Chapter 18: Leading Teams

Five contributions of Teams

1. Creativity and innovation 2. Improved quality 3. Speed of Response 4. Higher productivity and lower costs 5. Enhanced motivation and satisfaction

How to make meetings worthwhile:

1. Define the purpose 2. Invite the right people 3. Prepare an agenda and identify the expected outcome 4. Start on time, state the purpose, and review the agenda 5. Establish ground rules 6. Create involvement 7. Keep it moving 8. End with a call to action 9. Follow up swiftly

Requirements of teamwork:

1. Focus on a shared mission 2. Trust one another 3. Pull together in the same direction 4. Communicate their objectives and needs 5. Are willing to sacrifice for the team

Types of Negotiation

1. Integrative negotiation 2. Distributive negotiation 3. Zero-sum game

Five common dysfunctions of teams:

1. Lack of trust 2. Fear of conflict 3. Lack of commitment 4. Avoidance of accountability 5. Inattention of results

Two factors in the team's context also influence cohesiveness

1. Presence of competition 2. Team success

Work team effectiveness is based on three outcomes

1. Productive output 2. Personal satisfaction 3. The capacity to adapt and learn

Rules for Reaching a Win-Win based on four key strategies:

1. Separate the people from the problem 2. Focus on underlying interests, not current demands. Demands create yes-or-no obstacles to effective negotiation, whereas interests present problems that can be solved creatively 3. Listen and ask questions: a good strategy. You can learn more about your opponent's position, constraints, and needs by being quiet or asking questions 4. Insist that results be based on objective standards: each party in a negotiation has its own interests and naturally would like to maximize its outcomes. Successful negotiation requires focusing on objective criteria and maintaining standards of fairness rather than using subjective judgments about the best solution

Types of cross-functional teams

1. Task force 2. Special-purpose team

Determinants of Team Cohesiveness

1. Team interaction 2. Shared goals 3. Personal attraction

Self-managed teams typically include two elements:

1. The team includes employees with several skills and functions, and its combined skills are sufficient to perform a major organizational task. The team eliminates barriers among departments, enabling excellent coordination to produce a product or service 2. The team is empowered with decision-making authority, which means that members have the freedom to select new members, solve problems, spend money, monitor results, and plan for the future. Self-managed teams can enable employees to feel challenged, find their work meaningful, and develop a stronger sense of identity with the organization

Three components of a team

1. Two or more people required 2. People in a team interact regularly 3. People in a team share a performance goal, whether it is to design a new smartphone, build an engine or complete a class project

The personal dilemma of teamwork: three primary reasons that teams present a dilemma for many people

1. We have to give up our independence 2. We have to put up with free riders 3. Teams are sometimes dysfunctional

Leading teams percentages

80% of respondents reported using some kind of team, but only 14% of those companies rated their teaming efforts as highly effective

What trend are self-managed teams related to?

Boss-loss organizations. The central idea is that the teams themselves, rather than managers or supervisors, take responsibility for their work, make decisions, monitor their own performance, and alter their work behavior as need to solve problems, meet goals and adapt to changing conditions.

Norming

Conflict is resolved and team harmony and unity emerge. Consensus develops on who has the power, who the leaders are, and what various members' roles are. The team leader should emphasize unity within the team and help to clarify team norms and values

What provides the base for trusting relationships and typically makes teamwork run more smoothly?

Experts say that including people in a virtual team who have worked together before

What increases team cohesiveness and trust?

Higher levels of online communication. Leaders also build trust by making everyone's roles, responsibilities, and authority clear from the beginning; by shaping norms of full disclosure and respectful interactions; and by providing a way for everyone to stay up to date

Size

Ivan Steiner proposed that a team's performance and productivity peaked when it had about 5 members. Found that adding members beyond five caused a decrease in motivation, an increase in coordination problems and a general decline in performance. Teams need to be large enough to incorporate the diverse skills needed to complete a task, enable members to express good and bad feelings, and aggressively solve problems. They should also be small enough to permit members to feel an intimate part of the team and to communicate effectively and efficiently. The ability of people to identify with the team is an important determinant of high performance

How are the requirements for task performance and social satisfaction met with successful teams?

