Work Teams

Why are they increasing

Understanding teams

Goals

• Assist teams in their team development.

• Stages of group formation. Issues in different stages.

• General problems with teams—groupthink and social loafing. Ways to manage them.

Teams Increasing Popular

• Examples Pella windows

• 3M

• Volvo

• IT firms

Why

• Benchmarking against other firms (Not in the book).

• Flexibility

• Improved Decision Making (assumes decision decentralized).

• Motivation

Types of teams

• Problem Solving (quality circles)--decisions/recommendations

• self-managed teams --puts things together (TI and Defense contract).

• Cross functional teams (project teams) plans and organizes for some activity. Then reverted to production team. Often with product innovation (3M).

• Virtual teams—effective in communication Best for problem solving/communications. Coordination is difficult.

Important elements for team building

• Stages of group development

• Elements to consider to create a highly effective team.

Stages

• Forming—what are group goals; how do we work together to achieve those goals. Who will adopt what roles?

• Storming—intragroup conflict (often not directly expressed which is more likely in HK than the US). Conflicts about goals, ways to achieve those goals. Is everyone making contributions?

• Norming—group works through conflicts and develops cohesiveness.

• Performing fully functioning group. Group is cohesive and achieving goals.

• Adjourning—relevant for temporary groups.

• Assumption more likely to get to performing if go through all stages.

• To some extent good work in forming minimizes conflict.

Working on the Forming Stage

• Group Members and Selection

• Planning and organizing.

• Selection—Technical skills; diversity in team roles.

• To create synergy (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts), need diversity. People are good at different things. One reason why groups exist (see page 270 of text).

• Example—all accounting majors or MIS, Management, Finance. Etc. Which is better to create synergy. Which is better to create harmony?

Bias towards harmony as opposed to synergy.

• Urge you to select based on both. Major issue in Hong Kong. Emphasis on harmony and relationships. Hard to address synergy.

• Build relationships that promote synergy.

Planning

• Book suggests common purpose and specific goals are essential for effective teams (p 268)

• This step is often skimmed over. The goal becomes a task.

• Do all team members share the same goal (common purpose), envision a similar final product (specific goal).

• Essential to have expressed goal commitment.

Organizing

• The process by which the group members achieve the shared goals?

Roles

• Create organizational processes to achieve goals—who does what.

Key Task Roles on TeamsKey Task Roles on Teams

InitiatorInitiator

PromoterPromoter

ProducerProducer

LinkerLinker CreatorCreator

AssessorAssessor OrganizerOrganizer

ControllerController MaintainerMaintainer

Key Maintenance RolesKey Maintenance Roles

CompromiserCompromiser EncouragerEncourager ListenerListener

HarmonizerHarmonizer FollowerFollower

Important

• Both task and maintenance roles.

• Groups have problems when no one assumes leadership role (task roles not performed).

• Or Two people dominate a group (maintenance roles not performed).

• Or just simple task orientation for all.

Organizing

• Who does what roles.

• Key roles: Initiator, organizer, controller, hamonizer, encourager. Team needs to self assess after a while. I will give you a self-assessment tool after your first project.

Other issues

• Independent or shared approach to work activities.

Storming Stage

• Defer this to the next unit. Conflict is not inherently bad. Major cultural issue in traditional Chinese culture.

• How can conflict be good?

• The issue is how to make conflict good.

Norming stage

Norms

• Acceptable standard of behavior within a group that are shared by group members.

Norms

• Break a norm

Why do we have norms?

• What would it be like without norms?

• Flip side what are the advantages of having shared norms.

• Values and management are central to teams.

• Transactional leaders--team leaders.

Types of norms

• Performance norms. Issues related to tardiness, attendance, amount of work, time deadlines, quality of work.

• Appearance norms. Dress practices• Social arrangement norms (how do people

interact with each other; cliques, respect)• Allocation of resource norms (who gets

what).

• Appearance norms (work uniforms—are they good or bad).

• Resource norms are important. Example: peer evaluations.

• According to the book performance norms are the most important. All of the others may be shared but if performance norms are weak then low group performance.

Developing shared norms

• Primacy is important--what happens at first.

• Explicit statements agreements

• Critical events and how they get managed

• General cultural norms

Focus on Primacy

• Critical norms

• Time issues: meeting and showing up:project deadlines.

• Individualistic/collectivistic approaches.

• Communication patterns (participation, listening, openness) see p. 387.

Do norms have a dark side?

Cooperation, Cohesiveness, Trust

• All related. Trust is emotional/cognitive, cooperation are behaviors, cohesiveness is the commonly shared affect towards group members and group activities.

• Maintenance roles lead to cooperative behaviors.

• Trust--faith in the actions of others.

• Curious when act trustful, how do people behave.

• When act distrustful, how do people behave.

• Moving towards trust--initial actions critical.

• Communication (positive and open)

• support--saying yes not yes but

• Respect and listening

• Fairness

• Consistency

• Competency.

Cohesiveness

• Trust and communication most important predictors (different from book). Ones listed in book are also important.

• In general--there is evidence that the greater the cohesion the greater the performance. Exceptions need to be noted--especially in decision making quality.

Performing stage.

Coaching video

General team problem

• Social loafing--decrease in individual effort as group size increases.

• Gold bricking. Individual does not contribute to group effort.

Causes

• Diffusion of responsibility.

• Low interest/commitment

• Expectations for others to loaf.

Influence perceptions of Equity

• Undermines group cohesiveness and ability to work together. Tends to be more blaming than problem solving.

Addressing

• Gaining commitment to a goal.

• Holding accountable for activities (stepladder technique).

• Values (collectivist for individualist)

• Type A vs Type B. Worry warts vs Procrastinators.

• Groups fail to assess themselves due to• Time issues• Difficult to do giving positive and

constructive feedback for improvement• Addressing feedback when it comes to

communication. • Stick to the facts. Group said X and doing Y.

Earlier the better.

Creating effective work teams

• Composition of members. Putting together the right team.

• Want both harmony and diversity. Balance.

Processes

• Mostly addressed. Common purpose and specific goals.

• How teams manage disagreements (conflict). Deferred

• Team efficacy—confidence in team members to succeed. Success breeds success. Trust/motivation. Positive thoughts about each other. Set easy goals at first.

Context is issue not addressed

• Resources—Organization support.

• Leadership—non intrusive and supportive.

• Performance evaluation—team based not individual based. Modifications for individual performance.

Summary and feedback