McShane/Von Glinow M:OB 3e
Team
Dynamics
© 2016 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved 1
What are Teams?
Groups of two or more people
Exist to fulfill a purpose
Interdependent – interact and collaborate
Mutually accountable for achieving common goals
Members influence each other
Perceive themselves to be a team
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Many Types of Teams
Permanence
How long that type of team usually exists
Skill diversity
Degree of skill/knowledge diversity among team members
Authority dispersion
Degree that decision-making responsibility is distributed throughout the team or
centralized
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Informal Groups
Groups that exist primarily for the benefit of their
members
Reasons why informal groups exist:
1. Innate drive to bond
2. Social identity -- we define ourselves by group
memberships
3. Goal accomplishment
4. Emotional support
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Team Advantages/Challenges
Advantages
1. Make better decisions, products/services
2. Better information sharing
3. Increase employee motivation/engagement
Challenges
1. Process losses – resources needed for team maintenance
2. Social loafing – members potentially exert less effort in
teams than alone
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Team Effectiveness Model
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Organization/Team Environment
Reward systems Organizational leadership
Communication systems Physical space
Organizational structure
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Best Tasks Characteristics for Teams
1. Complex tasks divisible into specialized roles
Requires abilities beyond one person, but team can coordinate
2. Well-structured tasks
Easier to coordinate with low task variability, high task analyzability
3. Higher task interdependence
Team members share resources to perform their jobs
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Levels of Task Interdependence
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Team Size
Smaller teams are better because:
Less process loss – better coordination and resolve
differences
More engaged with team –more influence, feeling
responsible for team outcomes
Faster team development
But team must be large enough to accomplish task
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Team Composition
Effective team members
must be willing and able to
work on the team
Effective team members
engage in 5C’s behaviors
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Team Composition: Diversity
Team members have diverse knowledge, skills,
perspectives, values, etc.
Advantages
view problems/alternatives from different perspectives
broader pool of abilities
better representation of team’s constituents
Disadvantages
take longer to become a high-performing team
susceptible to “faultlines” – less motivation to coordinate
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Stages of Team Development
Forming
learn about each other; evaluate membership.
Storming
conflict; members proactive, compete for roles.
Norming
roles established; consensus around team objectives and team mental model.
Performing
efficient coordination; highly cooperative; high trust; commitment to team
objectives; identify with the team.
Adjourning
disbanding; shift from task to relationship focus.
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Developing Team Identities and Mental
Models
1. Developing team identity
Viewing team as “us” rather than “them”
Team becomes part of the person’s social identity
2. Developing team mental models and coordinating
routines
Forming habitual routines with team members
Forming shared/complementary mental models
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Team Building
Formal activities intended to improve the team’s development and
functioning
Types of team building
1. Clarify team’s performance goals
2. Improve team’s problem-solving skills
3. Improve role definitions
4. Improve relations
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Team Norms
Informal rules and shared expectations team establishes to regulate
member behaviors
Norms develop through:
Initial team experiences
Critical events in team’s history
Experience/values members bring to the team
Preventing/Changing Dysfunctional Team Norms
State desired norms when forming teams
Select members with preferred values
Discuss counter-productive norms
Counter dysfunctional norms with team-based rewards
Disband teams with dysfunctional norms
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Team Cohesion
The degree of attraction people feel toward the team
and their motivation to remain members
Team cohesion is stronger/builds faster with:
Higher member similarity
Smaller team size
Regular/frequent member interaction
Somewhat difficult team entry (membership)
Higher team success
More external competition/challenges
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Team Cohesion and Performance
High cohesion teams usually perform better because:
Motivated to maintain membership and achieve team objectives
Share information more frequently
Higher coworker satisfaction
Better social support (minimizes stress)
Resolve conflict more swiftly and effectively
Contingencies of cohesion and performance
1. Task interdependence
Cohesion motivates cooperation; less important in low interdependence tasks
2. Team norms consistent with organizational objectives
Cohesion motivates conformity to team norms
Cohesion motivates LOWER performance if norms oppose company objectives
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Three Levels of Trust
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Self-Directed Teams
Self-directed teams:
are cross-functional groups
organized around work processes
complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks,
have substantial autonomy over task decisions
Success factors
1. Responsible for entire work process
2. High interdependence within the team
3. Low interdependence with other teams
4. Autonomy to organize and coordinate work
5. Work site/technology supports team communication/coordination
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Virtual Teams
Members operate across space, time, and
organizational boundaries -- linked through
information technologies
Virtual Team Success Factors
1. Virtual team member characteristics
2. Toolkit of communication channels and freedom to choose
channels that work best for them
3. Fairly high task structure
4. Opportunities to meet face-to-face
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Team Decision Making Constraints
Time constraints
Time to organize/coordinate
Production blocking
Evaluation apprehension
Reluctance to mention ideas that seem silly – concern that other team members are
evaluating them
Peer pressure to conform
Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms
Overconfidence (inflated team efficacy)
Team efficacy usually beneficial (motivates performance)
Inflated team efficacy
Outcomes: false sense of invulnerability, less vigilant decisions, less task conflict
Caused by: collective self-enhancement, high cohesion, external threats
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General Guidelines for
Team Decisions
Team norms should encourage critical thinking
Sufficient team diversity
Checks/balances to avoid dominant participants
Maintain optimal team size
Introduce effective team structures
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Brainstorming
Participants think up as many ideas as possible
Four brainstorming rules
Speak freely
Don’t criticize
Provide as many ideas as possible
Build on others’ ideas
Dismissed by lab research, but supported in field research and
by leading creative firms
But brainstorming requires:
Experienced facilitator
Supportive culture (not internally competitive)
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Other Team Structures for Creative
Decision Making
Brainwriting -- brainstorming without conversation
Individuals write down/distribute ideas to others, develop further ideas
Less production blocking than brainstorming
Electronic Brainstorming –brainwriting using technology
Electronically write/distribute ideas anonymously to other participants
Anonymously vote on ideas, followed by discussion
Strengths: less production blocking, evaluation apprehension, conformity
Limitations: considered too structured and technology-bound
Nominal Group Technique – variation of brainwriting
1. Problem is described, then participants privately write down solutions
2. Participants describe their solutions – no criticism or debate
3. Participants privately rank-order or vote on solutions
Problems of production blocking and evaluation apprehension
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McShane/Von Glinow M:OB 3e
Team
Dynamics
© 2016 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved 26
