LEARNING OBJECTIVES - After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Analyze the continued popularity of teams in organizations.

2. Contrast groups and teams.
3. Contrast the five types of team arrangements.
4. Identify the characteristics of effective teams.
5. Explain how organizations can create team players.
6. Decide when to use individuals instead of teams.

10-1: Analyze the continued popularity of teams in organizations.

● Why are teams popular? In short, because we believe they are effective.
● Teams can sometimes achieve feats an individual could never accomplish.
● Teams are more flexible and responsive to changing events than traditional departments
or other forms of permanent groupings.
● They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband.
● They are an effective means to democratize organizations and increase employee
involvement.
● And finally, research indicates that our involvement in teams positively shapes the way
we think as individuals, introducing a collaborative mindset about even our personal
decision making.
● Team members, as humans, can be swayed by fads and herd mentality that can lead
them astray from the best decisions.

10-2: Contrast groups and teams.

● Group: as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who work together to
achieve particular objectives.
● Workgroup is a group that interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to
help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility.
○ No need or opportunity to engage in collective work with joint effort, so the
group’s performance is merely the summation of each member’s individual
contribution.
○ No positive synergy that would create an overall level of performance greater
than the sum of the inputs.
○ A workgroup is a collection of individuals doing their work, albeit with interaction
and/or dependency.
● A work team, on the other hand, generates positive synergy through coordination.
○ The individual efforts result in a level of performance greater than the sum of the
individual inputs.
● In both workgroups and work teams, there are often behavioral expectations of
members, collective normalization efforts, active group dynamics, and some level of
decision making (even if just informally about the scope of member- ship).
● Both may generate ideas, pool resources, or coordinate logistics such as work
schedules; for the workgroup,
 ● However, this effort will be limited to information-gathering for decision makers outside
the group.
● Whereas we can think of a work team as a subset of a workgroup, the team is
constructed to be purposeful (symbiotic) in its member interaction.
○ The distinction between a workgroup and a work team should be kept even when
the terms are mentioned interchangeably in differing contexts.
○ The definitions help clarify why organizations structure work processes by teams.
○ Management is looking for positive synergy that will create increased
performance.
○ The extensive use of teams creates the potential for an organization to generate
greater outputs with no increase in employee headcount.
○ Effective teams have certain common characteristics.
● If management hopes to gain increases in organizational performance through the use
of teams, their teams must possess these characteristics.

10-3: Contrast the five types of team arrangements.

● There are four common types of team in an organization:
1. Problem-solving teams
2. Self-managed work teams
3. Cross-functional teams,
4. Virtual teams
● Multiteam systems​, which utilize a “team of teams” and are becoming increasingly
widespread as work increases in complexity.
● Problem Solving Teams: ​Groups of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who
meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the
work environment.
○ Rarely have the authority to unilaterally imple- ment their suggestions, but if their
recommendations are paired with imple- mentation processes, some significant
improvements can be realized.
● Self-managed work teams ​are groups of employees (typically 10 to 15 in number) who
perform highly related or interdependent jobs
○ These teams take on some supervisory responsibilities.
○ Typically, the responsibilities include planning and scheduling work, assigning
tasks to members, making operating decisions, taking action on problems, and
working with suppliers and customers.
○ Research results on the effectiveness of self-managed work teams have not
been uniformly positive.
■ Some research indicates that self-managed teams may be more or less
effective based on the degree to which team-promoting behaviors are
rewarded.
○ Not effective when there is conflict
■ When there is a conflict between members, they’ll stop collaborating with
each other
 ○ For self-managing teams to be advantageous, a number of facilitat- ing factors
must be in place.
● Cross-functional teams​ are made up of employees from about the same hierarchical
level but different work areas who come together to accomplish a task.
○ Cross-functional teams are an effective means of allowing people from diverse
areas within or even between organizations to exchange information, develop
new ideas, solve problems, and coordinate complex projects.
○ However, due to the high need for coordination, cross-functional teams are not
simple to manage.
1. First, it makes sense for power shifts to occur as different expertise is
needed because the members are at roughly the same level in the
organization, which creates leadership ambiguity.
a. A climate of trust thus needs to be developed before shifts can
happen without undue conflict.
2. Second, the early stages of development are often long, since members
need to learn to work with higher levels of diversity and complexity.
3. Third, it takes time to build trust and teamwork, especially among people
with different experiences and perspectives.
○ In sum, the strength of traditional cross-functional teams is the collabora- tive
effort of individuals with diverse skills from a variety of disciplines.
■ When the unique perspectives of these members are considered, these
teams can be very effective.
● Virtual teams: ​Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed
members in order to achieve a common goal.
○ Collaborate online—using communication links such as wide-area networks,
corporate social media, videoconferencing, and e-mail—whether members are
nearby or continents apart.
○ For virtual teams to be effective, management should ensure that
■ (1) trust is established among members (one inflammatory remark in an
email can severely undermine team trust),
■ (2) progress is monitored closely (so the team doesn’t lose sight of its
goals and no team member “disappears”), and
■ (3) the efforts and products of the team are publicized throughout the
organization (so the team does not become invisible)

10-4: Identify the characteristics of effective teams.

