1. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Team Dynamics
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2. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Teams at Ergon Energy
At Ergon Energy, teamwork is a critical operational practice for achieving excellent customer service. The Queensland company organises employees into teams who are led by team leaders. Teamwork is one of Ergon’s six core values. Teamwork is also reinforced through company rewards.
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3. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
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
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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
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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
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6. Advantages/Disadvantages of Teams
Make better decisions, products/services
Better information sharing
Increase employee motivation/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
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7. 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
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8. Team Effectiveness Model
Task characteristics
Team size
Team composition
Team Design
Rewards
Communication
Org structure
Org leadership
Physical space
Organisational and Team Environment
Accomplish tasks
Satisfy member needs
Maintain team survival
Team
Effectiveness
Team development
Team norms
Team cohesiveness
Team trust
Team Processes
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9. Organisation/Team Environment
Reward systems
Communication systems
Organisational structure
Organisational leadership
Physical space
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10. 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.
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11. Levels of Task Interdependence
High
Reciprocal A B C
Sequential A B C
Pooled
Resource A B C
Low
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12. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
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
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13. Shell Looks for Team Players
Shell holds the 5-day Gourami Business Challenge in Europe, North America, and Asia (shown in photo) to observe how well the university students work in teams. One of the greatest challenges is for students from different cultures and educational specialisations to work together.
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Team Composition
Effective team members must be willing and able to work on the team
Effective team members possess specific competencies (5 Cs)
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15. Five Cs of Team-member Competencies
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16. 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
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17. Stages of Team Development
Performing
Adjourning
Existing teams might regress back to an earlier stage of development
Norming
Storming
Forming
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18. 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
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19. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
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
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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
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Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations team establishes to regulate member behaviours
Norms develop through:
Initial team experiences
Critical events in team’s history
Experience/values members bring to the team
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22. 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
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23. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
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
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24. 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
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25. Influences on Team Cohesion (cont.)
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
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26. 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)
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27. Team Cohesion and Performance
Moderately
high task
performance
High task performance
Team norms support company
goals
Moderately
low task
performance
Low task
performance
Team norms oppose company
goals
Low team cohesion
High team cohesion
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28. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Trust Defined
Positive expectations one person has of another person in situations involving risk
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29. Three Levels of Trust Identification-based trust Knowledge-based trust
High
Identification-based trust
Knowledge-based trust
Calculus-based trust
Low
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30. Self-Directed Teams at Reckitt Benckiser
Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare has become one of the most productive pharmaceutical operations in Europe due to lean management practices and reliance on self-directed teams.
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31. Self-Directed Teams Defined
Cross-functional work groups organised around work processes, that complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks, and that have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks.
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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
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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
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34. Virtual Team Success Factors
Member characteristics
Technology savvy
Self-leadership skills
Emotional intelligence
Flexible use of communication technologies
Opportunities to meet face-to-face
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35. 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
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36. 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
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37. 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
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38. Rules of Brainstorming
Speak freely
Don’t criticise
Provide as many ideas as possible
Build on others’ ideas
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39. 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
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40. 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
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41. Nominal Group Technique
Individual Activity
Team Activity
Individual Activity
Describe
problem
Write down
possible
solutions
Possible
solutions
described
to others
Vote on
solutions
presented
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42. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Team Dynamics
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© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved