1. Understanding Work Teams
PART IV: Leading 9
Chapter 9
Understanding Work Teams
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2. The Popularity Of Teams
Teams typically outperform individuals when tasks require multiple skills, judgment, and experience.
Teams are a better way to utilize individual employee talents.
The flexibility and responsiveness of teams is essential in a changing environment
Empowered teams increase job satisfaction and morale, enhance employee involvement, and promote workforce diversity.
Evidence suggests that teams out perform individuals on tasks that require multiple skills, judgment, and experience.
As organizations restructure themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently, they are turning to teams as a better way to utilize the talents of employees.
Management has found that teams are more flexible and responsive to a changing environment because they can be quickly assembled, deployed, refocused, and disbanded. In addition, teams promote job satisfaction through enhancing employee involvement, increasing employee morale, and promoting work force diversity.
Also, superior work teams are fundamental to TQM.
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3. The Stages Of Team Development
Stage 1: Forming
The team experiences uncertainty about its purpose, structure, and leadership.
Stage 2: Storming
Intragroup conflict predominates within the group
Stage 3: Norming
Close relationships develop and group members begin to demonstrate cohesiveness.
Stage 4: Performing
The team develops a structure that is fully functional and accepted by team members.
Stage 5: Adjourning
The team prepares for its disbandment.
Team development is a dynamic, ongoing process that can be broken into five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
The first stage, forming, is characterized by uncertainty about the team’s purpose, structure, and leadership. This stage is when members begin to think of themselves as a team.
The storming stage involves intragroup conflict over individual roles and leadership. This stage is complete when there is relatively clear leadership within the team.
In the norming stage, close relationships and group cohesiveness develop. This stage is complete when the team’s structure solidifies and members have accepted group norms that pertain to workplace behavior.
In the fourth stage, performing, the structure is fully functional and accepted by all team members. For permanent teams, performing is the last stage.
For temporary teams, though, the final stage is adjourning, and the team wraps-up activities and prepares to disband.
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4. Work Groups And Work Teams
A group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions that will help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility
Work team
A group that engages in collective work that requires joint effort and generates a positive synergy.
A group is two or more interdependent individuals who interact to achieve particular objectives.
A work group interacts primarily to share information and make decisions that will help group members to perform their on-the-job responsibilities.
A work team generates positive synergy through coordinated effort. The figure above highlights the differences between work groups and work teams.
In an effort to obtain synergy that can boost performance, many organizations have recently restructured work processes around teams. The use of teams creates the potential for an organization to generate greater outputs with no increase in inputs.
But there is nothing “magical” in the creation of teams that assures the achievement of positive synergy. And merely calling a group a team does not automatically increase its performance.
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5. Types Of Work Teams Functional team Problem-solving team
A work team composed of a manager and the employees in his or her unit and involved in efforts to improve work activities or to solve specific problems within particular functional unit
Problem-solving team
5 to 12 hourly employees from the same department who meet each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment
Functional teams are composed of a manager and the employees in his or her unit. Functional teams are often formed to improve work-related activities or to solve specific problems within a particular functional unit.
Problem-Solving Teams meet periodically to share ideas and suggest improvements to work processes and methods.
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6. Types Of Work Teams (cont’d)
Quality circle
8 to 10 employees and supervisors who share an area of responsibility and who meet regularly to discuss quality problems, investigate the causes of the problem, recommend solutions, and take corrective actions but who have no authority
Self-managed work team
A formal group of employees that operates without a manager and is responsible for a complete work process or segment that delivers a product or service to an external or internal customer
Quality circles are problem solving teams that consist of eight to ten employees and supervisors who assume responsibility for solving quality problems. These teams recommend their solutions to management for final approval.
Self-managed work teams consist of ten to fifteen people who assume the responsibilities of their former supervisors: such as, controlling the pace of work, organizing breaks, determining work assignments, choosing inspection procedures, and choosing and evaluating members. These teams implement their own suggestions and take responsibility for the outcomes.
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7. Types Of Work Teams (cont’d)
Cross-functional work team
A team composed of employees from about the same hierarchical level but form different work areas in an organization who are brought together to accomplish a particular task
Virtual team
A team that meets electronically; allows groups to meet without concern for space or time
On cross-functional teams, equally ranked employees from different functional areas work together to accomplish a task. Cross-functional teams expedite the following: exchanging ideas from diverse areas within or between organizations, developing new ideas and solving problems, and coordinating complex projects.
