MODULE 21

TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

“Two heads can be

better than one”

• Why is an understanding of teams so important?

• What are the foundations of successful teamwork?
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
MODULE GUIDE 21.1

 Formal and informal groups are building blocks of

organizations.
 Organizations use a variety of committees, task forces,
and cross-functional teams.
 Virtual teams are increasingly common in organizations.
 Teams offer synergy and other benefits to their members
and the organization.
 Teams can also suffer from common performance
problems.
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
 Team
 a collection of people who regularly interact to pursue common
goals.
 Teamwork
 the process of people actively working together to accomplish
common goals.
 Formal Group
 a group that is officially recognized and supported by the
organization.
 Informal Group
 a group that is unofficial and emerges from relationships and
shared interests among members.
 Committee
 people brought together outside of their daily job assignments to
work in a small team for a specific task
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
 Types of Teams
 Project Team
 is convened for a specific purpose and disbands
after completing its task.
 Cross-functional Team
 operates with members who come from different
functional units of an organization.
 Employee Involvement Team
 meets on a regular basis to help achieve
continuous improvement.
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
 Types of Teams
 Quality Circle Team
 employees who meet periodically to discuss
ways of improving work quality.
 Self-managing Teams
 work team having the authority to make decisions
about how they share and complete their work.
 Virtual Teams
 Work together and solve problems through
computer based interactions
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
 Benefits of Teams
 Synergy
 The creation of a whole greater than or equal to the sum of
its parts

Why Teams Are Good for Organizations

• More resources for problem solving

• Improved creativity and innovation
• Improved quality of decision making
• Greater commitments to tasks
• Increased motivation of members
• Better control and work discipline
• More individual need satisfaction
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
MANAGEMENT TIPS
Characteristics of High Performance Teams

 Clear, elevating goals

 Results-driven structure
 Competent team members
 Unified commitments
 Collaborative climate
 Standards of excellence
 External support and recognition
 Principled leadership
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams
 Potential Problems With Teams
 Social Loafing
 the tendency of some people to avoid responsibility by free-
riding in groups.
 Meetings (wasted time)

Seven sins of deadly meetings:

1. People arrive late, leave early, and don’t take things seriously.
2. The meeting is too long, sometimes twice as long as necessary.
3. People don’t stay on topic; they digress and are easily distracted.
4. The discussion lacks candor; people are unwilling to tell the truth.
5. The right information isn’t available, so decisions are postponed.
6. Nothing happens when the meeting is over; no one puts decisions into
action.
7. Things never get better; the same mistakes are made meeting after
meeting.
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Importance Of Teams

Assessing the
maturity of a
team
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Foundations Of Teamwork
MODULE GUIDE 21.2

 Teams need the right members and inputs to be effective.

 Teams must use the right processes to be effective.
 Teams move through different stages of development.
 Team performance is affected by norms and cohesiveness.
 Team performance is affected by task and maintenance roles.
 Team performance is affected by use of communication
networks.
 Team performance is affected by use of decision-making
methods.
 Team performance suffers when groupthink leads to bad
decisions.
TEAMS AND TEAMWORK

Foundations Of Teamwork
 Stages of Development
 Forming Stage
 team development, one of initial task orientation and
interpersonal testing.
 Norming Stage
 members of the team begin to coordinate their efforts as a
working unit and tend to operate with shared rules of
conduct.
 Performing Stage
 members are more mature, organized, and well functioning.
 Adjourning Stage
 the final stage for temporary committees, task forces, and
project teams.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
 Effective Teams
 make use of alternative communication
networks and decision-making methods to best
complete tasks.
 Group Process
 The way members interact and work together to
transform inputs into outputs

TEAM EFFECTIVENESS EQUATION

Team effectiveness =
Quality of inputs x (Process gains - Process losses)
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
 Group Norms
 Behaviors, rules or standards expected of team members
 Cohesion
 the attractiveness of the team to its members
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
 Task and Maintenance Roles
 Task Activities
 contribute directly to the team’s performance
purpose
 Maintenance Activities
 support the emotional life of the team as an
ongoing social system.
 Distributed Leadership
 every member is continually responsible for both
recognizing when task or maintenance activities
are needed and taking actions to provide them.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
 Communication Networks
 Decentralized Communication Network
 Allows all members to communicate directly with
one another. Works well for tasks that require
lots of creativity, information processing, and
problem solving.
 Centralized Communication Network
 Requires members to communicate with each
other via a central hub or port
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
FOUNDATIONS OF TEAMWORK

Effective Teams
 Decision Making
 The process of making choices through
choosing from alternative courses of action

 Groupthink
 a tendency of members of highly cohesive
teams to lose their critical evaluative
capabilities and make poor decisions.