management, 6e schermerhorn prepared by cheryl wyrick california state polytechnic university pomona...

Management, 6eSchermerhorn

Prepared by

Cheryl Wyrick

California State Polytechnic University Pomona

John Wiley & Sons, Inc

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Schermerhorn - Chapter 17 3

Chapter 17Teams and Teamwork

Planning Ahead– How do teams contribute to organizations?– What are the current trends in the use of teams?– How do teams work?– What should leaders know about decision

making in teams?– How can team building increase performance

effectiveness?


Teams in Organizations

A team is a small group of people with complimentary skills who work together to achieve a common purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable for its accomplishment.



Teamwork is the process of people working together in teams to accomplish common goals



Synergy– means that a team is using its

membership resources to the fullest and is achieving more as a unit than could otherwise be achieved



Usefulness of Teams– increasing resources for problem solving– fostering creativity and innovation– improving quality of decision making– enhancing members’ commitments to tasks– raising motivation through collective action– helping control and discipline members



What can go wrong in teams?– social loafing– personality conflicts– task ambiguity– poor readiness to work– poor teamwork



Formal Teams– officially recognized

and supported by the organization for specific purposes

• functional team– departments, teams,

divisions



Informal Groups– emerge as part of the

informal structure and communication flows in organizations

• interest

• friendship

• support


•Trends in the Use of Teams

Committees– usually operate with an ongoing purpose– membership may change over time


Trends in the Use of Teams

Task Force– usually operates on a more temporary basis– tasks are very specific and time defined– often disbands after task is completed– creativity and innovation are very important

processes



Cross-Functional Teams– members come from different functional units

and parts of an organization that are indispensable to fulfillment of these design goals



Virtual Teams – employees who work together and solve

problems through largely computer-mediated interactions

• local area networks

• wide area networks

• intranets

• electronic meeting rooms



Self-Managing Work Teams– workers whose jobs have been redesigned to

create a high degree of task interdependence and who have been given the authority to make many decisions about how they go about doing the required work



In Self-Managing Work Teams, Members– are held collectively accountable for performance

results

– have discretion in distributing tasks

– have discretion in scheduling work

– are able to perform multiple tasks

– evaluate one another’s performance contributions

– responsible for the total quality of team products



How Teams Work– two key results

• task performance

• human resource maintenance

– effective teams have high levels of both results



Team Effectiveness– input factors that influence good group process

• organizational setting

• nature of the task

• team size

• membership characteristics



Stages of Team Development– Forming - initial orientation– Storming - conflict over tasks– Norming - consolidation around operating

agendas– Performing - focused task performance– Adjourning - eventual disengagement



Norms

– behavior expected of team members

– can be enforces with reprimands and other sanctions



Performance Norms– defined level of work effort and performance

that team members are expected to contribute



How to Build Positive Norms– acting as positive role model

– reinforcing desired behaviors

– controlling results by regular feedback

– orienting and training new members to adopt desired behaviors

– holding regular meetings to discuss progress

– using team decision-making methods to reach agreement



Cohesiveness– degree to which members are attracted to and

want to remain part of a team– can be good if paired with positive performance

norms– the more cohesiveness the greater conformity

of members to norms



Task Activities– contribute directly to team’s performance

purpose

Maintenance Activities– support the emotional life of team



Distributed Leadership– makes every member responsible for

• correctly recognizing when task and/or maintenance activities are needed

• responding appropriately



Distributed Leadership

Team results =

Task Gains + Maintenance Gains - Self-serving Losses



Communication Networks– decentralized

• all members communicate directly with one another

– centralized• activities are coordinated and results pooled by

central point of control


Decision Making in Teams

How Teams Make Decisions– lack of response

– authority rule

– minority rule

– majority rule

– consensus

– unanimity



Assets of Team Decision Making– information– alternatives– understanding and acceptance– commitment



Potential Disadvantages of Team Decision Making– social pressure to conform– minority domination– time demands



Groupthink– tendency for highly

cohesive groups to lose their critical evaluative capabilities



Symptoms of Groupthink– illusions of group invulnerability

– rationalizing unpleasant data

– belief in inherent group morality

– negative stereotypes of competitors

– pressure to conform

– self-censorship

– illusions of unanimity

– mind guarding



Creativity and Team Decision Making– Brainstorming

• all criticism is ruled out

• freewheeling is welcomed

• quantity is important

• building on one another’s ideas



Creativity and Team Decision Making– Nominal Group Technique

• participants work alone and write down solutions

• ideas read aloud without criticism

• ideas are recorded

• ideas are discussed in round-robin sequence

• members silently follow written voting procedure

• last two steps are repeated as needed


Leadership and High Performance Teams Team-Building Process

– sequence of planned activities used to gather and analyze data on the functioning of a team and the implementation of constructive changes to increase its operating effectiveness


Leadership and High Performance Teams High performance teams

• clear and elevating goal

• task-driven, results-oriented structure

• competent and committed members

• collaborative climate

• high standards of excellence

• external support and recognition

• strong and principled leadership


Leadership and High Performance Teams Effective Team Leaders

– establish clear vision of future– create change– unleash talent

management, 6e schermerhorn prepared by cheryl wyrick california state polytechnic university pomona...

Documents

use of teams

schermerhorn chapter

teams work

usefulness of teams

formal teams

time slide

crossfunctional teams

e schermerhorn