1. Chapter 8
Team dynamics

2. Learning Objectives
8.1 Explain why employees join informal groups, and discuss the benefits and limitations of teams 8.2 Outline the team effectiveness model and discuss how task characteristics, team size and team composition influence team effectiveness 8.3 Discuss how the four team processes—team development, norms, cohesion and trust—influence team effectiveness 8.4 Discuss the characteristics and factors required for the success of self-directed teams and virtual teams 8.5 Identify four constraints on team decision making and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of four structures aimed at improving team decision making

3. Self-Managed Teams at RPG
At RPG Group, the introduction of work teams is based on the assumption that empowered employees will contribute to a high-performance work culture. To support this initiative, team members are trained to work together, identifying and solving work-related problems with minimal supervision

4. What are Teams? Groups of two or more people Exist to fulfil a purpose
Interdependent—interact and influence each other
Mutually accountable for achieving common goals
Perceive themselves as a social entity
Points for discussion:
What is the difference between these three: a group of people waiting for the bus; a book club; and a basketball team?
What is the difference between a group and a team?
Optional youtube clip:
Ask: What makes this a good example of team work?

5. Many Types of Teams Departmental teams
Production/service/ leadership teams
Self-directed teams
Advisory teams
Task force (project) teams
Skunkworks
Virtual teams
Communities of practice

6. Informal Groups
Groups that exist primarily for the benefit of their members
Reasons why informal groups exist:
Innate drive to bond
Social identity—we define ourselves by group memberships
Goal accomplishment
Emotional support

7. Advantages/Disadvantages of Teams
Make better decisions, products and services
Better information sharing
Increase employee motivation and engagement
Fulfils drive to bond
Closer scrutiny by team members
Team members are benchmarks of comparison
Disadvantages
Individuals better/faster on some tasks
Process losses—cost of developing and maintaining teams
Social loafing
Points for discussion:
What tasks are more suitable for teams? What tasks are more suitable for individuals?

8. How to Minimise Social Loafing
Make individual performance more visible
Form smaller teams
Specialise tasks
Measure individual performance
Increase employee motivation
Increase job enrichment
Select motivated employees

9. Team Effectiveness Model
Teaching note:
It is easier to start explaining the model from the end. What is it that we are trying to achieve? Then detail the three groups of factors that can lead to success.

10. Organisation/Team Environment
Reward systems
Communication systems
Organisational structure
Organisational leadership
Physical space
Points for discussion:
How can each of these factors impact the effectiveness of a team?
Which additional environmental conditions could contribute to team effectiveness?

11. Team’s Task Characteristics
Teams work better when tasks are clear and easy to implement
Learn roles faster, easier to become cohesive
Ill-defined tasks require members with diverse backgrounds and more time to coordinate
Teams preferred with higher task interdependence
Extent that employees need to share materials, information or expertise to perform their jobs

12. Levels of Task Interdependence
Points for discussion:
Ask students to give examples for the three levels of task interdependence.

13. Team Size Smaller teams are better because they:
Need less time to coordinate roles and resolve differences
Require less time to develop more member involvement, thus higher commitment
But the team must be large enough to accomplish the task

14. Going Ape for Teams at Flight Centre
Following evolutionary principles, Flight Centre and Symantec started to break up large work teams, and to reduce their managers’ direct reports
Small Flight Centre families report to village-sized clusters of five teams, which in turn form a Flight Centre tribe of up to 25 teams
<<Insert Ape Image p. 258>>

15. Team Composition
Effective team members must be willing and able to work on the team
Effective team members possess specific competencies (5 Cs)
Pre-lesson activity:
8.3 Are you a team player?

16. Five Cs of Team-member Competencies
Teaching note:
It is useful to go in this order when discussing the five Cs:
Cooperating
Coordinating
Communicating
Conflict resolving
Comforting.

17. Team Composition: Diversity
Team members have diverse knowledge, skills, perspectives, values, etc.
Advantages
View problems and possible solutions from different perspectives
Broader knowledge base
Better representation of team’s constituents
Disadvantages
Take longer to become a high-performing team
More susceptible to ‘fault lines’
Increased risk of dysfunctional conflict
Points for discussion:
Ask students to discuss the pros and cons of diversity.

18. Stages of Team Development
Points for discussion:
What are the challenges and limitations of this model?
Teaching note:
The film ‘12 Angry Men’ is a good example of a team process.

19. Team Development as Membership and Competence
Two central processes in team development:
Team membership formation
Transition from ‘them’ to ‘us’
Team becomes part of person’s social identity
Team competence development
Forming routines with others
Forming shared mental models

20. Team Roles A set of behaviours that people are expected to perform
Some formally assigned; others informally
Informal role assignment occurs during team development and is related to personal characteristics
Pre-lesson activity:
8.2 What team roles do you prefer?

