CHAPTER 9:
GROUP
PROCESSES AND
TEAMS
AGENDA
• Group vs. team
• Team development
• Team effectiveness
• Team decision making
• Team challenges
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WHY TEAMS MATTER:
“THE ORANGE REVOLUTION”
• Teams help with
• Creativity
• Lean workforces
• Commitment
• Employee learning
• Productivity
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WHAT IS A TEAM?
A team is a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to
a common purpose, performance goals, and
an approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable.
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GROUPS VS. TEAM
• Work group—interacts primarily to share
information and make decisions to help
one another perform within each
member’s area of responsibility
• Work team—generates coordinated effort;
individual efforts result in a level of
performance greater than the sum of
individual inputs
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GROUP VS. TEAM (CONTINUED)
• A work group interacts to share information
with other members of the group
• Not responsible for a collective work product
• A work team’s members depend on one
another and must interact to create
something that no one person on the team
could create.
• Work teams create Synergy
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WORK TEAMS
Why are teams so popular?
• Increased competition forced restructuring
for efficiency and effectiveness
• Teams may:
• Better utilize employee talents
• Be more flexible and responsive to
change
• Increase motivation
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TEAM PURPOSE
• Shared purpose
• Specific goal
• Feedback process
• Team charter
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STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT
1
• Forming:
• Uncertainty about purpose, structure, and leadership
2
• Storming:
• Intragroup conflict as members resist constraints
3
• Norming:
• Group is cohesive with strong group identity
4
• Performing:
• Group fully functional and working toward goals
5
• Adjourning:
• For temporary groups: breaking up
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PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM
Transition between an earlier phase of inactivity of a
team followed by a second phase of significant
acceleration toward task completion
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TEAM PERFORMANCE CURVE
Sources: Adapted from: Katzenbach, J. R. & Smith, D. K. (1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. NY: Harper
Business; Tuckman, B. (1965) Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384–399; Tuckman, B. & Jensen, M. (1977)
Stages of Small Group Development. Group and Organizational Studies, 2, 419–427.
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DETERMINING TEAM
EFFECTIVENESS
• Leaders must measure output to
determine effectiveness.
• Output can be defined differently.
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MODEL OF TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
Source: Cohen, S. G., & Bailey, D. E. 1997. What makes teams work: Group effectiveness research from the shop floor to the
executive suite. Journal of Management, 23, 239–290.
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ADDITIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
MEASURES
• Team learning
• Team creativity
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COHESION
• Cohesion: Team spirit experienced in
high-performing teams
• Cohesive groups perform better
because they are more motivated and
able to organize tasks around a
common goal
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IS YOUR GROUP COHESIVE?
• How well do members get along with each other?
• How well do members stick together (i.e., remain close
to each other)?
• Would you socialize with the members of your group
outside of class?
• How well do members help each other on the project?
• Would you want to remain a member of this group for
future projects or in future courses?
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TEAM NORMS
• Defined as informal and interpersonal
rules that team members are
expected to follow
• May be explicit or implicit
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TEAM METRICS
• Task metrics—the “what” of teamwork
• Process metrics—the “how” of teamwork
• Individual development metrics— the
“learning” in teamwork (how much
individuals are developing new skills and
learning from being on the team)
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TEAM MENTAL MODELS
• Team members’ shared, organized
understanding and mental
representation of knowledge about
key elements of the team’s relevant
environment
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TEAM MENTAL MODELS
(CONTINUED)
• Serve 3 Functions
1. Allow team members to interpret
information similarly
2. Shared expectations concerning the
future
3. Develop similar reasoning as to why
something happens
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TEAM MENTAL MODELS
•
Source: Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. (2010). Metaphor no more: A 15-year review of the team mental model construct. Journal of Management,
36(4), 876–910. p. 892.
