed conflict is designed to elicit different opinions without inciting people's personal feelings. Sometimes decision-making groups become so bogged down in details and procedures that nothing of substance gets done. The idea here is to get people, through role-playing, to defend or criticize ideas based on relevant facts rather than on personal feelings and preferences. The method for getting people to engage in this debate of ideas is to do disciplined role-playing, for which two proven methods are available: devil's advocacy and the dialectic method. These two methods work as follows: -Devil's advocacy—role-playing criticism to test whether a proposal is workable. Devil's advocacy is the process of assigning someone to play the role of critic to voice possible objections to a proposal and thereby generate critical thinking and reality testing. Periodically role-playing devil's advocate has a beneficial side effect in that it is good training for developing analytical and communicative skills. However, it's a good idea to rotate the job so no one person develops a negative reputation. -The dialectic method—role-playing two sides of a proposal to test whether it is workable. Requiring a bit more skill than devil's advocacy, the dialectic method is the process of having two people or groups play opposing roles in a debate in order to better understand a proposal. After the structured debate, managers are better able to make a decision. Whatever kind of organization you work for, you'll always benefit from knowing how to manage conflict.

Project Teams

Project teams work to do creative problem solving, often by applying the specialized knowledge of members of a cross-functional team, which is staffed with specialists pursuing a common objective. Examples are task forces, research groups, planning teams, architect teams, engineering teams, and development teams.

7. Roles: How Team Members Are Expected to Behave

Roles are socially determined expectations of how individuals should behave in a specific position. As a team member, your role is to play a part in helping the team reach its goals. Members develop their roles based on the expectations of the team, of the organization, and of themselves, and they may do different things. You, for instance, might be a team leader. Others might do some of the work tasks. Still others might communicate with other teams. Two types of team roles are task and maintenance.

6. Size: Small Teams or Large Teams?

Size, which is often determined by the team's purpose, can be important in affecting members' commitment and performance. Whereas in some flat-organization structures groups may consist of 30 or more employees, teams seem to range in size from 2 to 16 people, with those of 5-12 generally being the most workable and 5-6 considered optimal. A survey of 400 workplace team members in the United States found that the average team consisted of 10 members, with 8 being the most common size. Small and large teams have different characteristics, although the number of members is, to be sure, somewhat arbitrary.

Large Teams: 10-16 Members for More Resources & Division of Labor

Teams with 10-16 members have different advantages over small teams. (Again, the numbers are somewhat arbitrary.) More resources. Larger teams have more resources to draw on: more knowledge, experience, skills, abilities, and perhaps time. These will give them more leverage to help them realize the team's goals. Division of labor. In addition, a large team can take advantage of division of labor, in which the work is divided into particular tasks that are assigned to particular workers. Yet bigness has its disadvantages: -Less interaction. With more members, there is less interaction, sharing of information, and coordinating of activities. Leaders may be more formal and autocratic, since members in teams this size are apt to be more tolerant of autocratic leadership. The larger size may also lead to the formation of cliques. -Lower morale. Because people are less able to see the worth of their individual contributions, they show less commitment and satisfaction and more turnover and absenteeism. They also express more disagreements and turf struggles and make more demands on leaders. -Social loafing. The larger the size, the more likely performance is to drop, owing to the phenomenon known as social loafing, the tendency of people to exert less effort when working in groups than when working alone. (Today social loafers are more apt to be known as sliders—high achievers who have "checked out," in the words of columnists Jack and Suzy Welch, and who have to be dealt with "before they begin to suck the team into their negative energy field and drag it down.")

Small Teams: 2-9 Members for Better Interaction & Morale

Teams with 9 or fewer members have two advantages: Better interaction. Members are better able to interact, share information, ask questions of one another, and coordinate activities than are those in larger teams. In particular, teams with five or fewer offer more opportunity for personal discussion and participation. Better morale. They are better able to see the worth of their individual contributions and thus are more highly committed and satisfied. Members are less apt to feel inhibited in participating. Team leaders are subject to fewer demands and are able to be more informal. However, small teams also have some disadvantages: -Fewer resources. With fewer hands, there will be fewer resources—less knowledge, experience, skills, and abilities to apply to the team's tasks. -Possibly less innovation. A group that's too small may show less creativity and boldness because of the effect of peer pressure. -Unfair work distribution. Because of fewer resources and less specialization, there may be an uneven distribution of the work among members.

Big Picture

Teamwork promises to be a cornerstone of future management. A team is different from a group. A group typically is management-directed, a team self-directed. Groups may be formal, created to do productive work, or informal, created for friendship. Work teams, which engage in collective work requiring coordinated effort, may be organized according to four basic purposes: advice, production, project, and action. Two types of teams are continuous improvement and self-managed teams.

2. Intergroup Conflicts: Clashes Between Work Groups, Teams, & Departments

The downside of cohesiveness, the "we" feeling discussed earlier, is that it can translate into "we versus them." This produces conflict among work groups, teams, and departments within an organization.

Stage 1: Forming—"Why Are We Here?"

The first stage, forming, is the process of getting oriented and getting acquainted. This stage is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty as members try to break the ice and figure out who is in charge and what the group's goals are. For example, if you were to become part of a team that is to work on a class project, the question for you as an individual would be "How do I fit in here?" For the group, the question is "Why are we here?" At this point, mutual trust is low, and there is a good deal of holding back to see who takes charge and how. If the formal leader (such as the class instructor or a supervisor) does not assert his or her authority, an emergent leader will eventually step in to fill the group's need for leadership and direction.

What the Leadership Should Do

The leader can help ease the transition by rituals celebrating "the end" and "new beginnings." Parties, award ceremonies, graduations, or mock funerals can provide the needed punctuation at the end of a significant teamwork project. The leader can emphasize valuable lessons learned in group dynamics to prepare everyone for future group and team efforts.

Are Self Managed Teams Effective

The most common chores of today's self-managed teams are work scheduling and customer interaction, and the least common are hiring and firing. Most self-managed teams are also found at the shop-floor level in factory settings, although some experts predict growth of the practice in service operations and even management ranks. Self-managed teams have been found to have a positive effect on productivity and attitudes of self-responsibility and control, although there is no significant effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Although these conclusions don't qualify as a sweeping endorsement of self-managed teams, experts expect a trend toward such teams in North America because of a strong cultural bias in favor of direct participation. The following table shows some ways to empower self-managed teams.

Stage 2: Storming—"Why Are We Fighting Over Who Does What & Who's in Charge?"

The second stage, storming, is characterized by the emergence of individual personalities and roles and conflicts within the group. For you as an individual, the question is "What's my role here?" For the group, the issue is "Why are we fighting over who does what and who's in charge?" This stage may be of short duration or painfully long, depending on the goal clarity and the commitment and maturity of the members. This is a time of testing. Individuals test the leader's policies and assumptions as they try to determine how they fit into the power structure. Subgroups take shape, and subtle forms of rebellion, such as procrastination, occur. Many groups stall in stage 2 because power politics may erupt into open rebellion.

Three Kinds of Conflict: Personality, Intergroup, & Cross-Cultural

There are a variety of sources of conflict—so-called conflict triggers. Three of the principal ones are (1) between personalities, (2) between groups, and (3) between cultures. By understanding these, you'll be better able to take charge and manage the conflicts rather than letting the conflicts take you by surprise and manage you.

Various Types of Teams

These teams are not mutually exclusive. Work teams, for instance, may also be self-managed, cross-functional, or virtual. Continuous improvement team Volunteers of workers and supervisors who meet intermittently to discuss workplace and quality-related problems; formerly called quality circle Cross-functional team Members composed of people from different departments, such as sales and production, pursuing a common objective Problem-solving team Knowledgeable workers who meet as a temporary team to solve a specific problem and then disband Self-managed team Workers are trained to do all or most of the jobs in a work unit, have no direct supervisor, and do their own day-to-day supervision Top-management team Members consist of the CEO, president, and top department heads and work to help the organization achieve its mission and goals Virtual team Members interact by computer network to collaborate on projects Work team Members engage in collective work requiring coordinated effort; purpose of team is advice, production, project, or action (see text discussion) You will probably benefit most by understanding the various types of work teams distinguished according to their purpose. Work teams, which engage in collective work requiring coordinated effort, are of four types, which may be identified according to their basic purpose: advice, production, project, or action.

