Slide title

ORGANISATIONS,
PEOPLE &
PERFORMANCE

Understanding yourself
and others

Supplementary Slides
TEAMWORKING
 Objectives
By the end of this session participants will be able to:

 Define what teams are

 Understand the social and psychological processes which
influence behaviour in teams and groups.
 Appreciate the benefits and challenges of utilising virtual teams.
 Understand team leadership

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 Teams: A Definition

A team is a group of individuals

who depend on each other for the
achievement of a common
objective.

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 Team Characteristics
 Composition
 Homogeneous - how similar team members are
 Heterogeneous – how different/diverse they are
 Power Distribution
 Egalitarian – whether power is informal, shared evenly
 Hierarchical – degree of recognition of a fixed structure
 Cohesiveness – the strength of positive relationships between members;
whether they identify with the group and each other. This is vital to a strong and
effective team because complete trust and open communication are so
important.
 Norms
 Expectations – whether members share standards of behaviour
 Explicit and implicit rules – are standards codified into protocols or implied by
what is accepted , tolerated, or criticised
 Roles
 Role clarity- does everyone know what they are doing?
 Role exclusivity – degree of overlap or similarity between roles

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Belbin’s (1981) Team Role Theory
Team Role Potential Weaknesses

Plant: creative, imaginative, solves difficult problems Ignores detail

Resource Investigator: Enthusiastic, explores opportunities & Over-optimistic

develops contacts
Co-ordinator: Confident, clarifies goals, delegates Manipulative

Shaper: Drive to overcome obstacles Inconsiderate

Monitor Evaluator: Judges accurately Lacks drive

Team worker: Co-operative, reduces group tensions Indecisive

Implementer: Reliable, disciplined, brings ideas to fruition Inflexible

Completer: Conscientious, delivers on time Worries unnecessarily

Specialist: self starting, provides rare knowledge and skills Narrow contribution

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 Stages of Team Development
Tuckman’s Model
Performing

Dorming
Norming

Mourning
Storming

A process that takes time.

Forming Often confused with progress
through model
Tuckman (1965)

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 Performance In Teams

A product of:
Level of Effort
Level of Skill
Performance Strategy

Hackman and Morris (1975)

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Requirements For Effective Teamworking

Interpersonal trust
Clear and agreed goals
Appropriate team composition
Inclusive behaviour and cohesiveness
Open, non-defensive communication: information sharing and giving and
receiving honest feedback
All members’ willingness to take initiative when appropriate
Constructive conflict
Structured problem-solving and decision-making processes
Decision making by consensus
Shared concern for individual growth and development
Shared identity
Permeable boundaries

For more information see Ancona and Bresman (2007), X-Teams

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 GROUPTHINK: when cohesion goes
wrong

The psychological drive for consensus at

any cost that suppresses dissent and
appraisal of alternatives in cohesive
decision making groups

Irving Janis (1972)

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 GROUPTHINK:
OVER-COHESIVENESS SYMPTOMS

Sense of invulnerability
Rationalisation of unwanted evidence
Loss of morality
Stereotyping the minority
Direct pressure on those who do not conform
Voluntary self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity
Mind-guarding

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 ASCH CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS (1951)

The Asch experiments demonstrated a tendency for individuals

to be influenced by the opinion of the majority.

The Asch experiments investigated the tendency of participants

to conform to peer pressure – to subordinate the evidence of
their own senses to the viewpoint of the group/team
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 How are the findings from the Asch
experiments relevant to groups/teams?

Conformity. A subject who has neither ability

nor expertise to make decisions, especially in
a crisis, will leave decision making to the
group and its hierarchy. This because the
group is the person's behavioural model;
their reference point for how to behave.

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Virtual Teams
 Virtual Teams

Definition: A virtual team — also known as a

geographically dispersed team (GDT) — is a group of
people who work interdependently and with shared
purpose across distance, time zones, and organisation
boundaries, using technology to communicate and
collaborate.

Lipnack & Stamps (1997)

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 Kerber & Buono
(2004).

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 Potential Benefits
Integrating diverse knowledge and skills to drive
innovation, address complex tasks more effectively, and
make better decisions.
Reducing costs due to eliminating overlapping functions
and sharing of best practices.
Sharing knowledge about different products and markets.
24/7 productivity by teams working across global time
zones.

Eidson (2009)

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 Potential Problems
Difficulties in communicating and understanding one another, resulting in
a lack of common ground, trust, and shared responsibility.
Failure to develop task-related processes such as setting clear goals and
standards.
Inability to collaborate in a way that takes advantage of different
perspectives, knowledge, talent and expertise.
A lack of full engagement and commitment by all team members to
deliver their best performances when completing tasks and progressing
toward team goals.

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 Six Leadership Strategies for Virtual
Team High Performance

1. Keep all team members in close communication.

2. Create a collaborative mindset.
3. Clarify the team’s purpose and goals.
4. Establish clear performance standards.
5. Adapt coaching strategies for distance management.
6. Celebrate milestones and successes.

Eidson (2009)

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Team leadership
Team leader’s role
 Emphasise group recognition and rewards
 Identify and build on the team’s strengths
 Develop trust and a norm of teamwork
 Develop the team’s capabilities to anticipate and deal with change
effectively
 Empower teams to accomplish their work with minimal interference
 Inspire and motivate teams toward higher levels of performance
 Recognize individual and team needs and attend to them in a timely
fashion
 Encourage and support team decisions
 Provide teams with challenging and motivating work

Achua & Lussier (2013)

Hill’s model for team leadership

Hill (2013)
Characteristics of team excellence
 Clear, elevating goal
 Results-driven structure
 Competent team members
 Unified commitment
 Collaborative climate
 Standards of excellence
 External support and recognition
 Principled leadership
Larson & LaFasto (1989)
References
Achua, C. and Lussier, R. (2013) Effective Leadership. London: Cengage
Learning.
Ancona, D. and Bresman, H. (2007). X-Teams: How To Build Teams That
Lead, Innovate and Succeed. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Belbin, M. (1981). Management Teams. London: Heinemann.
Drexler, A., Sibbet. D, & Forrester, R. (2009) The Team Performance
Model. San Francisco: Grove Consultants.
Eidson. C. (2009). The Benefits and Liabilities of Virtual Teams: Six Things
Managers Need to Know. Wilson Learning.
Hackman, J. and Morris, C. (1975). Group tasks, group interaction
process, and group performance effectiveness: A review and proposed
integration. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
psychology. New York: Academic Press.

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 References
Hill, S. (2013). Team Leadership. In P. Northouse, Leadership:
Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Janis, I. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Kerber K. and Buono, A. (2004). Leadership Challenges in
Global Virtual Teams. SAM Advanced Management Journal.
Vol. 69.
Larson, C. and LaFasto, F. (1989). Teamwork: What must go
right/what can go wrong. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Lipnack, J. and Stamps, J. (1997). Virtual Teams. London: John
Wiley & Sons.
Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small
groups. Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 63. No. 6.
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