1. Chapter 12: Teams, Teamwork, and Collaboration
Business Leadership: Management Fundamentals John R. Schermerhorn, Jr., Barry Wright, and Lorie Guest
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2. Planning Ahead — Chapter 12 Learning Goals
Explain how teams contribute to organizations
Describe the current trends in the use of teams
Explain how teams work
Describe how teams make decisions
Describe methods of managing conflict
Planning Ahead — Chapter 12 Learning Goals

3. Teams in Organizations
A small group of people with complementary skills, who work together to achieve a shared purpose and hold themselves mutually accountable for performance results
Teamwork:
The process of people actively working together to accomplish common goals
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4. Roles for Managers Team and teamwork roles for managers:
Supervisor: serving as the appointed head of a formal work unit
Network facilitator: serving as a peer leader an network hub for a special task force
Participant: serving as a helpful contributing member of a project team
External coach: serving as the external convener or sponsor of a problem-solving team staffed by others
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5. Figure 12.1 Team and teamwork roles for managers
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6. Teamwork Pros Synergy:
The creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts
A team uses its membership resources to the fullest and thereby achieves through collective action far more than could be achieved otherwise
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7. Benefits of Teams and Teamwork
Usefulness of teams:
More resources for problem solving
Improved creativity and innovation
Improved quality of decision making
Greater commitments to tasks
Higher motivation through collective action
Better control and work discipline
More individual need satisfaction
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8. Cons of Teamwork Common problems in teams: Social loafing
Personality conflicts
Individual differences in work styles
Ambiguous agendas
Ill-defined problems
Poor readiness to work
Lack of motivation
Conflicts with other deadlines or priorities
Lack of team organization or progress
Meetings that lack purpose or structure
Members coming to meetings unprepared
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9. Seven Deadly sins in meetings
People arrive late, leave early, and don’t take things seriously
The meeting is too long
People don’t stay on topic
The discussion lacks candor
The right information isn’t available, so decisions are postponed
No one puts decisions into action
The same mistakes are made meeting after meeting
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10. Formal and Informal Groups
Teams that are officially recognized and supported by the organization for specific purposes
Specifically created to perform essential tasks
Managers and leaders serve “linking pin” roles
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11. Formal and Informal Groups (cont’d)
Not recognized on organization charts
Not officially created for an organizational purpose
Emerge as part of the informal structure and from natural or spontaneous relationships among people
Include interest, friendship, and support groups
Can have positive performance impact
Can help satisfy social needs
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12. Trends in the Use of Teams
Committees, project teams, and task forces:
Committees:
People outside their daily job assignments work together in a small team for a specific purpose
Task agenda is narrow, focused, and ongoing
Projects teams or task forces:
People from various parts of an organization work together on common problems, but on a temporary basis
Official tasks are very specific and time defined
Disbands after task is completed
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13. Cross-functional Teams
Members come from different functional units of an organization
Team works on a specific problem or task with the needs of the whole organization in mind
Teams are created to knock down “walls” separating departments
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14. Virtual Teams
Teams of people who work together and solve problems through largely computer-mediated rather than face-to-face interactions
Sometimes called:
Computer-mediated groups
Electronic group networks
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15. Virtual Teams (cont’d)
Potential problems of virtual teams:
Difficulty in establishing good working relationships
Depersonalization of working relationships
Potential advantages of virtual teams:
Savings in time and travel expenses
Minimization or elimination of interpersonal difficulties
Ease of expansion
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16. Virtual Teams (cont’d)
Guidelines for managing virtual teams:
Virtual teams should begin with social messaging
Team members should be assigned clear roles
Team members must have positive attitudes that support team goals
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17. Self-managing Teams
Teams of workers whose jobs have been redesigned to create a high degree of task interdependence
have also been given authority to make many decisions about how to do the required work on their own
Also known as autonomous work groups
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18. Self-managing Teams (cont’d)
Typical self-management responsibilities:
Planning and scheduling work
Training members in various tasks
Sharing tasks
Meeting performance goals
Ensuring high quality
Solving day-to-day operating problems
In some cases, hiring and firing team members
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19. Self-managing Teams (cont’d)
In self-managing work teams, members:
Are held collectively accountable for performance results
Have discretion in distributing tasks within the team
Have discretion in scheduling work within the team
Are able to perform more than one job on the team
Evaluate one another’s performance contributions
Are responsible for the total quality of team products
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20. Figure 12.2 Organizational and management implications of self-managing work teams
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21. Team Building
A sequence of planned activities used to gather and analyze data on the functioning of a team and to implement constructive changes to increase its operating effectiveness
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22. Team Building (cont’d)
Characteristics of high-performing teams:
A clear and elevating goal
A task-driven, results-oriented structure
Competent and committed members who work hard
A collaborative climate
High standards of excellence
External support and recognition
Strong and principled leadership
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23. How Teams Work Effective teams:
achieve and maintain high levels of task performance
achieve and maintain high levels of member satisfaction
retain viability for the future
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24. How Teams Work (cont’d)
Team effectiveness may be summarized as:
Team Effectiveness =
Quality of Inputs + (Process Gains - Process Losses)
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25. Figure 12.3 An open-systems model of work team effectiveness
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26. Team Inputs
Resource input factors that influence group process in the pursuit of team effectiveness:
Resources and setting
Nature of the task
Membership characteristics
Team size
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27. Stages in Development Group process:
The way the members of any team work together as they transform inputs into outputs
Also known as group dynamics
Includes communications, decision making, norms, cohesion, and conflict, among others
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28. The Life Cycle of a Team Stages of Team Development:
Forming: initial orientation and interpersonal testing
Storming: conflict over tasks and ways of working as a team
Norming: consolidation around task and operating agendas