Met by the emergence of two types of roles: 1. task specialist and 2. Socioemotional

How to virtual keep the team progressing towards its goals

Monitor progress and reward members. Leaders stay on top of the project's development and make sure everyone knows how the team is progressing toward meeting its goals

How many organizations use virtual teams?

Nearly half of all organizations and about 80% of responding employees say they have worked in a virtual team at some time. Most managers expect the use of virtual teams will continue to grow

Task Specialist Role

Spend time and energy helping the team reach its goal. Displaying the following behaviors: 1. Initiate ideas 2. Give opinions 3. Seek information 4. Summarize 5. Energize

Teams and building teamwork aren't the same thing, what is the difference?

Teamwork requires bringing together the right set of personalities, specialties and skills. Trust is a critical aspect of teamwork

How to virtual teams shape culture?

Through virtual technology to reinforce productive norms: this involves creating a virtual environment in which people feel safe to express concerns, admit mistakes, share ideas, acknowledge fears, or ask for help. Leaders also make sure that they bring diversity issues into the open and educate members early on regarding possible cultural differences that could cause communication problems or misunderstandings in a virtual environment

When were highly cohesive teams more productive?

When team members felt management support and less productive when they sensed management hostility and negativism

Forming

a period of orientation and getting acquainted. Members break the ice and test one another for friendship possibilities and task orientation. Uncertainty is high in this stage. The team leader should provide time for members to get acquainted with one another and encourage them to engage in informal social discussions

Low directness-low intensity

a person expresses conflict in an ambiguous, low-key way. The most constructive way to express a conflict is high directness-low intensity because it enables people to take other viewpoints into consideration and work together toward a positive outcome

Low directness-high intensity

a person using this approach expresses a conflict ambiguously but uses aggressive tactics

Social sensitivity

a team's collective intelligence also increases when people are sensitive to and inquire into one another's moods and emotions

Team

a unit of two or more people who interact and coordinate their work to accomplish a common goal to which they are committed and hold themselves mutually accountable.

Two major dimensions are the extent to which an individual:

assertive vs unassertive and cooperative vs uncooperative

Distributive negotiation

assumes that the size of the "pie" is fixed, and each party attempt to get as much of the pie as it can. One side wine which means the other must low. Competitive and adversarial rather than collaborative

Integrative negotiation

based on a win-win assumption, in that all parties want to come up with a creative solution that can benefit both sides. Conflicts are managed through cooperation and compromise, which fosters trust and positive long-term relationships

Creativity and innovation

because teams include people with diverse skills, strengths, experiences, and perspectives, they contribute to a higher level of creativity and innovation in the organization

Diversity

because teams require a variety of skills, knowledge and experience, it seems likely that heterogeneous teams would be more effective than homogeneous ones. In general, research supports this idea, showing that diverse teams produce more innovative solutions to problems. Functional diversity and demographic diversity can have a positive impact on work team performance.

Managing Team Conflict

can arise among member within a team or between one team and another

High directness-low intensity

communication is also unambiguous but the person uses a low-voltage style, such as asking questions, listening, debating, and deliberating

Functional Teams

composed of a manager and his or her subordinates in the formal chain of command. Sometimes called a command team, the functional team in some cases may include three or four levels of hierarchy within a functional department. Typically, the team includes a single department in an organization

Cross-functional teams

composed of employees from about the same hierarchical levels, but from different areas of expertise

Special purpose team

created outside the formal organization structure to undertake a project of special importance or creativity. Sometimes called a project team, a special-purpose team still is part of the formal organization structure, but members perceive themselves as a separate entity. Rather than having defined, long-term jobs, employees apply their skills and abilities in short-term, project-based teams. Often referred to as the Hollywood model

Building a Cohesive Team

defined as the extent to which members attract are attracted to the team and motivated to remain in it

Model of Team Effectiveness

effective teams are built by managers who take specific actions to help people come together and perform well as a team

Higher productivity and lower costs

effective teams can unleash enormous energy from employees.