● Typically, team effectiveness includes objective measures of the team’s productivity,
managers’ ratings of the team’s performance, and aggregate measures of member
satisfaction.
● We can organize the key components of effective teams into three general categories.
○ First are the resources and other ​contextual i​ nfluences that make teams
effective.
○ The second relates to the team’s ​composition.
 ○ Finally, ​process v​ ariables are events within the team that influence effectiveness.
● The four contextual factors most significantly related to team performance are adequate
resources, effective leadership, a climate of trust, and a performance evaluation and
reward system that reflects team contributions.
Professor’s slides

LO1) Analyze the Growing Popularity of Teams in Organizations

● Why are teams popular?
○ Teams can achieve feats an individual could never
Accomplish.
○ Teams are flexible and responsive to changing events.
○ They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband.
○ They are an effective means to democratize organizations and increase
employee involvement.
○ They introduce a collaborative mindset.

LO2) Differences Between Groups and Teams

● Exhibit 10-1 Comparing Workgroups and Work Teams

LO3) Contrast the Five Types of Teams

● Exhibit 10-2 Four Types of Teams

LO4) Identify the Characteristics of Effective Teams

● Exhibit 10-3 Team Effectiveness Model
 ● Team Context: ​What factors determine whether teams are successful?
○ Adequate Resources
○ Leadership and Structure
○ Climate of Trust
○ Performance Evaluations and Rewards
● Team Composition:​ How should teams be staffed?
○ Abilities of members
○ Personality
○ Allocating roles
○ Diversity
○ Cultural differences
○ Size of teams Member preferences
● Exhibit 10-5 Effects of Group Processes
● Identify the Characteristics of Effect

● Team Processes
○ Common Plan and Purpose
■ Reflexivity
○ Specific Goals
○ Team Efficacy
○ Team Identity
○ Team Cohesion
○ Mental Models
○ Conflict Levels
○ Social Loafing

LO5) Explain How Organizations Can Create Team Players

● Creating Team Players
○ Selecting:​ hire team players
○ Training:​ create team players
○ Rewarding:​ incentives to be a good team player

LO6) Decide When to Use Individuals Instead of Teams

● When not to use teams...
○ Ask:
■ Can the work be done better by one person?
■ Does the work create a common goal or purpose?
■ Are the members of the group interdependent?
Implications for Managers
● Effective teams have adequate resources, effective leadership, a climate of trust, and a
performance evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
○ These teams have individuals with technical expertise, and the right traits and
skills.
● Effective teams tend to be small.
○ They have members who fill role demands and who prefer to be part of a group.
● Effective teams have members who believe in the team’s capabilities, are committed to a
common plan and purpose, and have an accurate shared mental model of what is to be
accomplished.
● Select individuals who have the interpersonal skills to be effective team players, provide
training to develop teamwork skills, and reward individuals for cooperative efforts.
● Do not assume that teams are always needed. When tasks will not benefit from
interdependency, individuals may be the better choice.
Questions for Review