What the Leader Should Do

This stage generally does not last long. Here the leader should emphasize unity and help identify team goals and values.

Continuous Improvement Teams

To give you an idea of how teams work, consider self-managed teams. These kinds of teams have emerged out of what were called quality circles, now known as continuous improvement teams, which consist of small groups of volunteers or workers and supervisors who meet intermittently to discuss workplace- and quality-related problems. Typically a group of 10-12 people will meet for 60-90 minutes once or twice a month, with management listening to presentations and the important payoff for members usually being the chance for meaningful participation and skills training.

2. Trust: "We Need to Have Reciprocal Faith in Each Other"

Trust is defined as reciprocal faith in others' intentions and behaviors. The word reciprocal emphasizes the give-and-take aspect of trust—that is, we tend to give what we get: trust begets trust, distrust begets distrust. Trust is based on credibility—how believable you are based on your past acts of integrity and follow-through on your promises. Besides enhancing your credibility by showing professionalism, technical ability, and good business sense, you can build trust in your team members by the methods shown at right.

Groups Vs. Teams

Twenty-five years ago, management philosopher Peter Drucker predicted that future organizations would not only be flatter and information-based but also organized around teamwork—and that has certainly come to pass. "You lead today by building teams and placing others first," says General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt. "It's not about you." "We have this mythology in America about the lone genius," says Tom Kelley, general manager of Ideo, a Palo Alto, California, multidisciplinary industrial design company that helped create the Apple mouse, first laptop computer, and soft-handled Gripper toothbrush for Oral-B. "We love to personify things. But Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel alone, and Edison didn't invent the light bulb alone." The argument for promoting diversity suggested by scholar Scott E. Page—namely, that different kinds of people "bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it"—is also a principal strength of teams. However, teamwork is now the cornerstone of progressive management for many other reasons, as the table below shows. Regardless, when you take a job in an organization, the chances are you won't be working as a lone genius or even as a lone wolf. You'll be working with others in situations demanding teamwork.

1. Personality Conflicts: Clashes Because of Personal Dislikes or Disagreements

We've all had confrontations, weak or strong, with people because we disagreed with them or disliked their personalities, such as their opinions, their behavior, their looks, whatever. Personality conflict is defined as interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike, disagreement, or differing styles. Such conflicts often begin with instances of workplace incivility, or employees' lack of regard for each other, which, if not curtailed, can diminish job satisfaction and organizational loyalty.

3. Multicultural Conflicts: Clashes Between Cultures

With cross-border mergers, joint ventures, and international alliances common features of the global economy, there are frequent opportunities for clashes between cultures. Often success or failure, when business is being conducted across cultures, arises from dealing with differing assumptions about how to think and act. Example: When in early 2010, drivers of Toyota automobiles were losing control because of sudden acceleration problems, resulting in the manufacturer recalling thousands of vehicles, Toyota failed to recognize differences in the way that Japanese and Americans perceive recalls and safety. For the Japanese, conflicts are all about personal honor. "Japanese consumers are horrified by recalls," says one account, "while Japanese companies avoid them at all costs in order to protect their image. But for U.S. consumers, knowing that any flaw will trigger a recall gives them greater confidence in their cars." By delaying recall, Toyota erred in making a "typically Japanese judgment" for an American market. Dealing with cross-cultural conflict begins with having an understanding of the GLOBE project's nine cultural dimensions, as discussed in Chapter 4. In that chapter, we also described other cultural variations in language, interpersonal space, communication, time orientation, and religion. One study of 409 expatriates (14% of them female) from U.S. and Canadian multinational firms working in 51 different countries identified nine specific ways to facilitate interaction with host-country nationals, the results of which are shown at right. Note that "Be a good listener" tops the list—the very thing lacking in so many American managers, who are criticized for being blunt to the point of insensitivity.

3. Bring in Outsiders for New Perspectives

Without "new blood," organizations can become inbred and resistant to change. This is why managers often bring in outsiders—people from a different unit of the organization, new hires from competing companies, or consultants. With their different backgrounds, attitudes, or management styles, these outsiders can bring a new perspective and can shake things up.