BSAD 349: Chapter 12: Teams: Processes and Communication

Network Structure (Parts)

- Centralization: The degree to which the communication in a network flows through some members rather than others - All Channel: Every member can communicate with every other member. - Wheel Network Structure: This network structure is highly centralized because all the communication flows through a single member - Circle and Y Structures: Structures to illustrate examples that fall between the extremes in terms of the level of centralization.

Communicator Issues

- Communicators → need to encode and interpret messages, and it turns out that these activities can be major sources of communication problems. - Communication Competence: refers to the skills involved in encoding, transmitting, and receiving messages. - Emotions & Emotional Intelligence: Emotions can affect how people express themselves and can also cloud their interpretation of the information they receive from others.

Types of Transition Processes

- Mission Analysis: involves an analysis of the team's task, the challenges that face the team, and the resources available for completing the team's work. - Strategy Formulation: refers to the development of courses of action and contingency plans, and then adapting those plans in light of changes that occur in the team's environment. - Goal Specification: Involves the development and prioritization of goals related to the team's mission and strategy.

Types of Action Processes

- Monitoring Progress towards Goals: Teams that pay attention to goal-related information—perhaps by charting the team's performance relative to team goals—are typically in a good position to realize when they are "off-track" and need to make changes. - Systems Monitoring: involves keeping track of things that the team needs to accomplish its work. A team that does not engage in systems monitoring may fail because it runs out of inventory, time, or other necessary resources. - Helping Behavior: involves members going out of their way to help or back up other team members. - Coordination: refers to synchronizing team members' activities in a way that makes them mesh effectively and seamlessly

Types of Interpersonal Processes

- Motivating and Confidence Building: refers to things team members do or say that affect the degree to which members are motivated to work hard on the team's task. - Affect Management: involves activities that foster a sense of emotional balance and unity. - Conflict Management: involves the activities that the team uses to manage conflicts that arise in the course of its work.

Communication Sequence

- Sender: sources of the information - Encode: use verbal and written language as well as nonverbal language and cues - Message: the information -Receiver: an encoded message transmitted to a certain person -Decode: the message to form an understanding of the information it contains.

Research ....

- Teamwork processes have a moderately positive effect on Team Performance. That aspect of the team process has a stronger effect on performance for teams involved in more complex knowledge work rather than less complex work. -Teamwork processes have a strong positive effect on Team Commitment. That aspect of the team process has a stronger effect on commitment for teams involved in more complex knowledge work rather than less complex work.

Potency Effects on Teams

- When a team has high potency, members are confident that their team can perform well, and as a consequence, they focus more of their energy on team tasks and teamwork in hopes of achieving team goals - When a team has low potency, members are not as confident about their team, so they begin to question the team's goals and one another.

Most brainstorming sessions center around the following rules:

1. Express all ideas that come to mind (no matter how strange). 2. Go for quantity of ideas rather than quality. 3. Don't criticize or evaluate the ideas of others. 4. Build on the ideas of others.

Nominal Group Technique

A team process used to generate creative ideas, whereby team members individually write down their ideas and then take turns sharing them with the group.

Brainstorming

A team process used to generate creative ideas.

Potency

A team state reflects the degree of confidence among team members that the team can be effective across situations and tasks.

Cohesion

A team state that occurs when members of the team develop strong emotional bonds to other members of the team and to the team itself.

Production Blocking

A type of coordination loss resulting from team members having to wait on each other before completing their own part of the team task.

Social Loafing

A type of motivational loss resulting from members feeling less accountable for team outcomes relative to independent work that results in individually identifiable outcomes.

Groupthink

Behaviors that support conformity and team harmony at the expense of other team priorities.

Task Coordinator Activities

Boundary spanning activities that are intended to coordinate task-related issues with people or groups in other functional areas.

Scout Activities

Boundary-spanning activities that are intended to obtain information about technology, competitors, or the broader marketplace

Ambassador Activities

Boundary-spanning activities that are intended to protect the team, persuade others to support the team, or obtain important resources for the team

What factors account for a team's ability to make accurate and effective decisions? At least three factors appear to be involved:

Decision Infirmity, Staff Validity, Hierarchical Sensitivity

Task Conflict

Disagreements among members about the team's task

Relationship Conflict

Disagreements among team members with regard to interpersonal relationships or incompatibilities in personal values or preferences.

Team Building

Fun activities that facilitate team problem solving, trust, relationship building, and the clarification of role responsibilities.

Consensus

General agreement among members in regards to the final solution

Motivational Loss

Process loss due to team members' tendency to put forth less effort on team tasks than they could

Coordination Loss

Process loss due to the time and energy it takes to coordinate work activities with other team members.

Team States

Specific types of feelings and thoughts that coalesce in the minds of team members as a consequence of their experience working together.

Action Learning

Team process training in which a team has the opportunity to work on an actual problem within the organization.

Transportable Teamwork Competencies

Team training that involves helping people develop general teamwork competencies that they can transport from one team context to another.

Action Processes

Teamwork processes, such as helping and coordination, that aid in the accomplishment of teamwork as the work is actually taking place.

Transition Processes

Teamwork processes, such as mission analysis and planning, that focus on preparation for future work in the team.

Interpersonal Processes

Teamwork processes, such as motivation and confidence building, that focus on the management of relationships among team members.

Taskwork Processes

The activities of team members that relate directly to the accomplishment of team tasks.

Information Richness

The amount and depth of information that is transmitted in a message.

Staff Validity

The degree to which team members make good recommendations to the team leader.

Decision Infirmity

The degree to which team members possess adequate information about their own task responsibilities

Mental Models

The degree to which team members' specialized knowledge is integrated into an effective system of memory for the team.

Hierarchical Sensitivity

The degree to which the team leader effectively weighs the recommendations of the members.

Teamwork Processes

The interpersonal activities that promote the accomplishment of team tasks but do not involve task accomplishment itself.

Network Structure

The pattern of communication that occurs regularly among each member of a team.

Communication

The process by which information and meaning is transferred from a sender to a receiver.

Team Process Training

The use of team experiences that facilitates the team's ability to function and perform more effectively as an intact unit.

Personal Clarification

Training in which members simply receive information regarding the roles of the other team members.

Cross-training

Training team members in the duties and responsibilities of their teammates.

Positional Rotation

Training that gives members actual experience carrying out the responsibilities of their teammates.

Positional Modeling

Training that involves observations of how other team members perform their roles.

Process Gain

When team outcomes are greater than expected based on the capabilities of the individual members.

Process Loss

When team outcomes are less than expected based on the capabilities of the individual members.

Boundary Spanning

interactions among team members and individuals and groups who are not part of the team.

Noise

interferes with the message being transmitted.

Meta-knowledge

knowledge of who knows what

Psychological Safety

the sense that it is OK to do things that are interpersonally risky, or that expressing opinions and making suggestions that challenge the status quo won't be met with embarrassment and rejection at the hands of teammates.