DEFINING TEAM SUCCESS

DR. MOITREYEE PAUL

Ph.D. (HR), MBA(HR), B.TECH(IT)
E-MAIL – moitreyee.p@rcm.ac
Learning Objectives
 What are the three criteria used to define team success?
 Why is team success more than just completion of the task?
 What factors determine whether a team has the right set of
people?
 What types of tasks are better suited for teams than for
individuals? Why?
 How does an organization provide a supportive context for
teams?
 What are the characteristics of successful teams?
 How does positive psychology define team success?
 What are the benefits and problems of using work teams?
 What are the implications when the use of teams becomes a fad?
AGENDA

 Defining Team Success

 Nature of Team Success
 Completing the task
 Developing Social relations benefitting the
individual
DEFINING TEAM SUCCESS
 A successful team completes its task, maintains
good social relations, and promotes its members’
personal and professional development.
 To perform effectively, a team requires the right
types of people, a task that is suitable for teamwork,
good internal group processes, and a supportive
organizational context.
 Team members need both an appropriate set of task
skills and the interpersonal skills to work as a team.
 The group process should maintain good social
relations while at the same time organizing
members to perform the task.
 Finally, the organizational context needs to support
the team by promoting cooperation, providing
resources, and rewarding success.
 Successful teams have clear goals, good leadership,
organizational support, appropriate task
characteristics, and mutual accountability with
rewards.
 Teams are increasingly being used in the workplace.
NATURE OF TEAM SUCCESS
 The characteristics that team members and
leaders believe are important for success might
not be the same characteristics that managers
believe (Levi & Slem, 1996).
 Team members focus on the internal
operations of the team; they look at the
contributions that each member brings to the
team and how well members work together.
 Managers focus on the team’s impact on the
organization; they are concerned with results,
not with how the team operates.
 While completing the task, team members
develop social relations that help them work
together and maintain the team.
 Participation in teamwork is personally
rewarding for the individual because of the social
support, the learning of new skills, or the
rewards given by the organization for
participation.
 A successful team completes its task or reaches
its goals.
Completing the task
 For professional tasks requiring creativity or
value judgments, there may be no clear ways
to determine which solutions are best
(Orsburn, Moran, Musselwhite, Zenger, & Perrin,
1990).
 Completing a task successfully as a team is
a measure of success.
 The advantages of using a team to perform a
task occur when unforeseen problems arise
and when the team works together on future
tasks.
 If a project runs smoothly, people working
individually under supervision often can
perform the necessary task.
 If a project encounters difficulties, however,
the value of a team is demonstrated by the
ability of team members to use multiple
perspectives to solve problems and motivate
one another during the difficult period.
Developing social relations
 An important value of teamwork is building the
skills and capabilities of the team and
organization.
 A team must develop social relations among its
members.
 The social interactions necessary for teamwork
require group cohesion and good
communication.
 Cohesion comes from the emotional ties that
team members have with one another.
 Good communication depends on
understanding and trust.
 When team members fail to develop good
social relations, they have interpersonal
problems that interfere with task performance,
and are unable to reward and motivate one
another.
CONDITIONS FOR TEAM SUCCESS

