Chapter 10: Understanding work teams

Analyze the continued popularity of teams in organizations

Teams can sometimes achieve feats an individual could never accomplish.2 Teams are more flexible and responsive to changing events than traditional departments or other forms of permanent groupings. They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband. They are an effective means to democratize organizations and increase employee involvement.

Decide when to use individuals instead of teams.

1) First, can the work be done better by more than one person? 2) Second, does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals? 3) The final test is to determine whether the members of the group are interdependent.

Explain how organizations can create team players.

By training employees. By training specialists.

Identify the characteristics of effective teams.

Context: Adequate Resources Leadership and Structure Climate of trust Performance evaluation and reward systems Composition: Abilities of members Personalitites Allocating Roles Diversity Cultural Differences Size of teams Member Preferences Process: common purpose Specific goals Team efficacy Team identity Team Cohesion Mental Models Conflict levels Social loafing These all go to equal: TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

contrast teams and groups

a group as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who work together to achieve particular objectives. A workgroup is a group that interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility.

Contrast the five types of team arrangements.

problem-solving teams, self-managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams, and multi-team systems. 1) problem-solving teams- Groups of employees from the same department who meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment. 2) work team-A group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs. 3) cross-functional teams, made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different work areas who come together to accomplish a task. 4) virtual teams-Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal. 5) multi-team system-A collection of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal; a team of teams.