Team Dynamics PDF

INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY TEAM DYNAMICS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR; EMERGING KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE FOR THE REAL WORLD 5th ED. AUTHOR: Steven L. McShane | Mary Ann Von Glinow...

INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY TEAM DYNAMICS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR; EMERGING KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE FOR THE REAL WORLD 5th ED. AUTHOR: Steven L. McShane | Mary Ann Von Glinow TRANSCRIBED BY: MEYNARD P. OSTRIA TEAMS AND INFORMAL GROUPS INFORMAL GROUPS Teams - Groups of two or more people who interact and ▪ All teams are groups, but many groups do not influence each other, are mutually accountable for satisfy our definition of teams. achieving common goals associated with organizational ▪ Groups include people assembled together, objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity whether or not they have any interdependence within an organization. or organizationally focused objective. ▪ First, all teams exist to fulfill some purpose, such ▪ The friends you meet for lunch are an informal as assembling a product, providing a service, group, but they wouldn’t be called a team designing a new manufacturing facility, or because they have little or no interdependence making an important decision. (each person could just as easily eat lunch alone) ▪ Second, team members are held together by and no organizationally mandated purpose. their interdependence and need for Instead, they exist primarily for the benefit of collaboration to achieve common goals. All their members. teams require some form of communication so ▪ Although the terms are used interchangeably, that members can coordinate and share teams has largely replaced groups in the common objectives. language of business when referring to ▪ Third, team members influence each other, employees who work together to complete although some members may be more organizational tasks. influential than others regarding the team’s Why do informal groups exist? goals and activities. One reason is that human beings are social ▪ Finally, a team exists when its members perceive animals. Our drive to bond is hardwired through themselves to be a team evolutionary development, creating a need to belong to informal groups. This is evidenced by the fact that people invest considerable time and effort forming and maintaining social relationships without any special circumstances or ulterior motives. A second explanation is provided by social identity theory, which states that individuals define themselves by their group affiliations. Thus, we join groups—particularly those that are viewed favorably by others and that have values similar to our own—because they shape and reinforce our self-concept. Third reason why people are motivated to form informal groups is that such groups accomplish goals that cannot be achieved by individuals working alone. For example, employees will sometimes create a group to oppose organizational changes because the group collectively has more power than individuals complaining alone.  A fourth explanation for informal groups is that knowledge and expertise to customers than in stressful situations we are comforted by the individual “stars” can offer. mere presence of other people and are people are potentially more motivated when therefore motivated to be near them. When in working in teams than when working alone. danger, people congregate near each other even One reason for this motivation is that, as though doing so serves no protective purpose. we mentioned a few paragraphs ago, Similarly, employees tend to mingle more often employees have a drive to bond and are after hearing rumors that the company might be motivated to fulfill the goals of groups to acquired by a competitor. which they belong. This motivation is particularly strong when the team is part INFORMAL GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONAL of the employee’s social identity. OUTCOMES Second, people are more motivated in Informal groups are the backbone of social networks, teams because they are accountable to which are important sources of trust building, fellow team members, who monitor information sharing, power, influence, and employee performance more closely than a well-being in the workplace. traditional supervisor. This is particularly true where the team’s performance Social networks also play an important role in employee depends on the worst performer, such power and influence. informal groups tend to increase as on an assembly line, where how fast an employee’s social capital —the knowledge and other the product is assembled depends on resources available to people from a durable network the speed of the slowest employee. that connects them to others. Third, under some circumstances, performance improves when employees Employees with strong informal networks tend to have work near others because co-workers more power and influence because they receive better become benchmarks of comparison. information and preferential treatment from others and Employees are also motivated to work their talent is more visible to key decision makers. harder because of apprehension that their performance will be compared to Finally, informal groups potentially minimize employee others’ performance. stress because, as mentioned above, group members provide emotional and informational social support. This THE CHALLENGES OF TEAMS