TEAM DECISION MAKING
Strengths
 Generate more
complete information
and knowledge
 Increased diversity of
views
 Increased acceptance
of a solution
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
Weaknesses
 Takes longer
 Conformity
pressures
 Discussions can be
dominated by one or
a few members
 Ambiguous
responsibility for the
final outcome
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TEAM DECISION-MAKING OPTIONS
• Participation in decisions
• Brainstorming
• Consensus
• Multi-voting
• Nominal group technique
• Stepladder
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BRAINSTORMING
• Separates idea generation from
evaluation
• Produces many new ideas
• Stimulates creativity
• Group meets together
• Much group interaction
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ONCE BRAINSTORMING IS
COMPLETED
• Capture all the ideas
• Prioritize them
• Discuss key ideas
• Decide on a course of action
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CONSENSUS
• Discussing ideas and deferring final
decision until everyone can say they
have been heard and will support the
final decision
•
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MULTI-VOTING
1. Display the list of options
2. Number (or letter) all items
3. Decide how many items must be on the final list
4. Working individually, each member selects five items
5. Tally the votes
6. If a decision is clear, stop
7. Repeat voting process steps 4 and 5 until decision
reached.
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NOMINAL GROUP TECHNIQUE
• 1. Each team member writes ideas on 3x5 cards
• 2. Each member presents one idea to the team.
Cards collected and redistributed randomly to team
first
• 3. Discussion continues until all ideas heard /
recorded
• 4. Team discusses ideas and asks clarification
questions
• 5. Each team member silently ranks ideas
independently. Highest ranking item is team
decision.
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STEPLADDER
•
•
•
•
•
1. Present the task
2. Two-member discussion
3. Add one member
4. Repeat by adding one member at a time
5. Final decision by consensus
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TEAM CHALLENGES
• Groupthink
• Social Loafing
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GROUPTHINK
Conformity-seeking tendency of the group
that results in compromised decision making
Symptoms of groupthink are
• Group rationalization
• Direct pressure
• Suppression (keeping silent)
• Illusion of unanimity
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
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MINIMIZING GROUPTHINK
• Limit group size (≤10)
• Encourage group leaders to actively
seek input from all members and
avoid expressing their own opinions
• Appoint a “devil’s advocate”
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
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CHALLENGES TO TEAMWORK
Social loafing
• Reduction in motivation and effort
when individuals work collectively
compared with when they work
individually or coactively.
• Occurs in larger teams
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
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VIRTUAL TEAMS
• Team members are geographically
dispersed and meet through electronic
methods
• Unique challenges:
• Take more time to get things done
• Technology problems
• Have Less social support
• Share less information
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VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Leadership Practices
of Virtual Team
Leaders
How do Virtual Team Leaders do it?
1. Establish and
Maintain Trust
Through the Use of
Communication
Technology
• Focusing the norms on how information is communicated
• Revisiting and adjusting the communication norms as the team
evolves (“virtual get-togethers”)
• Making progress explicit through use of team virtual workspace
• Equal “suffering” in the geographically distributed world
2. Ensure Diversity in
the Team is
Understood,
Appreciated, and
Leveraged
• Prominent team expertise directory and skills matrix in the
virtual workspace
• Virtual sub-teaming to pair diverse members and rotate subteam members
• Allowing diverse opinions to be expressed through use of
asynchronous electronic means (e g. electronic discussion
threads)
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Leadership Practices
of Virtual Team
Leaders
How do Virtual Team Leaders do it?
3 Manage Virtual
Work-Cycle and
Meetings
• All idea divergence between meetings (asynchronous idea
generation) and idea convergence and conflict resolution during
virtual meetings (synchronous idea convergence)
• Use the start of virtual meeting (each time) for social relationship
building
• During meeting—ensure through “check-ins” that everyone is
engaged and heard from
• End of meeting—ensure that the minutes and future work plan is
posted to team repository
4 Monitor Team
• Closely scrutinize asynchronous (electronic threaded discussion
Progress Through the
and document postings in the knowledge repository) and
Use of Technology
synchronous (virtual meeting participation and instant
messaging) communications patterns
• Make progress explicit through balanced scorecard
measurements posted in the team’s virtual workspace
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
VIRTUAL TEAM LEADERSHIP
Leadership Practices
of Virtual Team
Leaders
How do Virtual Team Leaders do it?
5. Enhance External
Visibility of the Team
and its Members
• Frequent report-outs to a virtual steering committee (comprised
of local bosses of team members)
6. Ensure Individuals
Benefit from
Participating in
Virtual Teams
• Virtual reward ceremonies
• Individual recognition at the start of each virtual meeting
• Making each team member’s “real location” boss aware of the
member’s contribution
Scandura, Essentials of Organizational Behavior. © 2016, SAGE Publications.
LEADERSHIP IMPLICATIONS
• Team leadership matters
• Empower the team
• Avoid social loafing and groupthink
• Use appropriate team decision-making
methods
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