21. Team Building
Formal activities intended to improve the team’s development and functioning
Types of team building
Clarify team’s performance goals
Improve team’s problem-solving skills
Improve role definitions
Improve relations
Points for discussion:
Why is paintball fighting a good exercise in team building?

22. Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations that the team establishes to regulate member behaviours
Norms develop through:
Initial team experiences
Critical events in team’s history
Experience and values members bring to the team
Examples for team norms:
Food at meetings; arriving in time; time management; level of focus; joke telling etc.
As part of the team norms people sometimes assign certain roles to themselves: leader, time manager, note taker, joke teller etc.

23. Preventing/Changing Dysfunctional Team Norms
State desired norms when forming teams
Select members with preferred values
Discuss counter-productive norms
Reward behaviours representing desired norms
Disband teams with dysfunctional norms

24. Team Cohesion
The degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members
Both cognitive and emotional process
Related to the team member’s social identity

25. Influences on Team Cohesion
Member similarity
• Similarity-attraction effect
• Some forms of diversity have less effect
Team size
• Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive
Member interaction
• Regular interaction increases cohesion
• Calls for tasks with high interdependence

26. Influences on Team Cohesion continued
Somewhat difficult entry
• Team eliteness increases cohesion
• But lower cohesion with severe initiation
Team success
• Successful teams fulfil member needs
• Success increases social identity with team
External challenges
• Challenges increase cohesion when not overwhelming

27. Team Cohesion Outcomes
Motivated to remain members
Willing to share information
Strong interpersonal bonds
Resolve conflict effectively
Better interpersonal relationships
Better performance (if norms aligned)

28. Team Cohesion and Performance

29. Trust Defined
Positive expectations one person has of another person in situations involving risk
Pre-lesson activity:
8.4 How trusting are you?
Points for discussion:
Why is trust related to risk?
What examples do we have of trust in relationships? What are the related risks in each example?

30. Three Levels of Trust

31. Self-Directed Teams
SDTs are cross-functional work groups organised around work processes
They complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks
They have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks
Teaching note:
Ask students to share their experiences in SDTs. What were the advantages and disadvantages of working in such teams?

32. Self-Directed Team Success Factors
Responsible for entire work process
High interdependence within the team
Low interdependence with other teams
Autonomy to organise and coordinate work
Work site and technology support team communication/coordination

33. Multicultural teams Teams built from employees around the globe
Can be affected by cultural differences:
Norms (about power, communicating and decision making)
Values
Local versus global perspectives

34. Managing Multicultural Teams
Managers of multicultural teams can make one of three kinds of interventions:
Encourage adaptation
Implement a structural intervention
Direct manager intervention

35. Virtual Teams
Teams whose members operate across space, time and organisational boundaries and are linked through information technologies to achieve organisational tasks
Increasingly possible because of:
Information technologies
Knowledge-based work
Increasingly necessary because of:
Organisational learning
Globalisation

36. Virtual Team Success Factors
Member characteristics
Technology savvy
Self-leadership skills
Emotional intelligence
Flexible use of communication technologies
Opportunities to meet face-to-face

37. Team Decision-Making Constraints
Time constraints
Time to organise/coordinate
Production blocking
Evaluation apprehension
Belief that others are silently evaluating you
Peer pressure to conform
Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms
Groupthink
Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus at the price of decision quality
Concept losing favour—consider more specific features
A good example of Groupthink is the NASA Challenger failure:

38. General Guidelines for Team Decisions
Team norms should encourage critical thinking
Sufficient team diversity
Ensure neither leader nor any member dominates
Maintain optimal team size
Introduce effective team structures

39. Constructive Conflict
Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA
People focus their discussion on the issue while maintaining respectfulness for others having different points of view
Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into personal attacks

40. Rules of Brainstorming
Speak freely
Don’t criticise
Provide as many ideas as possible
Build on others’ ideas
Teaching note:
It is good to try a brainstorming exercise in class. For example: coming up with names for a new product.

41. Evaluating Brainstorming
Strengths
Produces more creative ideas
Less evaluation apprehension when team supports a learning orientation
Strengthens decision acceptance and team cohesiveness
Sharing positive emotions encourages creativity
Weaknesses
Production blocking still exists
Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups

42. Electronic Brainstorming
Relies on networked computers to submit and share creative ideas
Strengths—more creative ideas, minimal production blocking, evaluation apprehension or conformity problems
Limitations—too structured and technology-bound

43. Nominal Group Technique
Describe
problem
Individual Activity
Team Activity
Write down
possible
solutions
Possible
described
to others
Vote on
presented

44. Summary
People have a drive to bond. As such, they join informal groups and work in teams
A team is effective when able to achieve its objectives, fulfil the needs of its members and maintain its survival
The model of team effectiveness considers the team and organisational environment, team design and team processes
Different team types (SDTs, virtual or multicultural) have different challenges and conditions for success

45. Chapter 8
Team dynamics