stress-reducing capability of informal groups improves In spite of the many benefits of teams, they are not employee well-being, thereby improving organizational always as effective as individuals working alone. effectiveness. Teams are usually better suited to complex work, such as ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TEAMS designing a building or auditing a company’s financial team-based articles had a much higher number records. Under these circumstances, one person rarely of subsequent citations, which indicates that the has all the necessary knowledge and skills. quality of these publications is higher when they are written by teams rather than individuals. Instead, the work is performed better by dividing its teams make better decisions, develop better tasks into more specialized roles, with people in those products and services, and create a more specialized jobs coordinating with each other. In engaged workforce than do employees working contrast, work is typically performed more effectively by alone. individuals alone when they have all the necessary Similarly, team members can quickly share knowledge and skills and the work cannot be divided into information and coordinate tasks, whereas specialized tasks or is not complex enough to benefit these processes are slower and prone to more from specialization. Even where the work can and should errors in traditional departments led by be specialized, a team structure might not be necessary supervisors. if the tasks performed by several people require minimal Teams typically provide superior customer coordination. service because they offer more breadth of The main problem with teams is that they have placed in teams. To understand when teams are better additional costs called process losses —resources than individuals working alone, we need to more closely (including time and energy) expended toward team examine the conditions that make teams effective or development and maintenance rather than the task. ineffective. It is much more efficient for an individual to work out an A MODEL OF TEAM EFFECTIVENESS issue alone than to resolve differences of opinion with A team is effective when it benefits the other people. For a team to perform well, team members organization, its members, and its own survival. need to agree and have mutual understanding of their First, most teams exist to serve some goals, the strategy for accomplishing those goals, their organizational purpose, so effectiveness is partly specific roles, and informal rules of conduct. Developing measured by the achievement of those and maintaining these team requirements divert time objectives. and energy away from performing the work. Second, a team’s effectiveness relies on the satisfaction and well-being of its members. The process-loss problem is particularly apparent when People join groups to fulfill their personal needs, more staff are added or replace others on the team. so effectiveness is partly measured by this need Team performance suffers when a team adds members, fulfillment. because those employees need to learn how the team Finally, team effectiveness includes the team’s operates and how to coordinate efficiently with other viability—its ability to survive. It must be able to team members. The software industry even has a name maintain the commitment of its members, for this: Brooks’s law (also called the “mythical man- particularly during the turbulence of the team’s month”) says that adding more people to a late software development. Without this commitment, people project only makes it later! leave and the team will fall apart. The team must also secure sufficient resources Social Loafing- Social loafing occurs when people exert and find a benevolent environment in which to less effort (and usually perform at a lower level) when operate. working in teams than when working alone. - It is most likely to occur in large teams where individual output is difficult to identify. - employees tend to put out less effort when the team produces a single output, such as solving a customer’s problem. Under these conditions, employees aren’t as worried that their individual performance will be noticed. - There is less social loafing when each team member’s contribution is more noticeable; this can be achieved by reducing the size of the team, for example, or measuring each team member’s performance. This model is best viewed as a template of several - Social loafing is also less likely to occur when the task is theories because each component (team development, interesting, because individuals are more motivated by team cohesion, etc.) includes its own set of theories and the work itself to perform their duties. Social loafing is models to explain how that component operates. also less common when the team’s objective is important, possibly because individuals experience more ORGANIZATIONAL AND TEAM ENVIRONMENT pressure from co-workers to perform well. The organizational and team environment - Finally, social loafing occurs less frequently among represents all conditions beyond the team’s members who value team membership and believe in boundaries that influence its effectiveness. working toward the team’s objectives. Team members tend to work together more effectively when they are at least partly In summary, teams can be very powerful forces for rewarded for team performance. For instance, competitive advantage, or they can be much more part of an employee’s paycheck at Whole Foods trouble than they are worth, so much so that job Market is determined by the team’s performance and morale decline when employees are productivity.  