1. How do you explain the growing popularity of teams in organizations?

a. As organizations have positioned themselves to compete more efficiently and
effectively, they have realized that forming teams is a better way to use employee
talent.
i. Teams in an organization are growing in popularity as companies realized
the significance of group effort.
ii. Teams are well organized and based on a structure of supporting
organizational goals and ongoing quality assurance measures.
iii. Teams assumer that many of the responsibilities of management and
leadership with greater efficiency.
b. Teams are more responsive and flexible to changing environments than the
permanent groupings or traditional departments
i. They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband.
ii. Teams facilitate employee participation in operating decision.
c. Another explanation for growing team popularity is attributed to their effective
means for management to democratize firms and enhance employee motivation.
2. What is the difference between a group and a team?
a. A team is internally organized, with precise objectives and usually explicit roles
for different members of the team.
i. Teams generally consist of three to twenty five people who
1. Work toward a common set of objectives
2. Work cooperatively
3. Share common leadership
4. Hold joint responsibility for performance
5. Visualize themselves as being part of a team with common goals
and shared consequences
ii. A group is just a gathering of individuals having something in common,
such as being in the same place, university or having a common interest.
1. The group might share the work to execute it, but will do with less
focus than a team.
3. What are the five types of team arrangements?
a. A team refers to the group of individuals who work together for a common goal.
b. Five types of team arrangement:
1. Problem-solving team
2. Self-managed team
3. Cross-functional team
4. Virtual team
5. Multi-team systems
c. Problem-solving teams​: is a group of employees in every department who
address the problems of the department.
 i. This team discusses the quality, efficiency, and other problems of the
organization and the employees.
d. Self-managed team​ is a group of employees who carry out the responsibilities of
former supervisors
e. Virtual team​ is the team in which the employees are separated by location and
they contact each other using computer technology
f. Multi-team system ​is a team of teams.
i. Here, a collection of two or more teams shares a superordinate goal.
g. Cross-functional team ​is a team that accomplishes a common task.
i. Here, the memebers of the teamaer from the same hierarchical level, but
different work areas.
h. Every process or activity of the organization depends on the performance of the
teams.
4. What conditions or context factors determine whether teams are effective?
a. The four contextual factors that are contextually related to team performance are
adequate resources of effective leadership, a climate of trust, and performance
evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
b. Adequate resources
i. Teams that are part of larger organization system, and every work team is
dependent on the resources external to the group
ii. A paucity of resources directly decreases the ability of a team to perform
its job successfully and reach its goal
iii. One of the most important factors of effective work group is backing it
received from the firm which includes timely formation, proper equipment,
adequate staffing, encouragement and administrative assistance
c. Effective Leadership and Structure
i. Teams cannot function in case of ambiguity when they don’t agree upon a
common goal and allocate work accordingly.
1. Agreeing to the details of the assignment and how each member
fit together to incorporate individual skills requires leadership and
structure, either from the team members or from management
ii. Leadership is especially important to in multi-team systems, in which
diverse teams synchronize their efforts to produce a desired result
1. In this case, leaders need to endow power to the teams by
entrusting responsibility to them, and take up the role of facilitator,
to make sure that the teams work together rather than against one
another
2. Teams that institute shared leadership by efficiently entrusting it
are more effective than teams which follow the traditional
single-leader format.
d. A Climate of Trust
i. Members of effective team entrust each other and also their leaders
 ii. Interpersonal trust within the members of the team enables cooperation,
reduces the need to monitor behavior, and bond members around the
belief that others on the team are trustworthy
iii. Team members are more likely to move ahead and take required risks
and expose liabilities when they believe they can trust others on their
team
e. Performance Evaluation and Reward Systems
i. Individual performance incentives and evaluations may interfere with the
development of high-performance teams
ii. Therefore, in addition to appraising and rewarding employees for their
individual contributions, management should alter the traditional and
individual oriented reward and assessment system to reflect team
performance and emphasize on hybrid systems that recognize individuals
for their exceptional performance and reward the entire group for positive
results.
iii. Group based appraisals, profit and gain sharing, small group incentives,
and other system changes can strengthen team effort and commitment
5. How can organizations create team players?
a. Organizations can create better team players through hiring people who exhibit
the ability of functioning well in teams, investing in training programs for team
management training for leaders, and offering team rewards and recognitions
b. Hiring team players
i. While hiring team members, the hiring manager should be sure that the
candidates can fulfill their teams’ roles as well as technical requirements
ii. Teams made up of members who like to work through difficult mental
puzzles also seem more effective in capitalizing on the multiple points of
view that arise from diversity in age and education.
c. Training: creating team players
i. Provide training to all members of the team on effectiveness of team
bonding and the importance of being a team player
ii. Training specialists conduct exercises and trainings that allow employees
to experience the satisfaction resulting from teamwork
iii. These trainings will help employees improve their problem-solving skills,
communication, negotiation, conflict-management, and coaching skills.
d. Rewarding: Providing incentives to be a good team player
i. An organization’s reward system must be designed to motivate
cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones
ii. Promotions, bonus, and other forms of recognition should be given to
individuals who work effectively as team members by training new
colleagues, sharing information, helping resolve team conflicts, and
mastering needed new skills.
iii. Provide intrinsic rewards such as camaraderie, that employees can
receive from team work.
6. When is work performed by individuals preferred over work by teams?
a. Individual work is more preferred than team work depending on the following
factors:
i. Complexity of the work
1. If the task is not complex and can be handled by a single person,
then there is no requirement of assembling a team to execute the
task.
a. It would waste time and resources
ii. Need for different perspectives
1. Simple tasks don’t need diverse inputs and are probably better left
to individuals
iii. Work creates common goals
1. Assess whether the work creates a common purpose or set of
objectives for the individuals in the group that is more than the
cumulative of individual goals
iv. Inter-dependency
1. DEtermine whether the members of the group are interdependent.
a. Using temas makes sense when there is interdependence
among tasks
i. The success of the task is dependent on the
success of each member, and the success of each
member on the success of other members
b. Work is preferred by individuals when the decision can be clearly made that there
are no sufficient short or long term benefits for engaging the team application.
c. The task should justify the investments of time and money for the entire team
d. In some cases, concerns of confidentiality and privacy require individual
accountability.