Virtual teams are an extension of electronic meetings. Team members use communication technology to meet or solve problems without concern for time or space.
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8. Entrepreneurs’ Use of Teams
Empowered functional teams
Teams that have authority to plan and implement process improvements
Self-directed teams
Teams that are nearly autonomous and responsible for many activities that were once the jurisdiction of managers
Cross-functional teams
Teams that include a hybrid grouping of individuals who are experts in various specialties and who work together on various tasks
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9. Why Entrepreneurs Use Teams
Teams facilitate the technology and market demands the organization is facing.
Teams help the organization to make products faster, cheaper, and better.
Teams permit entrepreneurs to tap into the collective wisdom of the venture’s employees.
Teams empower employees to make decisions.
Team culture can improve the overall workplace environment and worker morale.
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10. Challenges to Creating Team Players
Managers attempting to introduce teams into organization face the most difficulty when:
When individual employee resistance to teams is strong.
Where the national culture is individualistic rather than collectivist.
When an established organization places high values on and significantly rewards individual achievement.
Not every worker is inherently a team player. In fact, some individuals prefer to be recognized for their individual achievements. Furthermore, work environments in some organizations are such that “only the strong survive.”
Finally, countries differ in terms of how conducive they are to individualism and collectivism. Teams fit well with countries that score high on collectivism, such as Japan.
However, it is challenging to introduce teams into a work population that is made up of employees born and raised in a highly individualistic society, such as the United States.
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11. Shaping Team Behavior Proper selection Employee training
Hire employees who have both the technical skills and the interpersonal skills required to fulfill team roles.
Employee training
Provide training that involves employees in learning the behaviors required to become team players.
Rewarding the appropriate team behaviors
Create a reward system that encourages cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones.
While some workers will not be trainable, the most popular methods for turning individuals into team players are proper selection, employee training, and rewarding appropriate team behaviors.
When hiring team members, managers should ensure that individuals can fulfill team roles as well as technical requirements.
Even independent workers can be trained to become team players through workshops that cover team problem solving, communications, negotiations, conflict resolution, the five stages of team development, and coaching skills.
The reward system must encourage cooperation rather than competition. For instance, promotions, pay raises, and other forms of recognition should be not only based on individual excellence but also on collaboration and team work.
Also, teamwork can be its own reward because it is exciting and satisfying to be an integral part of a successful team.
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12. Teams And Continuous Process Improvement Programs
Teams provide the natural vehicle for employees to share ideas and implement improvements.
Teams are well suited to the high levels of communication and contact, response, adaptation, and coordination and sequencing in work environments where continuous process improvement programs are in place.
One of the central characteristics of continuous process improvement is the use of teams.
Ford Motor Company began its continuous improvement efforts in the early 1980s, and teams were the primary organizing mechanism.
When designing the quality problem-solving teams, Ford’s management realized that the teams should be:
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small enough to be efficient and effective
be properly trained in the skills their members will need
be allocated enough time to work on the problems they plan to address
be given the authority to resolve the problems and implement corrective action
have a designated “champion” to help the team get around roadblocks.

13. Workforce Diversity’s Effects on Teams
Fresh and multiple perspectives on issues help the team identify creative or unique solutions and avoid weak alternatives.
The difficulty of working together may make it harder to unify a diverse team and reach agreements.
Although diversity’s advantages dissipate with time, the added-value of diverse teams increases as the team becomes more cohesive.
Managing diversity on teams is a balancing act. Diversity typically provides fresh perspectives on issues, but it makes it harder to unify the team and reach agreements.
When solving problems or making decisions, heterogeneous teams bring multiple perspectives into play, thereby increasing the likelihood that the team will identify creative or unique solutions.
In addition, the lack of a common perspective causes diverse teams to spend more time discussing issues, which minimizes the chances that a weak alternative will be chosen. A potential problem with diversity is that it may be detrimental to cohesiveness.
However, the relationship between cohesiveness and productivity can be moderated by performance-related norms. If the norms of the team support diversity, the team can maximize the value of heterogeneity while achieving the benefits of high cohesiveness.
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