Communication systems can influence team Three Levels of task interdependence effectiveness, particularly in virtual teams, which Pooled interdependence are highly dependent on information ❖ The lowest level of interdependence, technologies to coordinate work. ❖ occurs when an employee or work unit shares a Another environmental factor is the common resource, such as machinery, organizational structure; teams flourish when administrative support, or a budget, with other organized around work processes because this employees or work units. structure increases interaction and ❖ This would occur in a team setting where each interdependence among team members and member works alone but shares raw materials reduces interaction with people outside the or machinery to perform her or his otherwise team. independent tasks. High-performance teams also depend on Sequential interdependence organizational leaders who provide support and ❖ in which the output of one person becomes the strategic direction while team members focus on direct input for another person or unit. operational efficiency and flexibility. Sequential interdependence occurs where team members are organized in an assembly line. TEAM DESIGN ELEMENTS Reciprocal interdependence Along with setting up a team-friendly environment, ❖ in which work output is exchanged back and leaders need to carefully design the team itself, including forth among individuals, produces the highest task characteristics, team size, team composition, and degree of interdependence. People who design team roles. a new product or service would typically have reciprocal interdependence because their 1. Task Characteristics design decisions affect others involved in the ✓ What type of work is best for teams? design process. ✓ Teams operate better than individuals ❖ Any decision made by the design engineers working alone on work that is would influence the work of the manufacturing sufficiently complex, such as launching engineer and purchasing specialist, and vice the business in a new market, versa. Employees with reciprocal developing a computer operating interdependence should be organized into system, or constructing a bridge. teams to facilitate coordination in their ✓ Complex work requires skills and interwoven relationship. knowledge beyond the competencies of one person. As a rule, the higher the level of task interdependence, ✓ Teams are particularly well suited when the greater the need to organize people into teams the complex work can be divided into rather than have them work alone. more specialized roles and the people in the specialized roles require frequent A team structure improves interpersonal coordination with each other. communication and thus results in better coordination. ✓ Some evidence also suggests that teams High task interdependence also motivates most people work best with well-structured tasks to be part of the team However, the rule that a team because it is easier to coordinate such should be formed when employees have high work among several people The interdependence applies when team members have the challenge, however, is to find tasks with same task goals, such as serving the same clients or the uncommon combination of being collectively assembling the same product. both well structured and complex. ✓ One task characteristic that is When team members have different goals (such as particularly important for teams is task serving different clients) but must depend on other team interdependence —the extent to which members to achieve those unique goals, teamwork team members must share materials, might create excessive conflict. Under these information, or expertise to perform circumstances, the company should try to reduce the their jobs. level of interdependence or rely on supervision as a buffer or mediator among employees.  3. Team Composition ✓ To work effectively in a team, employees must have more than technical skills and self-leadership to perform their own work; they must also be able and willing to perform that work in a team environment. ✓ The most frequently mentioned characteristics or behaviors of effective team members are the “five C’s” cooperating, coordinating, 2. Team Size communicating, comforting, and conflict ✓ What is the ideal size for a team? resolving. The first three competencies ✓ One popular (but untested) rule is that are mainly (but not entirely) task- the optimal team size is between five related, while the last two mostly assist and seven people. Yet some observers team maintenance have recently argued that tasks are getting so complex that many teams need to have more than 100 members. ✓ Generally, teams should be large enough to provide the necessary competencies and perspectives to perform the work, yet small enough to maintain efficient coordination and meaningful involvement of each member. ✓ As a Sun Microsystems executive explains: “You need to have a balance between having enough people to do all the things that need to be done, while Cooperating. Effective team members are willing and keeping the team small enough so that it able to work together rather than alone. This includes is cohesive and can make decisions sharing resources and being sufficiently adaptive or effectively and speedily.” flexible to accommodate the needs and preferences of ✓ Small teams (say, less than a dozen other team members, such as