Ch08 Teamwork and Team Performance

How can we create high performance teams? How can team processes be improved?
How can team communications be improved? How can team decisions be improved?
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Characteristics of High Performance Teams

Set a clear and challenging direction.
Believe in the goals and motivated to work hard to
accomplish them.
Turn a general sense of purpose into specific objectives. Set standards for measuring results and obtain feedback. Members have the right mix of technical, problem-solving
and interpersonal skills.
Team Building
Collaborative way to gather and analyze
data about the teams work. The goal is
improved teamwork and increased team

effectiveness.
Step 1: Problem or opportunity in team effectiveness
Step 5: Evaluation of results
Step 2:
Participation by all members
Teamwork
Data gathering and analysis
Step 4: Actions to improve team functioning
Step 3: Planning for team improvement
Formal retreat approach

Team building occurs during an offsite retreat.
Outdoor experience approach

Members engage in a variety of physically
challenging situations that require teamwork.
Continuous improvement approach

The manager, team leader, or group members
take responsibility for ongoing team building.

New members may worry about:

Participation Goals Control Relationships
Processes
Tough Battler
Acts aggressive Seeks authority
Friendly Helper
Acts insecure Tries to be helpful
Objective Thinker
Acts reflective Wants clear goals
Distributed leadership
Sharing of responsibility for meeting group task and
maintenance needs.
Task activities
Various things members and leaders do that directly
contribute to the performance of important group tasks.
Maintenance activities
Support the social and interpersonal relationships among
team members.
Task Contributions
Offering ideas Clarifying suggestions Giving information Seeking information Summarizing discussion
Maintenance Contributions
Encouraging others Reconciling differences Expressing standards Offering agreement Inviting participation
Disruptive behaviors:
Bullying and being overly aggressive toward
other members.
Withdrawing and refusing to cooperate with
others.
Using the group as a forum for self-confession.
Talking too much about irrelevant matters.

Trying to compete for attention and recognition.
Role
Set of expectations associated with a job or position
on a team. . Role ambiguity Occurs when a person is uncertain about his or her role and what is expected.
Role overload
Occurs when too much is expected of the
individual.
Role underload
Occurs when too little is expected of the
individual.
Role conflict
Occurs when a person
is unable to respond to role expectations that
conflict with one

another.
Forms of role conflict
Intrasender, Intersender, Personrole, Inter-role.
Role negotiation
Process for discussing and agreeing upon
what team members expect of one another.

Team members meet to discuss, clarify, and
agree on their individual role expectations
each holds for the other.
Norms
Represent ideas or beliefs about how
members are expected to behave.

Considered rules or standards of conduct
that are supposed to guide members.

Help members to guide their own behavior
and predict what others will do.
Key norms that can have positive or negative
implications.
Performance norms. Ethics norms. Organizational and personal pride norms. High-achievement norms.
Support and helpfulness norms.

Improvement and change norms.
Positive role model
Reward and positively reinforce desired behaviors
Leaders can Influence Norms
Set aside time to discuss goals and norms
Select members who can and will live up to desired norms

Cohesiveness
The degree to which members are attracted
to a group and motivated to remain a part
of it.
There is a strong relationship between
cohesiveness, conformity to group norms,

and performance.
Inter-team dynamics
The relationships between groups
cooperating and competing with one
another.
Ways to achieve positive inter-team dynamics

Refocusing members on a common enemy or goal.
Negotiating directly. Engaging members, of different teams, in activities
learning how to work cooperatively together.

Refocusing reward systems to emphasize
contributions to overall organizational performance
and on how much teams help one another.
To assure high performance, team interaction patterns and communication networks must be aligned with
interaction patterns and team tasks.

Centralized Decentralized Restrictive
Decentralized communication network

Members communicate directly, as needed,
and share information with one another.
Centralized communication network

Team leader acts as a central control point. Team leader collects and distributes
information among members.

