14 - 1

Chapter

14 Managing Teams

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 14 - 2
The Contributions Of Teams

Building block
for organization
structure
Force for Force for
innovation productivity

Effects on
Force for organizations Force for
change quality

Force for Force for

speed cost reduction

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 14 - 3
Benefits Of Groups

 Benefits derived by organizations

 groups have greater total resources than individuals do
 groups have a greater diversity of resources

 groups can aid decision making

 Benefits derived by members

 a group is a useful learning mechanism
 a group can satisfy important personal needs

 group members can provide one another with feedback

 identify opportunities for growth and development

 train, coach, and mentor

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 14 - 4
The New Team Environment

 Definitions
 working group - collection of people who work in the same
area or have been drawn together to undertake a task
 do not necessarily come together as a unit and achieve significant
performance improvements
 team - small number of people with complementary skills who
are committed to a common purpose, common performance
goals, and a common approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable
 real teams are more fully integrated into the organizational
structure
 authority of teams is increasing
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 14 - 5
The New Team Environment (cont.)

 Types of teams
 work teams - make or do things like manufacture, assemble, sell, or
provide service
 are well defined and a clear part of the organization’s structure
 composed of a full-time, stable membership
 project and development teams - work on long-term projects
 disband when the work is completed
 parallel teams - operate separately from the regular work structure
on a temporary basis
 do work that is not normally done by the standard structure
 recommend solutions to specific problems
 do not have the authority to act

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 14 - 6
The New Team Environment (cont.)

 Types of teams (cont.)

 management teams - coordinate and provide direction to
subunits under their jurisdiction
 integrate work among subunits
 authority based on hierarchical rank
 responsible for the overall performance of the business unit

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 14 - 7
The New Team Environment

Traditional environment Team environment

•Managers determine and plan the •Managers and teams jointly determine
work and plan the work
•Jobs are narrowly defined •Jobs require broad skills and knowledge
•Cross-training is viewed as •Cross-training is the norm
inefficient
•Most information is “management •Most information is freely shared
property”
•Training for nonmanagers focuses •Continuous learning requires training
on technical skills for all
•Risk taking is discouraged and •Encourage and support measured risk
punished taking
•People work alone •People work together
•Rewards based on individual •Rewards based on contributions to the
performance team and individual performance
•Managers determine “best methods” •Everyone works to improve methods
and processes
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 14 - 8
Team Autonomy Continuum

T Q pe H Se Se Se
wo rad u
cir ali wo rfor igh m lf- lf-
d
rk itio c l e ty wo i-au m
gr na s rk ma
rk ton te ana te esig
ou l te nc am g am n
ps am e gr om s ing s i ng
s ou o
ps us

Low team autonomy High team autonomy

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 14 - 9
The New Team Environment (cont.)

 Self-managed teams
 autonomous work groups in which workers are trained to do all or
most of the jobs in a unit
 have no immediate supervisor
 make decisions previously made by first-line supervisors
 compared to traditionally managed teams, self managed teams
appear to:
 be more productive
 have lower costs
 provide better customer service
 have better safety records
 be more satisfying for members
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 14 - 10
The New Team Environment (cont.)

 Self-managed teams (cont.)

 traditional work groups - have no managerial responsibilities
 supervised by first-line manager
 quality circles - voluntary groups of people drawn from
various production teams who make suggestions about quality
 have no authority to make decisions or execute
 semiautonomous work groups - make decisions about
managing and carrying out major production activities
 still get outside support for quality control and maintenance

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 14 - 11
The New Team Environment (cont.)

 Self-managed teams (cont.)

 autonomous work groups (self-managing teams) - control
decisions about and execution of a complete range of tasks
 fully responsible for an entire product or an entire part of a
production process
 self-designing teams - control the design of the team
 other responsibilities comparable to those of autonomous work
groups
 semiautonomous and autonomous teams improve the
organization’s financial and overall performance

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 14 - 12
How Groups Become Teams

 Group activities
 forming - members lay the ground rules for what types of
behavior are acceptable
 storming - hostilities and conflict arise
 people jockey for positions of power and status
 norming - members agree on shared goals
 norms and closer relationships develop
 performing - group channels its energies into performing its
task
 declining - deterioration of a group
 adjourning - termination of a group
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 14 - 13
How Groups Become Teams (cont.)

 Group activities (cont.)

 transnational teams
 work groups composed of multinational members whose
activities span multiple countries
 often are geographically dispersed and psychologically distant
 work on highly complex projects of considerable importance
 teams require several skills
 advocacy skills - build team’s legitimacy
 catalytic skills - work with a variety constituents, build commitment,
reward members for contributions
 integrative skills - emphasize excellence, coordinate problem
solving, and measure progress and results

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 14 - 14
How Groups Become Teams (cont.)

 The passage of time

 groups are open to formative experiences at critical periods
 forming period - rules, norms, and roles are established that set long-
lasting precedents
 midway period - occurs between initial meeting and a deadline
 realization that time is becoming a scarce resource
 group must “get on with it”
 groups should renew or open lines of communication
 sufficient time to change the approach if necessary
 A developmental sequence
 groups do not necessarily progress from one ‘stage’ to the next
 progress on these dimensions must be a conscious goal
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 14 - 15
Stepping Up To Team Leadership

Team leadership
Participative leadership
Build trust and
Supervisory leadership inspire teamwork
Involve people
Facilitate and support
Direct people team decisions
Get input for
decisions Expand team
Explain decisions capabilities
Develop individual
performance
Train individuals Create a team identity
Coordinate group
effort Make the most of
Manage one-on-one team differences
Resolve conflict
Foresee and
Contain conflict influence change
Implement change
React to change
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 14 - 16
How Groups Become Teams (cont.)