rescheduling use of members) operate effectively because machinery so that another team member with a tighter they have less process loss. Members of deadline can use it. smaller teams also tend to feel more engaged because they get to know their Coordinating. Effective team members actively manage teammates (which improves trust), have the team’s work so that it is performed efficiently and more influence on the group’s norms harmoniously. For example, effective team members and goals, and feel more responsible for keep the team on track and help to integrate the work the team’s successes and failures. performed by different members. This typically requires ✓ A team exists when its members interact that effective team members know the work of other and influence each other, are mutually team members, not just their own. accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational Communicating. Effective team members transmit objectives, and perceive themselves as a information freely (rather than hoarding), efficiently social entity within an organization. (using the best channel and language), and respectfully (minimizing arousal of negative emotions). They also listen actively to co-workers. Comforting. Effective team members help co-workers to new service, for instance, should have maintain a positive and healthy psychological state. They representation from the organization’s show empathy, provide psychological comfort, and build various specializations so that people in co-worker feelings of confidence and self-worth. those work units will support the team’s decisions. Conflict resolving. Conflict is inevitable in social settings, ✓ The second issue regarding diverse teams is so effective team members have the skills and that diversity often creates challenges to the motivation to resolve dysfunctional disagreements internal functioning of the team. among team members. This requires effective use of ✓ One problem is that diverse employees take various conflict-handling styles as well as diagnostic skills longer to become a high-performing team. to identify and resolve the structural sources of conflict. ✓ This partly occurs because team members take longer to bond with people who are These characteristics of effective team members are different from them, particularly when associated with conscientiousness and extroversion others hold different perspectives and personality traits, as well as with emotional intelligence. values (i.e., deep diversity). Furthermore, the old saying “One bad apple spoils the ✓ Diverse teams are susceptible to “fault barrel” seems to apply to teams; one team member who lines”—hypothetical dividing lines that may lacks these teamwork competencies may undermine the split a team into subgroups along gender, dynamics of the entire team. ethnic, professional, or other dimensions. These fault lines reduce team effectiveness 4. Team Diversity by reducing the motivation to communicate ✓ There are two distinct and sometimes and coordinate with teammates on the opposing issues relating to team diversity. other side of the hypothetical divisions. ✓ One issue is the notion that diverse teams ✓ In contrast, members of teams with minimal possess better resources for tackling diversity experience higher satisfaction, less complex or novel problems. conflict, and better interpersonal relations. ✓ One reason why diverse teams are more Consequently, homogeneous teams tend to effective under these conditions is that be more effective on tasks requiring a high people from different backgrounds see a degree of cooperation and coordination, problem or opportunity from different such as emergency response teams. angles. Team members have different mental models, so they are more likely to TEAM PROCESSES identify viable solutions to difficult The third set of elements in the team effectiveness problems. model, collectively known as team processes, includes ✓ A second reason is that diverse teams have a team development, norms, cohesion, and trust. These broader pool of technical competencies. For elements represent characteristics of the team that example, each team at Rackspace, the San continuously evolve. Antonio, Texas, provider of enterprise-level Web infrastructure, consists of more than a Team Development dozen people with diverse skills such as account management, systems engineering, technical support, billing expertise, and data center support. Rackspace teams require these diverse technical competencies to serve the needs of customers assigned to the team. ✓ A third reason favoring teams with diverse members is that they provide better representation of the team’s constituents, such as other departments or clients from The model shows teams moving systematically from one similarly diverse backgrounds. A team stage to the next, while the dashed lines illustrate that responsible for designing and launching a teams might fall back to an earlier stage of development as new members join or other conditions disrupt the tasks, social interaction, and characteristics of team’s maturity. other team members. Team mental models are Forming, the first stage of team development, is visual or relational mental images that are a period of testing and orientation in which shared by team members. members learn about each other and evaluate For example, members of a newly formed team the benefits and costs of continued might have different views about customer membership. People tend to be polite, will defer service (quality of interaction, speed