Members work independently. Results are
passed to the team leader and pooled to create finished product.
Restricted communication network

Subgroups disagree with one anothers
positions.
Poor communication is characteristic of this
type of situation.
Proxemics involves use of space as people
interact.
Architects and consultants that specialize in office
design help executives create spaces conducive to
intense communication and teamwork needed in

todays work environment.
Design of office space, and the size and availability
of meeting rooms can positively impact the

effectiveness of team communication.
Virtual communication networks

Technology provide numerous
resources for real time communication.

Empowers team members to be in
constant electronic contact with one

another or a central database.
Online team building activities are
critically important to high quality
results.
What innovations in electronic communication do you predict in your working lifetime?
Teams make decisions by choosing from alternative actions.

Decision by lack of response
One idea after another is suggested without any discussion-taking place.

Decision by authority rule
The chairperson, manager, or leader makes a decision for the team.

Decision by minority rule
Two or three people are able to dominate or railroad the group into making a decision to which they agree.
Decision by majority rule
Formal voting usually takes place, or members may be polled, publicly or confidentially, to find the majority viewpoint.
Decision by consensus
Discussion leads to one alternative being favored by most members and the other members agree to support it.
Decision by unanimity
All group members agree totally on the course of action to be taken.
Assets and Liabilities of Consensus and Unanimity

Advantages:
More information, knowledge and expertise is applied to solve problem. Discussion leads to broader understanding of final decision. Increases acceptance and strengthens commitment of members to follow
through and support decision.
Disadvantages:
Imperfect decisions may result from social pressures to conform to group, or undue influence of team leader.
Team decisions take more time than individual decisions.
Groupthink
The tendency of members in highly cohesive
groups to lose their critical evaluative
capabilities.
Avoiding groupthink
Leader refrains from announcing any position. Every team member acts as critical evaluator. Different sub-groups explore same problems. Bring in outside experts to evaluate information, realism of goals, and plans for action. Assign someone to be a devils advocate at each team meeting. Rotate an appointed team "devil's advocate" so that no one particular person appears to dissent.
Brainstorming
Used in teams to actively generate as many
ideas and alternatives as possible. All criticism is ruled out All ideas are welcomed
Emphasis on creativity and imagination

Quantity is wanted Building on others ideas or piggybacking is encouraged
Think about how team cohesiveness and groupthink might be related. Can cohesiveness ever reduce groupthink?
For example, when there is a cohesive team,
and members are familiar with each other, they may be less likely to censor their opinions and more likely to disagree.
Agree or disagree?
Nominal group technique

Members are asked to respond individually
and in writing to a nominal question.
Delphi technique
Involves generating decision-making
alternatives through a series of survey
questionnaires.

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How can we create high performance teams? How can team processes be improved?

Characteristics of High Performance Teams

and interpersonal skills.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

data about the teams work. The goal is

improved teamwork and increased team

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Step 1: Problem or opportunity in team effectiveness

Step 5: Evaluation of results

Participation by all members

Data gathering and analysis

Step 4: Actions to improve team functioning

Step 3: Planning for team improvement

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Formal retreat approach

Outdoor experience approach

challenging situations that require teamwork.

Continuous improvement approach

take responsibility for ongoing team building.

New members may worry about:

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

contribute to the performance of important group tasks.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Talking too much about irrelevant matters.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

is unable to respond to role expectations that

conflict with one

what team members expect of one another.

agree on their individual role expectations

each holds for the other.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

members are expected to behave.

that are supposed to guide members.

and predict what others will do.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Key norms that can have positive or negative

Support and helpfulness norms.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Positive role model

Reward and positively reinforce desired behaviors

Leaders can Influence Norms

Set aside time to discuss goals and norms

Select members who can and will live up to desired norms

to a group and motivated to remain a part

cohesiveness, conformity to group norms,

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

cooperating and competing with one

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Ways to achieve positive inter-team dynamics

learning how to work cooperatively together.

contributions to overall organizational performance

and on how much teams help one another.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

interaction patterns and team tasks.

Decentralized communication network

and share information with one another.

Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Centralized communication network

information among members.