MAN3025 Chapter 10

Explain how to enhance work team effectiveness.

Companies can make teams more effective by setting team goals and managing how team members are selected, trained, and compensated. Team goals provide a clear focus and purpose, reduce the incidence of social loafing, and lead to higher team performance 93% of the time. Extremely difficult stretch goals can be used to motivate teams as long as teams have autonomy, control over resources, structural accommodation, and bureaucratic immunity. Not everyone is suited for teamwork. When selecting team members, companies should select people who have a preference for teamwork (that is, are more collectivists than individualists) and should consider team level (average ability of a team) and team diversity (different abilities of a team). Organizations that use teams successfully provide thousands of hours of training to make sure that teams work. The most common types of team training are for interpersonal skills, decision-making and problem-solving skills, conflict resolution, technical training to help team members learn multiple jobs (that is, cross-training), and training for team leaders. Employees can be compensated for team participation and accomplishments in three ways: skill-based pay, gainsharing, and nonfinancial rewards.

Recognize and understand the different kinds of teams.

Companies use different kinds of teams to make themselves more competitive. Autonomy is the key dimension that makes teams different. 1) Traditional work groups (which execute tasks) and employee involvement groups (which make suggestions) have the lowest levels of autonomy. 2) Semi-autonomous work groups (which control major direct tasks) have more autonomy, while self-managing teams (which control all direct tasks) and self-designing teams (which control membership and how tasks are done) have the highest levels of autonomy. 3) Cross-functional, virtual, and project teams are common but are not easily categorized in terms of autonomy. Cross-functional teams combine employees from different functional areas to help teams attack problems from multiple perspectives and generate more ideas and solutions. 4) Virtual teams use telecommunications and information technologies to bring coworkers together, regardless of physical location or time zone. Virtual teams reduce travel and work time, but communication may suffer because team members don't work face-to-face. 5) Finally, project teams are used for specific, one-time projects or tasks that must be completed within a limited time. Project teams reduce communication barriers and promote flexibility; teams and team members are reassigned to their departments or to new projects as their current projects are completed.

Explain the good and bad of using teams.

In many industries, teams are growing in importance because they help organizations respond to specific problems and challenges. Advantages: Teams have been shown to increase customer satisfaction (specific customer teams), product and service quality (direct responsibility), and employee job satisfaction (cross-training, unique opportunities, and leadership responsibilities). Teams also share many of the advantages (multiple perspectives, generation of more alternatives, and more commitment) Although teams can produce significant improvements in these areas, using teams does not guarantee these positive outcomes. Teams and teamwork have the disadvantages of initially high turnover and social loafing (especially in large groups), (groupthink, time, poorly run meetings, domination by a few team members, and weak accountability) of group decision making. Teams should be used for a clear purpose, when the work requires that people work together, when rewards can be provided for both teamwork and team performance, and when ample resources can be provided.

Understand the general characteristics of work teams.

The most important characteristics of work teams are 1) team norms, 2) cohesiveness, 3) size, 4) conflict, and 5) development. 1) Norms let team members know what is expected of them and can influence team behavior in positive and negative ways. Positive team norms are associated with organizational commitment, trust, and job satisfaction. 2) Team cohesiveness helps teams retain members, promotes cooperative behavior, increases motivation, and facilitates team performance. Attending team meetings and activities, creating opportunities to work together, and engaging in nonwork activities can increase cohesiveness. 3) Team size has a curvilinear relationship with team performance: teams that are very small or very large do not perform as well as moderate-sized teams of six to nine members. Teams of this size are cohesive and small enough for team members to get to know each other and contribute in a meaningful way but are large enough to take advantage of team members' diverse skills, knowledge, and perspectives. 4) Conflict and disagreement are inevitable in most teams. The key to dealing with team conflict is to maximize cognitive conflict, which focuses on issue-related differences, and minimize affective conflict, the emotional reactions that occur when disagreements become personal rather than professional. 5) As teams develop and grow, they pass through four stages of development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. If a team is not managed well, its performance may decline after a period of time as the team regresses through the stages of de-norming, de-storming, and de-forming.

Linda is a manager at a local restaurant. She wants to introduce a new happy hours discount scheme that she thinks will improve customer satisfaction. She wants to convince her team to get on board with her idea without being forced into it. In this case, which type of conflict will be healthy?

a. Cognitive conflict

Which of the following is an advantage of work teams?

a. They increase customer satisfaction.