of service, to authority, and try to find out what is expected technical expertise provided, etc.). As the team of them and how they will fit into the team. develops, these views converge into more of a The storming stage is marked by interpersonal shared mental model of customer service conflict as members become more proactive and compete for various team roles. Members try to A role is a set of behaviors that people are expected to establish norms of appropriate behavior and perform because they hold certain positions in a team performance standards. and organization. norming stage, the team develops its first real sense of cohesion as roles are established and a Team building consists of formal activities intended to consensus forms around group objectives and a improve the development and functioning of a work common or complementary team-based mental team. model. performing stage, team members have learned Norms are the informal rules and shared expectations to efficiently coordinate and resolve conflicts. In that groups establish to regulate the behavior of their high-performance teams, members are highly members. cooperative, have a high level of trust in each other, are committed to group objectives, and TEAM COHESION identify with the team. Team cohesion refers to the degree of attraction people the adjourning stage occurs when the team is feel toward the team and their motivation to remain about to disband. Team members shift their members. attention away from task orientation to a relationship focus. Influences on Team Cohesion The five-stage model is consistent with what Member similarity students experience on team projects, but it is ✓ People with similar backgrounds and values are far from a perfect representation of the team more comfortable with and attractive to each development process. other. It also masks two distinct processes during team ✓ In team settings, this similarity-attraction effect development: (1) developing team identity and means that teams have higher cohesion—or (2) developing team competence. become cohesive more quickly—when members Developing team identity refers to the are similar to each other. transition that individuals make from viewing ✓ Diversity tends to undermine cohesion, but this the team as something “out there” to something depends on the type of diversity. For example, that is part of themselves. In other words, team teams consisting of people from different job development occurs when employees shift their groups seem to gel together just as well as teams view of the team from “them” to “us.” This of people from the same job. relates to becoming familiar with the team, Team size making it part of their social identity, and ✓ Smaller teams tend to have more cohesion than shaping the team to better fit their prototype of larger teams because it is easier for a few people an ideal team. to agree on goals and coordinate work activities. The other process— developing team However, small teams have less cohesion when competence —includes several changes related they lack enough members to perform the to team learning. Team members develop required tasks. habitual routines that increase work efficiency. Member interaction They also form shared or complementary mental ✓ Teams tend to have more cohesion when team models regarding team resources, goals and members interact with each other fairly  regularly. This occurs when team members When conflict does arise, members tend to resolve their perform highly interdependent tasks and work in differences swiftly and effectively. With better the same physical area. cooperation and more conformity to norms, high- cohesion teams usually perform better than low- Somewhat difficult entry cohesion teams. ✓ Teams tend to have more cohesion when entry TEAM TRUST to the team is restricted. The more elite the Trust refers to positive expectations one person has team, the more prestige it confers on its toward another person in situations involving risk. members, and the more they tend to value their membership in the unit. A high level of trust occurs when others affect you in ✓ At the same time, research suggests that severe situations where you are at risk but you believe they will initiations can weaken team cohesion because of not harm you. Trust includes both your beliefs and the adverse effects of humiliation, even for conscious feelings about the relationship with other those who successfully endure the initiation team members. In other words, a person both logically Team success. evaluates the situation as trustworthy and feels that it is ✓ Cohesion is both emotional and instrumental, trustworthy. Trust can also be understood in terms of the with the latter referring to the notion that foundation of the trust. From this perspective, people people feel more cohesion to teams that fulfill trust others on the basis of three foundations: calculus, knowledge, and identification their needs and goals. ✓ Consequently, cohesion increases with the team’s level of success. Furthermore, individuals are more likely to attach their social identity to successful teams than to those with a string of failures. External competition and challenges ✓ Team cohesion tends to increase when members face external competition or a valued objective that is challenging. This might include a threat from an external competitor or friendly competition from other teams. ✓ Employees value their membership on the team because of its ability to overcome the threat or competition