NUST Business School

Leadership & Organizational Behavior

Assignment # 3:
Team States

Submitted to
Dr. Hussain Tariq
Submitted by
M. Junaid Iqbal Siddiqui
(317675)
MBA 2K19-A
 Leadership & Organizational
Behavior

Date: 13-05-2020 1

Joining a new team, how long would take you to get a feel for those team states?

If I joined a new team, it would most likely take 2-4 weeks for me to get a feel for all
the four team states adequately. Of course , it is a continuous process as team states aren't
visible to the naked eye like other team processes but a time of roughly one month would
provide enough interactions, experiences and knowledge to get a general idea of the team
members' stances and states.

States that you would be able to gauge first?

I believe that out of the four states, Transactive memory and Potency are the ones
that can be gauged first.
Since Transactive memory is distributive and deals with the different amounts of
specialized knowledge possessed by different team members, it acts as a memory bank or
pool. Thus the team's effectiveness depends on its members' understanding of each other's
skill sets and knowledge and understanding which combination of people or knowledge
could benefit which particular members in their work. Hence it is a crucial state to gauge in
the beginning. It can also be gauged sometimes just by asking people about what specialized
skills they possess or why were they chosen for the team, thus saving crucial time.
After that, it would be easier for me to gauge the Potency of my team members since
by that time , more interactions would have already taken place and due to the transactive
memory, I would also know if anyone specialized in anything. By that time, some work
would have also been done by the team and from that experience and observing the
confidence, competency and capability of each member, a much clearer and accurate
picture of the team's potency (whether low or high) would be formulated.

Which would take longer?

The remaining two of the four states, Mental Models and Cohesion are the ones that
would take longer to gauge.
Next, Mental Models in a team refers to the level of common understanding about the
aspects of the team or its task or degree to which knowledge is shared among its team
members. It is quite easy to gauge how much the team members understand each other's
capabilities after you've already worked with them and have some references to that work,
to refer back to when needed. This would also allow me to gauge the mental models and
help me in anticipating whenever the team needs my skill set or expertise in achieving a
task, as by that time I would know all my team members thoroughly. On the flip side, it will
help me to know who to go to, if I need any help with my own work.
At the end, I'll be able to truly gauge the Cohesion between my team members, since
by that time, we would've already formed strong emotional bonds and attachment. It is also
at this stage that I would be truly able to know if the team members have any aspects of
 Leadership & Organizational
Behavior

Groupthink and whether or not we need to assess the team's cohesion and employ a real 2
devil's advocate to mitigate the negative effects of Groupthink .