Every month a group of workers at Waltman Tools Inc., meets at the company head office to discuss issues pertaining to project scheduling, plant safety, and product quality. The workers provide suggestions to the top management about how to rectify existing issues in these areas, but are not authorized to make decisions. This group is an example of a(n) _____.

a. employee involvement group

A company forms a new team to work on a new project that requires frequent communication with the client. Passing on accurate information is clearly indispensable for this project. The team is diverse with both inexperienced and experienced members. In order to ensure that the team's communication skills are enhanced, the company should provide training on _____.

a. interpersonal skills

Work teams are favorable for organizations because:

a. they improve product and service quality.

Which of the following is true of cognitive conflict?

b. It focuses on problem-related differences of opinion.

rainden Inc. is a multinational company that primarily provides ideas for business improvements, marketing, and promotions. The company has to work on a challenging project that requires experts such as software engineers, hardware professionals, marketing managers, and media personnel. The company forms a team consisting of these experts and provides cross-training to ensure that there is a certain level of understanding of each other's roles. In this case, Brainden is trying to increase _____.

b. job satisfaction

A manager at a restaurant has put forth a set of rules that employees should follow within the restaurant to regulate team behavior. Accordingly, employees are required to be in the restaurant by 8:00 a.m. They are also required to wear a uniform. Moreover, any order placed should be served within 30 minutes. In this case, the restaurant manager has developed _____.

b. norms

In the context of work team characteristics, _____ are informally agreed-on standards that regulate team behavior.

b. norms

group of medical specialists works in the neonatal unit of Brightlake Medical College and Hospital. The group has informally agreed to explain to students the reasons behind specific procedures during the course despite the fact that there are no formal guidelines mandating that students should be given an explanation. The group's agreed-on standards can be best categorized as _____.

b. norms

Vincent is the creative director at Greene & Kumar, a leading advertising agency. The company had been approached by a client who wants to market a product in a different country. Vincent established a development team and put Greg in charge of market research. After three weeks, all the other team members finished their share of work, except Greg. Greg had been procrastinating and had not completed his work. As a result of this, the project was indefinitely delayed. In this scenario, Greg's actions exemplify _____.

b. social loafing

manager who wants to use work teams but wants to give team members the least amount of autonomy should select:

b. traditional work groups.

Social loafing

behavior in which team members withhold their efforts and fail to perform their share of the work

_____ is the degree to which a person believes that people should be self-sufficient and that loyalty to one's self is more important than loyalty to one's team or company.

c. Individualism-collectivism

Which of the following is a difference between semi-autonomous work groups and self-managing teams?

c. Semi-autonomous work groups have the authority to make decisions and solve problems with their manager's permission, whereas self-managing work groups can manage and control all tasks without taking their manager's permission.

_____ have the least autonomy in the team autonomy continuum.

c. Traditional work groups

Max and Kings Corp. is an insurance company that has formed a new team of insurance policy processors, underwriters, and raters. In order to ensure that no work is stalled in the absence of a member in the team, the manager should provide _____ to the members.

c. cross-training

A group consisting of architects and engineers is created to plan the construction of a new bridge. The team members are getting to know each other and are setting some initial ground rules. This group is in the _____ stage of team development.

c. forming

A work team at Krumb Foods Inc., consists of eight people. However, Minta and Oscar are almost always the only team members who discuss ideas and opinions, while the other team members rarely get an opportunity to voice their opinions in team meetings. This work team is most likely experiencing _____.

c. minority domination

_____ occurs when members of highly cohesive groups feel intense pressure not to disagree with each other so that the group can approve a proposed solution.

d. Groupthink

Which of the following is a feature of cognitive conflict?

d. It is strongly associated with improvements in team performance

Which of the following is a requirement for team compensation to work?

d. The level of rewards must match the level of performance.

icture Perfect Advertising recently hired a fresh batch of copywriters and designers for its creative team. The team is currently facing problems due to minor disagreements, and performance is relatively low. In which of the following stages of team development is this group most likely to resolve petty differences among its members, develop friendships, and establish strong group cohesiveness?

d. The norming stage

Members of a project team:

d. can return to their functional units after a project is finished.

In the context of work team characteristics, _____ is the extent to which team members are attracted to a team and motivated to remain in it.

d. cohesiveness

Power Plate Inc., a hot plate manufacturer, decided to introduce an innovative product. The manager in charge formed a team of product designers, innovators, engineers, marketing professionals, and sales professionals. This is an example of a _____.

d. cross-functional team

Eduardo is the new manager at a retail store. Since he started working at the store, he has noticed that there is a lack of cohesiveness among his employees. In order to build team cohesiveness among his subordinates, Eduardo should:

d. make his staff feel like they are an essential part of the organization.