Performing: teamwork and focused task performance
Adjourning: task accomplishment and eventual disengagement
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29. Figure 12.6 Criteria for assessing the maturity of a team

30. Managing Team Norms Norms: Behaviour expected of team members
Rules or standards that guide behaviour
May result in team sanctions
Performance norms:
Define the level of work effort and performance that team members are expected to contribute to the team task
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31. Managing Team Norms (cont’d)
Guidelines for building positive norms:
Act as a positive role model
Reinforce the desired behaviours with rewards
Control results by performance reviews and regular feedback
Orient and train new members to adopt desired behaviours
Recruit and select new members who exhibit desired behaviours
Hold regular meetings to discuss progress and ways of improving
Use team decision-making methods to reach agreement
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32. Managing Team Cohesiveness
The degree to which members are attracted to and motivated to remain part of a team
Can be beneficial if paired with positive performance norms
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33. Managing Team Cohesiveness (cont’d)
Guidelines for increasing team cohesion:
Build agreement on team goals
Increase membership homogeneity
Increase interactions among members
Decrease team size
Introduce competition with other teams
Reward team rather than individual results
Provide physical isolation from other teams
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34. Figure 12.7 How cohesiveness and norms influence team performance
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35. Effects of team cohesiveness and norms
Positive norms + high cohesiveness  high performance and strong commitments to positive norms
Positive norms + low cohesiveness  moderate performance and weak commitments to positive norms
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36. Effects of team cohesiveness and norms (cont’d)
Negative norms + low cohesiveness  low to moderate performance and weak commitments to negative norms
Negative norms + high cohesiveness  low performance and strong commitments to negative norms
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37. Task and Maintenance Roles
Task activities:
Actions by team members that contribute directly to team’s performance purpose
Include:
Initiating
Information sharing
Summarizing
Elaborating
Opinion giving
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38. Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d)
Maintenance activities:
Support emotional life of a team as an ongoing social system
Include:
Gatekeeping
Encouraging
Following
Harmonizing
Reducing tension
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39. Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d)
Distributed leadership roles:
Make every member responsible for recognizing when task and/or maintenance activities are needed and taking actions to provide them
Leading through task activities focuses on solving problems and achieving performance results
Leading through maintenance activities helps strengthen and perpetuate the team as a social system
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40. Figure 12.8 Distributed leadership helps teams meet task and maintenance needs
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41. Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d)
Disruptive activities that detract from team effectiveness:
Being aggressive
Blocking
Self-confessing
Seeking sympathy
Competing
Withdrawal
Horsing around
Seeking recognition
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42. Decision-Making in Teams
Methods of team decision making:
Lack of response
Authority rule
Minority rule
Majority rule
Consensus
Unanimity
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43. Assets of team decision making
Greater amounts of information, knowledge, and expertise
Expands number of action alternatives considered
Increases understanding and acceptance
Increases commitment to follow through
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44. Potential disadvantages of team decision making
Social pressure to conform
Individual or minority group domination
Time requirements
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45. Groupthink Symptoms of Groupthink: Illusions of group invulnerability
Rationalizing unpleasant and disconfirming data
Belief in inherent group morality
Negative stereotypes of competitors
Pressure to conform
Self-censorship of members
Illusions of unanimity
Mind guarding
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46. Methods for dealing with groupthink
Have each group member be a critical evaluator
Don’t appear to favour one course of action
Create subteams to work on the same problems
Have team members discuss issues with outsiders
Have outside experts observe and provide feedback on team activities
Assign a member to the devil’s advocate role
Hold a second-chance meeting
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47. Creativity in Team Decision-Making
Brainstorming:
Engages group members in an open, spontaneous discussion of problems and ideas
Nominal group technique:
Structures interaction among team members discussing problems and ideas
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48. Conflict Conflict: A disagreement between people on:
Substantive issues regarding goals and tasks, allocation of resources, distribution of rewards, policies and procedures, and job assignments
Emotional issues arising from feelings of anger, distrust, dislike, fear, and resentment, as well as personality clashes
Conflict that is well managed can help promote creativity and high performance
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49. Conflict (cont’d) Functional conflict: Moderately intense conflict
Constructive and stimulates people toward greater work efforts, cooperation, and creativity
Dysfunctional conflict:
Low-intensity and very high-intensity conflict
Destructive and hurts task performance
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50. Figure 12.9 The relationship between conflict and performance
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51. Causes of conflict Causes of conflict: Role ambiguities
Resource scarcities
Task interdependencies
Competing objectives
Structural differentiation
Unresolved prior conflicts
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52. Conflict Resolution Structural approaches for resolving conflicts:
Appealing to superordinate goals
Making more resources available
Changing the people
Altering the physical environment
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53. Conflict Resolution (cont’d)
Integrative devices for resolving conflicts:
Using liaison personnel, special task forces, cross-functional teams, or a matrix organization
Changing reward systems
Changing policies and procedures
Training in interpersonal skills
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54. Conflict Resolution (cont’d)
People’s conflict management styles reflect different combinations of co-operative and assertive behaviour:
Co-operativeness is the desire to satisfy the other party’s needs and concerns
Assertiveness is the desire to satisfy one’s own needs and concerns
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55. Conflict Resolution (cont’d)
Conflict management styles:
Avoidance (withdrawal):
Unco-operative and unassertive
Accommodation (smoothing):
Co-operative and assertive
Competition (authoritative command):
Unco-operative and assertive
Compromise:
Moderately co-operative and assertive
Collaboration (problem solving):
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56. Figure 12.10 Alternative conflict management styles
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57. Conflict Resolution (cont’d)
Conflict management styles:
Lose-lose conflict:
Management by avoidance or accommodation
Win-lose conflict:
Management by competition and compromise
Win-win conflict:
Management by collaboration
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58. COPYRIGHT
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