 Team composition
 Characteristics of the task
 Group process
 Organizational context
Team Composition
 A team’s performance depends on the qualities of the
individuals performing the task.
 The team’s members must also have social skills to
communicate with team members.
 Good teams have good team members.
 Biederman (1997) determined that much of the success of
these groups was due to the leaders’ ability to recruit
highly competent team members.
 Interdisciplinary research teams are more productive than
teams whose members have similar background.
 Teams whose members have diverse opinion are more
creative than like-minded teams.
 Management teams whose members have different
backgrounds are more innovative than are homogeneous
teams (Guzzo & Dickson, 1996).
 The advantages of diversity are seen when members are
both highly skilled and committed to their team’s goals.
 Teams require that team members have the skills to work
together as a team. Interpersonal skills, problem-solving
skills, and teamwork skills may be used as selection
criteria for team members, may be taught to team
members, or may be inducted through the use of
facilitators (Carnevale, Gainer, & Meltzer, 1990).
Characteristics of the task
 Teams can be used to perform a variety of types of tasks, and tasks vary in how well suited they are
for teamwork.
 A good team task motivates team members and requires coordinated activity.
 Teams require both appropriate tasks and organizational support for those tasks.
 McGrath (1984) developed a system to describe the different types of tasks that teams perform,
based on four team goals—generate, choose, negotiate, and execute.
 Generation includes tasks that focus on the creative generation of new ideas and tasks that develop
plans for behavioral action.
 Choosing deals with intellective tasks, such as problem solving, when there are correct answers and
decision-making tasks when there are no correct answers.
 Negotiation includes tasks aimed at resolving conflicting viewpoints and mixed-motive tasks
 aimed at resolving conflicts of interest.
 Execution refers to competitive tasks that help resolve conflicts of power and performance tasks
designed to make things or provide services.
Group Process
 Team members must be able to combine efforts successfully.
 Effective teams organize themselves to perform tasks, develop social relations to support their operations, and assign
leaders who can provide direction and facilitate team operations.
 Teams communicate in order to make decisions and perform tasks.
 Teams may encounter problems with decision making. Teams are imperfect decision makers and do not always fully
use their collected knowledge and skills. Team decisions may be disrupted by personal bias, distorted by the desire to
maintain good relationships, or impaired by the desire to make decisions quickly. Teams often become prematurely
committed to the first acceptable solution instead of taking a structured approach to problem solving.
 Highly effective teams have task-oriented goals and norms, and these teams outperform collections of individuals.
 Working in a team can lead to reduced effort by individual members rather than encouraging performance (Social
loafing).
 Internal social relations should provide support for the team. Team members must communicate well, work
cooperatively together, and provide emotional support for one another.
 Teams with high levels of group cohesion and good social relations are the most effective teams. If a team is riddled
with conflict and divided into cliques, or if it acts competitively rather than cooperatively, communication can break
down.
 It is the leader’s responsibility to provide direction for the team and facilitate its internal processes. Depending on the
tasks and team maturity, groups require different types of leadership.
Organizational context
 The organizational context has a significant effect on
whether teams operate successfully (Guzzo & Dickson,
1996).
 Teams may be used to improve the operations of
organizations, but teams are sensitive to their organizational
environments and need the right conditions to succeed.
 The organizational context relates to the culture of the
organization, the support it provides for teams, and its
evaluation and reward systems.
 Teams are more likely to be successful in organizations with
supportive organizational cultures. Supportive cultures
encourage open communication and collaborative effort.
 Teams perform better when they have clear goals and well-
defined tasks. They must be provided with adequate
resources, including financial, staffing, and training support.
 Reliable information from the organization is required for
teams to make decisions, coordinate their efforts with other
parts of the organization, and plan for future changes.
 Finally, technical and group process assistance should be
available to the teams.
 A team needs feedback on its performance and an incentive
to change.
 Team members can provide support for one another, but an
effective team requires feedback from the organization and
rewards for good performance.
Characteristics of successful
teams
 What makes successful teams ?
 Teams require clear, well-defined goals to provide direction and motivation to allow for
performance evaluation.
 Leaders keep teams focused on goals and facilitate team activities.
 The organization’s culture and systems must be compatible with teamwork and
organizations must supply teams with the necessary power and resources (personnel,
financial means, training) for task performance.
 Tasks must be suitable for teamwork.
 Tasks should require coordinated effort and be both challenging and motivating.
 Team members should have a sense of common fate or mutual accountability.
 Efforts must be evaluated and rewarded in a fair manner.
Positive Psychology view of
Team success
 Positive psychology is a recent and important movement within psychology that
studies people’s strengths and how to promote positive functioning (Mills, Fleck, &
Kozikowki, 2013).
 Many positive psychology factors are examined in the study of teamwork because of
its focus on personal development.
 Positive psychology provides an alternative perspective to the meaning of team success
and the factors that contribute to it.
 The positive psychology approach to teamwork leads to better team performance by
focusing on the emotional and cognitive benefits to team members.
 It provides an alternative perspective on the meaning of team success and how to
promote more effective teamwork.
 Many positive psychology factors are examined in the study of teamwork, such as the
impact of supportive personal relations, reflexivity and learning, team efficacy,
empowerment, supportive leadership, and appreciative inquiry (Mills et al., 2013).