High directness-high intensity

expressed a conflict unambiguously by using aggressive or antagonistic verbal or nonverbal communication, such as shouting, scowling or eye rolling

Member Roles

for a team to be successful over the long run, it must be structured in a way that both maintains its members social well-being and accomplishes its task

Lack of commitment

if people are afraid to express their true opinions, it's difficult to gain their true commitment to decisions

Shared goals

if teams members agree on purpose and direction, they will be more cohesive

Equal participation

in effective teams, all team members participate in roughly equal proportion. Teams leaders play an important role in shaping norms that will help the team be effective

Storming

individual personalities emerge. People become more assertive in clarifying their roles and what is expected to them. Marked by conflict and disagreement. The team leader should encourage participation by each team member. Members should propose ideas, disagree with one another, and work through the uncertainties and conflicting perceptions about team tasks and goals

Global teams

is a cross-border team made up of members of different nationalities whose activities span multiple countries

Team Norm

is an informal standard of conduct that is shared by team members and guides their behavior. Norms are valuable because they provide a frame of reference for what is expected and acceptable. Norms can have tremendous influence on how well teams perform

Self-managed teams

is designed to increase the participation of workers in decision marking and the conduct of their jobs, with the goal of improving performance. Typically consists of 5 to 20 multi-skilled workers who rotate jobs to produce an entire product or service or at least one complete aspect or portion of a product or service

Personal attraction

meaning that members have similar attitudes and values and enjoy being together

Inattention of results

members put personal ambition or the needs of their individual departments ahead of collective results

Balancing Conflict and Cooperation

mild conflict can be beneficial to teams. A healthy level of conflict helps to prevent groupthink. However, conflict that is too strong, that is focused on personal rather than work issues, or that is not managed appropriately can be damaging to the team's morale and productivity. Too much conflict can be destructive, tear relationships apart, and interfere with the healthy exchange of ideas or information

Morale

morale is higher in cohesive teams because of increased communication among members, a friendly team climate, maintenance of membership because of commitment to the team, loyalty and member participation in teams decisions and activities

Stages of Team Development

new teams are different from mature teams. Stages: 1. Forming 2. Storming 3. Norming 4. Performing 5. Adjourning

Adjourning:

occurs in committees and teams that have a limited task to perform and are disbanded afterward. The emphasis is on wrapping up and gearing down. The leader may wish to signify the team's disbanding with a ritual or ceremony, perhaps giving out plaques and awards to members to signify closure and completeness

Ways of Expressing Conflict

one factor is intensity with which a conflict is expressed. Four primary ways: 1. High directness-high intensity 2. High directness-low intensity 3. Low directness-high intensity 4. Low directness-low intensity

Psychological safety

one of the most critical norms for an effective team. Means a team climate characterized by mutual trust and respect, in which team members are comfortable being themselves

Causes of Conflict

one of the primary causes is competition over resources, such as money, information and supplies. Conflict often occurs because people are pursuing differing goals. Conflict may also arise from communication breakdowns, virtual and global teams are particularly prone to communication breakdowns. Trust issues can be major source of conflict in virtual teams if members feel that they are being left out of important communication interactions. The lack of nonverbal interactions leads to more misunderstandings

Improved Quality

organizations that provide the highest quality of patient care are those in which teams of closely coordinated professionals provide an integrated system of care

Avoidance of accountability

people don't accept responsibility for outcomes; engage in finger-pointing when things go wrong

Lack of trust

people don't feel safe to reveal mistakes, share concerns, or express ideas

Fear of conflict

people go along with others for the sake of harmony; don't express conflicting options

Enhanced motivation and satsifaction

people have needs for belongingness and affiliation. Working in teams can meet these needs and create greater camaraderie across the organization. Teams also reduce boredom, increase people's feelings of dignity and self-worth, and give people a chance to develop new skills. Individuals who work in an effective team cope better with stress, enjoy their jobs more, and have a higher level of motivation and commitment to the organzation

Emotional expression

people in effective teams feel comfortable enough to express their emotions as well as their thoughts

Negative norms

people must work harder to accomplish goals and team members may experience dissatisfaction

Team Processes

pertain to those dynamics that change over time and can be influenced by team leaders

Productive output

pertains to performance and the quality and quantity of task outputs as defined by team goals

