Team Concepts Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Team Concept

• Learning objectives include describing high-performance group characteristics, demonstrating and reinforcing positive/negative group member roles, and understanding leader actions to develop communication, teamwork, and a one-team attitude.

• Leadership is the ability to harness and channel group power. Key leadership requirements include understanding group behavior and utilizing team strengths.

• Excellent teams possess 12 key characteristics including a clear mission, informal atmosphere, lots of discussion, active listening, trust, openness, acceptable disagreement, issue-oriented criticism, consensus-oriented decision-making, effective leadership, clarity of assignment, shared values and norms, and commitment.

• Successful groups depend on individual choices, leadership example and direction, and positive/negative group member role modeling and reinforcement.

• Key roles that build high-performance groups include encourager (motivating contributions), clarifier (organizing and clarifying information), harmonizer (reconciling differing viewpoints), idea generator (brainstorming ideas), ignition key (facilitating group tasks), standard setter (providing expertise), and detail specialist (ensuring accuracy and thoroughness).

• Negative roles that hinder group success include ego trippers (interrupting and dominating conversations), negative artists (rejecting ideas and opposing progress), above-it-all persons (withdrawing from group activities), and aggressors (attacking others and expressing anger). Other detrimental roles include jokester (distracting from group work), avoider (avoiding confrontation), and power victim (seeking negative attention).

• Dealing with problematic group behavior includes calmly discussing the issue after the behavior, reporting observations without judgment, emphasizing the importance of considering others' needs to achieve team goals, explaining how the behavior affected others, and asking about the reasons behind the behavior.

• Leaders should avoid counterattacks when confronting problems.

• Teams typically consist of 5-8 members.

• The "two-pizza rule" from Amazon dictates a team size limit based on how many people two pizzas can feed.

• Microsoft's ideal team size for software development is eight.

• The problem-solving cycle includes having experiences, reflecting on results, building theories, and taking action.

• Four elements of problem-solving include having experiences, reflecting on results, building theories, and taking action.

• Tolerance of different problem-solving styles is essential in teams.

• Teams need all four problem-solving styles.

• Team work is critical for group success, leaders value teamwork, and demonstrate leadership through team building.

• Leaders should recruit and develop effective team members, commit to excellence, hire top talent providing training for others, consider everyone's needs, and be cautious of labeling people based on their qualities.

• Effective leaders prioritize creating a cooperative, "one-team" attitude, ensuring similar levels of participation from team members, and instilling a sense of teamwork/unity.

• Thomas Edison is highlighted as assembling small teams of competent people committed to excellence.

• The method of creating a high-performance team includes maintaining a supportive atmosphere, creating enthusiasm, using agreed-upon goals for decision making, advancing openness, innovation, and creativity, acknowledging mistakes, and adopting adaptable strategies.

• Traits to develop a high-performance team include maintaining persistence, recognizing team accomplishments, keeping people informed, keeping promises, preparing for success, and prioritizing others' needs.

• Characteristics for successful teams include clear/elevating goals, results-driven structure, competent/unified commitment, collaborative climate, standards of excellence, external support/recognition, and principled leadership.

• Virtual teams function best with structured tasks and require moderate task interdependence. Essential factors for successful virtual teams include substantial senior management support, effective communication technologies, supportive organizational structures, trust among team members, and leveraging diverse cultures and languages.

• The life of a team involves stages. These stages include forming, storming, norming, and performing.

• Forming involves a group establishing membership, purpose, and expectations.

• Storming is characterized by challenges to authority, personal preferences, and conflict.

• Norming involves norm establishment, order maintenance, and increased group cohesion.

• Performing emphasizes focus on assigned tasks, solving problems, completing tasks, taking initiative, showcasing results, increased morale, and team members assuming leadership roles.

• Groupthink risk exists during transitions between norming and performing.

• Groupthink, according to psychologist Irving Janis, is a mode of thinking, when members' striving for unanimity overrides the realistic appraisal of options.

• Groupthink can be mitigated by assigning roles to members, adopting an impartial stance, incorporating outside perspectives, having a devil's advocate, holding a follow-up meeting, and adapting the decision-making process to reduce potential biases.

• Common team-building approaches involve team development over time through challenges, experiential strategy, and activities, such as adventure and challenge experiences.

• Examples of essential questions to ask during team discussions: where have we been, where are we now, purpose or mission, goals, values, stakeholders, strategy, factors of success, and ways to reach potential.

• Appreciative inquiry is a popular and positive team-building approach developed at Case Western University involving Discovery, Dreaming, Designing, and Delivering steps to share accomplishments, identify desired futures, create actionable plans, and implement action steps.

• Successful organizations effectively manage five team processes:buy-in, accountability, learning, infrastructure, and partnering.

• Leaders should coordinate teams within organizational structures, represent the team, access needed resources, and make sure results align with organizational goals.

• Five team dysfunction factors include absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

• Five essential traits in high-performing teams include trust, unfiltered conflict, agreed-upon plans and action, held accountability, and focusing on collective results.

• Research on the human side of team effectiveness has continued with Google's Project Aristotle, emphasizing psychological safety and conversational equality. This research highlights the importance of trust and participation levels in teams.

This quiz covers key concepts from Chapter 11 regarding high-performance teams. Participants will learn about effective group characteristics, the impact of leadership, and the roles individuals play in fostering teamwork. Understanding these elements is essential for developing a cohesive and productive team environment.