 Why groups sometimes fail

 not easy to build high-performance teams
 teams sometimes are launched with little or no training or support
systems
 giving up control to teams is difficult for some managers
 teams are not allowed to make important decisions
 failure lies in not knowing and doing what makes teams
successful

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 14 - 17
Building Effective Teams

 Criteria for team effectiveness

 productive output - standards of quantity and quality
 satisfaction of member’s personal needs
 commitment to work together
 A performance focus
 key element is commitment to a common purpose
 common understanding of how team will work together
 norms developed for examining performance strategies
 purpose translated into measurable performance goals
 team will play the lead role in designing the measurement system
 feedback on team performance
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 14 - 18
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Motivating teamwork
 social loafing - being less productive when in a group
 occurs when individuals believe that:
 their contributions are not important
 others will do the work for them
 their lack of effort will go undetected
 social facilitation - working harder when in a group than when
working alone
 occurs when individuals:
 are concerned with what others think of them and when they want to maintain
a positive self-image
 know each other and can observe each other
 have clear performance goals and culture supportive of teamwork

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 14 - 19
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Motivating teamwork (cont.)

 generated by designing the team’s task to be motivating
 the task is meaningful
 team members accountable to one another, not just the boss
 best motivation is tying rewards to team performance
 assumes that performance can be measured validly
 differential rewards for member’s contributions should be made by the
team itself
 member contributions
 members should be selected and trained to be effective
 teams require technical, problem-solving and decision-making, and
interpersonal skills
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 14 - 20
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Norms
 shared beliefs about how people should think and behave
 from the organization’s standpoint, norms can be positive or
negative

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 14 - 21
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Roles
 different sets of expectations for how different individuals should
behave
 two important sets of roles must be performed
 task specialist - have more job-related skills and abilities
 keep team moving toward task accomplishment
 maintenance specialist - develop and maintain harmony
 team leaders - build commitment and confidence
 manage relationships with outsiders
 deal with obstacles in the way of team performance
 create opportunities for team members
 do real work, not just supervise

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 14 - 22
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Roles (cont.)
 coach - management representative to whom the team reports
 not a true member of the team
 helps the team understand its role in the organization
 acts as a resource to the team
 acts as an advocate for the team in the rest of the organization
 Cohesiveness
 degree to which:
 the team is attractive to its members
 members are motivated to remain in the team
 members influence one another
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 14 - 23
Building Effective Teams (cont.)

 Cohesiveness (cont.)
 importance of cohesiveness
 contributes to member satisfaction
 impacts performance depending upon the task and team norms
 the task
 in decision making tasks, a cohesive team is subject to groupthink
 to make a good decision, team should establish a norm of

constructive disagreement
 if task involves producing tangible output, cohesiveness can enhance
performance
 performance norms - cohesive groups are more effective at norm
enforcement
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 Cohesiveness, Performance Norms, 14 - 24

And Group Performance

Performance Norms
Low High

Low Poor goal attainment and Moderate goal attainment

Cohesiveness

task performance and task performance

High goal attainment

High (group’s perspective) High goal attainment
and lowest task performance and task performance
(management’s perspective)

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 14 - 25
Managing Lateral Relationships

 Managing outward
 gatekeeper - role that spans team boundaries
 scans environment for relevant information
 team’s strategy dictates the mix of internally versus externally
focused roles
 informing strategy - entails concentrating on the internal team
process to achieve a state of performance readiness
 subsequently, outsiders informed of teams intentions
 parading strategy - entails simultaneously emphasizing internal
team building and achieving external visibility
 probing strategy - requires team members to interact frequently with
outsiders to diagnose customer needs and experiment with solutions

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 14 - 26
Managing Lateral Relationships (cont.)

 Intergroup conflict
 some conflict may be constructive for the organization
 many things cause great potential for destructive conflict
 tensions and anxieties likely to arise in teams that are:
 demographically diverse
 from different parts of the organization
 composed of contrasting personalities
 over time and with communication, diverse groups become
more cooperative and perform better than homogeneous
groups

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 14 - 27
Managing Lateral Relationships (cont.)

 Managing conflict
 aim is to make conflict productive
 people benefit from conflict when:
 a new solution is implemented, the problem is solved, and it is unlikely
to emerge again
 work relationships have been strengthened and people believe they can
work together in the future
 four-stage dispute resolution process
 investigate - interview the disputants and others
 decide - decide how to resolve the dispute
 take action - explain decision and the reasoning
 follow up - document the conflict and the resolution

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 14 - 28
Managing Lateral Relationships (cont.)

 Managing conflict (cont.)

 don’t allow dysfunctional conflict to build
 address it before it escalates
 procedural justice is important
 make a good faith effort
 give voice in proceedings

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 14 - 29
Managing Lateral Relationships (cont.)

 Conflict styles
 two dimensions used to distinguish among styles
 assertiveness - how much people strive to satisfy their own
concerns
 cooperativeness - degree of focus on satisfying other party’s
concerns
 different styles are necessary at different times
 collaboration is the ideal approach when both sets of concerns
are valid, a creative solution is needed, and when commitment
to the solution is vital for implementation
 superordinate goals - higher-level organizational goals toward
which all teams should be striving
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 14 - 30
Conflict Management Strategies

Cooperativeness
Uncooperative Cooperative
Assertive Competing Collaborating
Assertiveness

Compromising

Unassertive Avoiding Accommodating

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