Personal satisfaction

pertains to the team's ability to meet the personal needs of its members and hence maintain their membership and commitment

Free rider

refers to a team member who attains benefits from team membership but does not actively participate in and contribute to the team's work. Free riding is sometimes called social loafing because some members do not exert equal effort

Conflict

refers to an antagonistic interaction in which one party attempts to block the intentions or goals of another

Task Conflict

refers to disagreements among people about the goals to be achieved or the content of the tasks to be performed

Relationship conflict

refers to interpersonal incompatibility that creates tension and personal animosity among people

The capacity to adapt and learn

refers to the ability of teams to being greater knowledge and skills to job tasks and enhance the potential of the organization to respond to new threats or opportunities in the environment

Social facilitation

refers to the tendency for the presence of others to enhance one's performance. Simply being around others has an energizing effect

Collaborating

reflects a high degree of both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Allow both parties to win, although it may require substantial bargaining and negotiation. Important when both sets of concerns are too important to be comprised

Accommodating style

reflects a high degree of cooperativeness, which works best when people realize that they are wrong, when an issue is more important to others than to oneself, when building social credits for use in later discussions, and when maintaining harmony is especially important

Compromising

reflects a moderate amount of both assertiveness and cooperativeness

Dominating style

reflects assertiveness to get one's own way and should be used when quick, decisive action is vital on important issues or unpopular actions, such as during emergencies or urgent cost-cutting requirement

Avoiding

reflects neither assertiveness nor cooperativeness. It is appropriate when an issue is trivial, when there is no chance of winning, when a delay to gather more information is needed, or when a disruption would be costly

Productivity

research suggests that teams in which members share strong feelings of connectedness and generally positive interactions tend to perform better

Virtual teams

resulted from advances in IT, shifting employee expectations, and the globalization of business. It's a group of made up of geographically or organizationally dispersed members who are linked primarily through advanced information and telecommunications technologies.

3. Teams are sometimes dysfunctional

some companies have had great success with teams, but there are also numerous examples of how teams in organizations fail spectacularly

Socioemotional Role

support team members' emotioanl needs and help strengthen the social entity. Can be satisfying but also can be unproductive. Display the following behaviors: 1. Encourage 2. Harmonize 3. Reduce tension 4. Follow 5. Compromise

2. We have to put with free riders

teams are sometimes made up of people who have different work ethics.

Styles of Handling Conflict

teams as well as individuals develop specific styles for dealing with conflict, based on the desire to satisfy their own concern versus the other party's concern

One of the primary advantages of virtual teams:

the ability to assemble the most talented group of people to complete a complex project, solve a particular problem, or exploit a specific strategic opportunity

Team success

the favorable evaluation of the team by outsiders add to cohesiveness. When a team succeeds in its task and others in the organization recognize the success, members feel good and their commitment to the team will be high

Performing

the major emphasis is on problem solving and accomplishing the assigned task. Members are committed to the team's mission. Confront and resolve problems in the interest of task accomplishment. The leaders should concentrate on managing high task performance. Both socioemotional and task specialist roles contribute to the team's functioning

1. We have to give up our independence

their success depends on the team's success; therefore they must depend on how well other people perform, not just on their own individual initiative and actions. Some cultures, such as Japan, have had greater success with teams because traditional Japanese culture values the group of the individual

Speed of Response

tightly integrated teams can maneuver incredibly fast. Teams can speed product development, respond quickly to changing customer needs, and solve cross-departmental problems more quickly

The key to effectiveness

to see negotiation not as a zero-sum game, but as a process for reaching a creative solution that benefits everyone

Presence of competition

when a team is in moderate competition with other teams, its cohesiveness increases as it strives to win

The Value of Teams

when tasks are highly interdependent, a team approach can be the best approach to ensuring the level of coordination, information sharing, and exchange of materials necessary for successful task accomplishment

Team Interaction

when team members have frequent contact, they get to know one another, consider themselves a unit, and become more committed to the team

Negotiation

whereby people engage in give-and-take discussions and consider various alternatives to reach a joint decision that is acceptable to both parties. Used when a conflict is formalized such as between a union and management

Task force

which is a group of employees from different departments formed to deal with a specific activity and existing only until the task is completed