Norming

the third stage of team development, in which team members begin to settle into their roles, group cohesion grows, and positive team norms develop

Cross-functional team

a team composed of employees from different functional areas of the organization

Project team

a team created to complete specific, one-time projects or tasks within a limited time

_____ is the average degree of ability, experience, personality, or any other factor on a team.

c. Team level

Skill-based pay

compensation system that pays employees for learning additional skills or knowledge

Which of the following typically happens during the storming stage of team development?

d. Team members begin to work together, and different personalities and work styles may clash.

Bureaucratic immunity

the ability to make changes without first getting approval from managers or other parts of an organization

Cohesiveness

the extent to which team members are attracted to a team and motivated to remain in it

Traditional work group

a group composed of two or more people who work together to achieve a shared goal

Minority domination will most likely be a problem:

a. as the number of members increases in a team.

Teams can have healthy conflicts by:

a. developing multiple alternatives to enrich debate.

In the context of team compensation and recognition, skill-based pay is most effective for _____ performing complex tasks.

a. self-managing teams

Which of the following is true of teams with six to nine members?

c. They allow team members to get to know each other.

Which of the following responsibilities is most likely to be taken up by workers of traditional work groups?

d. Executing tasks

The incidence of _____ is high in large teams.

d. social loafing

Employee involvement team

team that provides advice or makes suggestions to management concerning specific issues

Structural accommodation

the ability to change organizational structures, policies, and practices in order to meet stretch goals

Performing

the fourth and final stage of team development, in which performance improves because the team has matured into an effective, fully functioning team

Storming

the second stage of development, characterized by conflict and disagreement, in which team members disagree over what the team should do and how it should do it

Gainsharing

a compensation system in which companies share the financial value of performance gains, such as increased productivity, cost savings, or quality, with their workers

Semi-autonomous work group

a group that has the authority to make decisions and solve problems related to the major tasks of producing a product or service

De-forming

a reversal of the forming stage, in which team members position themselves to control pieces of the team, avoid each other, and isolate themselves from team leaders

De-norming

a reversal of the norming stage, in which team performance begins to decline as the size, scope, goal, or members of the team change

De-storming

a reversal of the storming phase, in which the team's comfort level decreases, team cohesion weakens, and angry emotions and conflict may flare

Work team

a small number of people with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for pursuing a common purpose, achieving performance goals, and improving interdependent work processes

Virtual team

a team composed of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers who use telecommunication and information technologies to accomplish an organizational task

Self-designing team

a team that has the characteristics of self-managing teams but also controls team design, work tasks, and team membership

Self-managing team

a team that manages and controls all of the major tasks of producing a product or service

Which of the following is true of affective conflict?

a. It is strongly associated with decreases in team performance.

Springer Games Inc. is a video game developer with offices in five cities around the world. Developers from these five cities are required to communicate with their coworkers in other countries. As they cannot meet in person, they communicate with each other via e-mail, videoconferencing, and group communication applications. This team is an example of a(n) _____.

a. virtual team

Identify a difference between cognitive conflict and affective conflict.

b. Cognitive conflict is characterized by a willingness to examine, compare, and reconcile differences, whereas affective conflict often results in hostility, anger, resentment, distrust, cynicism, and apathy.

Which of the following statements is true of team cohesiveness?

b. Engaging in nonwork activities as a team can help build cohesion.

Which of the following is true of the stages of team development?

c. A preliminary team structure is set up during the forming stage.

Which of the following is true of employee involvement teams?

c. They facilitate solution recommendations from the people closest to a problem or situation.

Which of the following is a characteristic of team norms?

d. They often lead to increased trust in the management

Norms

informally agreed-on standards that regulate team behavior

Interpersonal skills

skills, such as listening, communicating, questioning, and providing feedback, that enable people to have effective working relationships with others

Team level

the average level of ability, experience, personality, or any other factor on a team

Individualism-collectivism

the degree to which a person believes that people should be self-sufficient and that loyalty to one's self is more important than loyalty to team or company

Forming

the first stage of team development, in which team members meet each other, form initial impressions, and begin to establish team norms

Team diversity

the variances or differences in ability, experience, personality, or any other factor on a team

Cross-training

training team members to do all or most of the jobs performed by the other team members