Using Teams in Organizations

Team- is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose to a
common performance goals, and an approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
- It usually refers to people or animals organized to work together.
A team typically includes few people so that the team will function effectively rather than with
many people because they will have difficulty interacting with each other.
Group- it usually refers to an assemblage of people or objects gathered together.
- Two or more persons who interact with one another such that each person influences and is
influenced by each other person.
Work Group- the collection of people who happen to report to the same supervisor or manager in an
organization.
Group members may be satisfying their own needs in the group and have little concern for a common objective
while Team members are committed to a common goal.
Three Types of Skills which usually required in a team
1. The team needs to have members with the technical or functional skills to do the jobs.
2. Some team members need to have problem-solving and decision-making skills to help the team
identify problems, determine priorities, evaluate alternatives, analyze trade-offs, and make decisions
about the direction of the team.
3. Members need to interpersonal skills to manage communication flow, resolve conflict, direct

Example
A team of local citizens, teachers, and parents may come together for the purpose of making the local
schools the best in the state. The team then establishes specific performance goals to serve as guides for
decision making, to maintain the focus on action, to differentiate this team from other groups who may want to
improve schools, and to challenge people to commit themselves to the team.

Mutual Accountability- promise that member make each other to do everything possible to achieve their
goals which requires the commitment and trust of all members.

Differences Between Teams and Traditional Work Groups

Issue Conventional Work Groups Teams

JOB CATEGORIES Many narrow categories One or two broad categories
AUTHORITY Supervisor directly controls daily Team controls daily activities
activities
REWARD SYSTEM Depends on the type of job, individual Based on team performance
performance, and seniority and individual breath of skills
Three Types of Reward System are Common in a Team Environment

1. Skill-Based Pay- it requires team members to acquire a set of the core skills needed for their particular
team plus additional special skills, depending on career tracks or team needs.
Companies using skill-based pay systems include:

 Eastman Chemical Company

 Colgate-Palmolive Company
 Pfizer

2. Gain-Sharing Systems- usually reward all team members from all team based on the performance of
the organization, division, or plant.
- It requires a baseline performance that may exceed for team members to receive some share
of the gain over the baseline measure.

3. Team Bonus Plans- are similar to gain-sharing plans except that the unit of performance and pay is
the team rather than a plant, a division, or entire organization.
- Each team must have specific performance targets or baseline measures that the team
considers realistic fir the plant to be effective.
Companies using Team-Bonus Plans include:

 Milwaukee Insurance Company

 Colgate-Palmolive
 Harris Corporation
Benefits and Costs of Teams in Organizations
1. Enhanced Performance- can come in many forms, including improved productivity, quality, and
customer service.
Employee Benefits- employee tend to benefit as much as organizations in a team environment. Much
attention has been focused on the differences between the baby-boom generation and the “postboomers” in
their attitudes toward work, its importance to their lives, and what they want from it.
Reduced Costs- As empowered teams reduce scrap, make fewer errors, file fewer worker compensation
claims, and reduce absenteeism and turnover, organizations based on teams are showing significant cost
reductions.
Organizational Enhancements- other improvements in organizations that result from moving a hierarchically
based, directive culture to a team-based culture include increased innovation, creativity, and flexibility.
Costs of Teams- are usually expressed in terms of the difficulty of changing to a team-based organization.

Types of Benefit Specific Benefit Organizational Examples

Enhanced Performance
Employee Benefits
Increased productivity
Improved quality
Improved customer service
Quality of work life
Ampex: On-time customer delivery rose
98%
K Shoes: Rejects per million dropped
from 5000 to 250
Eastman: Productivity rose 70%
Milwaukee Mutual: Employee
assistance program usage dropped to
40% below industrial average
 Lower stress
Reduced Costs Lower turnover, Kodak: Reduced turnover to one-half
absenteeism the industry average
Fewer injuries Texas instruments: Reduced cost more
than 50%
Westinghouse: Costs down 60%
Organizational Increased innovation/ IDS Mutual Fund Operations: Improved
Enhancements flexibility flexibility to handle fluctuations in
market activity.
Hewlett-Packard: Innovative order-
processing system

Types of Teams
Quality Circles (QC’s)- are small groups of employees from the same work area who meet regularly (usually
weekly or monthly) to discuss and recommend solutions to workplace problems. It is the first type of team
created in U.S. organizations, becoming most popular during the 1980s in response to growing Japanese
competition.
Work Teams- tend to be permanent, like QC’s, but they are, rather than auxiliary committees, the teams that
do the daily work. Include all the people working in an area, are relatively permanent, and do the daily work,
making decisions regarding how the work of the team is done.
Problem-Solving Teams- are temporary teams established to attack specific problems in the workplace.
Teams can use any number of methods to solve the problem and after solving the problem, the team is usually
disbanded, allowing members to return to their normal work.
Management Teams- consist of managers from various areas, coordinate work teams. They are relatively
permanent because their work does not end with the completion of a particular project or the resolution of a
problem.
Product Development Teams- are combination of work teams and problem-solving teams that create new
designs for product or services that will satisfy customer needs. They are similar to problem-solving teams
because when the product is fully developed and in production, the team may be disbanded.
Virtual Teams- are teams that may never actually meet together in the same room --- their activities take place
on the computer via teleconferencing and other electronic information systems. They work together by
computer and other electronic utilities, move in and out of meetings and the team itself as the situation
dictates.
Implementing Teams in Organizations

 Planning the change

 Making the decision
 Preparing for Implementation
1. Clarifying the mission
2. Selecting the site for the first work teams
3. Preparing the design team
4. Planning the transfer of authority
5. Drafting the preliminary plan
Phases of Implementation

Phase 1 Start-Up Team members are selected and prepared to work in teams so that
the teams have the best possible chance of success.
Phase 2 Reality and Unrest After perhaps six to nine months, team members and managers
 report frustration and confusion about the ambiguities of the new
situation.
Phase 3 Leader-Centered Teams As the discomfort and frustrations of the previous phase peak,
teams usually long for a system that resembles the old manager-
centered organizational structure. Members are learning about self-
direction and leadership from within the team and usually start to
focus on a single leader in the team.
Phase 4 Tightly Formed Teams Teams become tightly formed to the point that their internal focus
can become detrimental to other teams and to the organization as a
whole.
Phase 5 Self-Managing Teams The end result of months or years of planning and implementation.
Mature teams are meeting or exceeding their performance goals.
Team members are taking responsibility for team-related leadership
functions.

Essential Team Issue

1. Team Performance
2. Start at the Top