and as a form of social support. However, cohesion can dissipate when external threats are severe because these threats are stressful and cause teams to make less effective decisions. CONSEQUENCES OF TEAM COHESION Calculus-based trust represents a logical calculation that People who belong to high-cohesion teams are other team members will act appropriately because they motivated to maintain their membership and to help the face sanctions if their actions violate reasonable team perform effectively. expectations. It offers the lowest potential trust and is easily broken by a violation of expectations. Generally, Compared to low-cohesion teams, high-cohesion team calculus-based trust alone cannot sustain a team’s members spend more time together, share information relationship, because it relies on deterrence. more frequently, and are more satisfied with each other. They provide each other with better social support in Knowledge-based trust is based on the predictability of stressful situations another team member’s behavior. Even if we don’t agree with a particular team member’s action, his or her Members of high-cohesion teams are generally more consistency generates some level of trust. Knowledge- sensitive to each other’s needs based trust also relates to confidence in the other and develop better interpersonal relationships, thereby person’s ability or competence, such as the confidence reducing dysfunctional conflict. that exists when we trust a physician. Knowledge-based trust offers a higher potential level of trust and is more 4. Groupthink. stable because it develops over time. Time Constraints There’s a saying that “committees keep Identification-based trust is based on mutual minutes and waste hours.” This reflects the fact that understanding and an emotional bond among team teams take longer than individuals to make decisions. members. It occurs when team members think, feel, and Unlike individuals, teams require extra time to organize, act like each other. coordinate, and maintain relationships. The larger the High-performance teams exhibit this level of trust group, the more time is required to make a decision. because they share the same values and mental models. Team members need time to learn about each other and Identification-based trust is potentially the strongest and build rapport. most robust of all three types of trust. The individual’s self-concept is based partly on Another time-related constraint found in most team membership in the team, and he or she believes the structures is that only one person can speak at a time. 85 members’ values highly overlap, so any transgressions by This problem, known as production blocking , other team members are quickly forgiven. People are undermines idea generation in several ways. more reluctant to acknowledge a violation of this high- level trust because it strikes at the heart of their self- First, team members need to listen in on the concept. conversation to find an opportune time to speak up, and this monitoring makes it difficult for them to concentrate Dynamics of Team Trust on their own ideas. Employees typically join a team with a moderate or high level—not a low level—of trust in their new co workers. Second, ideas are fleeting, so the longer they wait to The main explanation for the initially high trust (called speak up, the more likely these flickering ideas will die swift trust ) in organizational settings is that people out. usually believe their teammates are reasonably competent (knowledge-based trust) and they tend to Third, team members might remember their fleeting develop some degree of social identity with the team thoughts by concentrating on them, but this causes them (identification based trust). Even when working with to pay less attention to the conversation. By ignoring strangers, most of us display some level of trust, if only what others are saying, team members miss other because it supports our self-concept of being a nice potentially good ideas as well as the opportunity to person. convey their ideas to others in the group self-directed teams (SDTs) Evaluation Apprehension Cross-functional work groups that are organized around A decision-making problem that occurs when individuals work processes, complete an entire piece of work are reluctant to mention ideas that seem silly because requiring several interdependent tasks, and have they believe (often correctly) that other team members substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks. are silently evaluating them. virtual teams Pressure to Conform Teams whose members operate across space, time, and Team cohesion leads employees to conform to the organizational boundaries and are linked through team’s norms. This control keeps the group organized information technologies to achieve organizational around common goals, but it may also cause team tasks. members to suppress their dissenting opinions, particularly when a strong team norm is related to the Team Decision Making issue. teams are more effective than individuals at identifying problems, choosing alternatives, and evaluating their Groupthink decisions. To leverage these benefits, however, we first The tendency of highly cohesive groups to value need to understand the constraints on effective team consensus at the price of decision quality decision making. Then, we look at specific team structures that try to overcome. Constraints on Team Decision Making 1. Time constraints, 2. Evaluation apprehension, 3. Pressure to conform, and