1. Developing High-Performance Teams

2. Self-Directed Teams at Chrysler
Chrysler CEO Tom La Sorda is pushing the automaker into an era of “smart manufacturing” which relies more on self-directed work teams (SDWTs). This photo shows La Sorda meeting employees at the company’s plant in Saltillo, Mexico, which has already introduced SDWTs.

3. Self-Directed Teams Defined
Formal groups that complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks and have substantial autonomy over the execution of these tasks.

4. Self-Directed Work Team Attributes
Complete an entire piece of work requiring interdependent tasks
Clusters team members together
Minimal interdependence with other teams
Substantial autonomy over execution of the team’s tasks
Control most work inputs, flow, and outputs
Little or no supervision

5. Sociotechnical Systems Elements
Responsible for entire work process
Make entire product, component, or provide service
fairly independent from other work units
Sufficient autonomy
freedom to divide up and coordinate work
empowers team members
Control key variances
team controls factors affecting work quality/quantity
Joint optimization
balancing social and technical systems

6. SDWTs at Standard Motor Products
Standard Motor Products successfully introduced self-directed work teams (SDWTs) at its Kansas plant, but some supervisors had difficulty changing from a command-and-control to mentor/facilitator management style.
Courtesy of Standard Motor Products

7. Challenges to SDWTs Cross-cultural issues Management resistance
Difficult in some cultures
Management resistance
Concerned about losing power, status, job security
Shift from command/control to mentor/facilitator
Employee and labor union resistance
Employees uncomfortable with new roles, skills
Union concerns -- more stress, lost work rules
Courtesy of Standard Motor Products

8. PricewaterhouseCooper’s Virtual Teams
Peter Nicolas (shown in photo) and many employees at PricewaterhouseCoopers spend much of their time working in virtual teams. “Virtual teaming is the norm for us,” says Nicolas, a Learning Solutions manager at the accounting firm’s offices in New Jersey.
Courtesy of PricewaterhouseCoopers

9. Virtual Teams Defined
Teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries and are linked through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks.
Courtesy of PricewaterhouseCoopers

10. Why Virtual Teams? Increasingly possible because of:
Information technologies
Knowledge-based work
Increasingly necessary because of:
Knowledge management
Globalization

11. High-Performance Virtual Teams
Virtual teams perform better with:
Team Environment
Creative combination of communication channels
Team Tasks
Structured tasks
Moderate interdependence
Team Size
Smaller size than traditional team performing similar tasks
more

12. High-Performance Virtual Teams (con’t)
Virtual teams perform better with:
Team Composition
Good communication and cross-cultural skills in team members
Team Processes
Some face-to-face meetings to assist team development
Team Trust
Important in all teams, but especially virtual teams

13. Trust Defined
A psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intent or behavior of another person

14. Knowledge-based Trust
Three Levels of Trust
High
Identity-based Trust
Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
Low

15. Three Levels of Trust (con’t)
Calculus-based trust
Based on deterrence
Fragile, limited, dependent on punishment
Knowledge-based trust
Based on predictability and competence
Fairly robust, develops over time
Identification-based trust
Based on common mental models and values
Increases with person’s social identity with team

16. Propensity to Trust
Some people are inherently more willing to trust others
Propensity to trust influenced by personality, values, and socialization experiences
Also varies with emotions at the moment

17. Swift Trust in Teams
People typically join a virtual or conventional team with a moderate or high level of trust
Explanations for this swift trust:
people usually believe their team-mates are reasonably competent (knowledge-based trust)
people tend to develop some degree of social identify with the team
But swift trust is fragile

18. Team Decision Making Constraints
Time constraints
Time to organize/coordinate
Production blocking
Evaluation apprehension
Belief that other team members are silently evaluating you
Conformity to peer pressure
Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms

19. Team Constraints: Groupthink
Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus at the price of decision quality
More common when the:
Team is highly cohesive
Team is isolated from outsiders
Team leader is opinionated
Team faces external threats
Team has recent failures
Team lacks clear guidance

20. Team Constraints: Group Polarization
Tendency for teams to make more extreme decisions than individuals alone
Riskier options usually taken because of prospect theory effect fallacy -- dislike losing more than they like winning

21. Group Polarization Process
Team discussion processes
High risk
Social support
Persuasive arguments
Shifting responsibility
High risk
Individual opinions after meeting
Individual opinions before meeting
Low risk
Low risk

22. 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

23. NASA Encourages Constructive Conflict
Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA
NASA replaced the assigned seating rectangular table at the Johnson Space Center with a C-shaped arrangement where people sit wherever they want (shown in photo). The table is intended to avoid hierarchy so NASA managers can have more constructive debate.

24. Constructive Conflict
Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA
Occurs when team members debate their different perceptions about an issue in a way that keeps the conflict focused on the task rather than people.
Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into personal attacks

25. Rules of Brainstorming
Speak freely
Don’t criticize
Provide as many ideas as possible
Build on others’ ideas

26. Evaluating Brainstorming
Strengths
Produces more innovative ideas
Strengthens decision acceptance and team cohesiveness
Sharing positive emotions encourages creativity
Higher customer satisfaction if clients participate
Weaknesses
Production blocking still exists
Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups
Fewer ideas generated than when people work alone

27. Electronic Brainstorming
Participants share ideas using software
Usually in the same room, but may be dispersed
Question posted, then participants submit their ideas or comments on computer
Comments/ideas appear anonymously on computer screens or at front of room

28. Evaluating Electronic Brainstorming
Strengths
Less production blocking
Less evaluation apprehension
More creative synergy
More satisfaction with process
Weaknesses
Too structured
Technology-bound
Candid feedback is threatening
Not applicable to all decisions

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

30. Team Building
Any formal intervention directed toward improving the development and functioning of a work team
Accelerates team development
Applied to existing teams that have regressed in team development

31. Types of Team Building Role definition Goal setting Problem solving
Interpersonal process

32. Making Team Building Effective
Some team building activities are successful, but just as many fail because:
Team-building activities need to target specific team problems
Team building is a continuous process, not a one-shot inoculation
Team building needs to occur on-the-job, not just away from the workplace

33. Developing High-Performance Teams