CHAPTER 13

GROUPS & TEAMS

Increasing Cooperation,
Reducing Conflict

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 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
13.1 Identify the characteristics of groups and
teams.
13.2 Describe the development of groups and
teams.
13.3 Discuss ways managers can build effective
teams.
13.4 Describe ways managers can deal successfully
with conflict.

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 WHY TEAMWORK IS IMPORTANT
Table 13.1
THE IMPROVEMENTS EXAMPLE

Increased productivity At one GE factory, teamwork resulted in a workforce that was 20%
more productive than comparable GE workforces elsewhere.

Increased speed Guidant Corp., maker of lifesaving medical devices, halved the time
it took to get products to market.

Reduced costs Boeing used teamwork to develop the 777 at costs far less than
normal.

Improved quality Westinghouse used teamwork to improve quality performance in its

truck and trailer division and within its electronic components
division.

Reduced destructive internal Men’s Warehouse fired a salesman who wasn’t sharing walk-in
competition customer traffic, and total clothing sales volume among all
salespeople increased significantly.

Improved workplace Cisco Systems told executives they would gain or lose 30% of their
cohesiveness bonuses based on how well they worked with peers and in 3 years
had record profits.

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 GROUPS AND TEAMS: HOW DO THEY DIFFER?
Group
• Defined as (1) two or more freely interacting individuals
who (2) share norms, (3) share goals, and (4) have a
common identity.
Team
• Small group of people with complementary skills who are
committed to a common purpose, performance goals,
and approach for which they hold themselves mutually
accountable.

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 FORMAL VERSUS INFORMAL GROUPS
Formal group
• Group assigned by organizations or its managers to
accomplish specific goals.
Informal group
• Group formed by people whose overriding purpose is
getting together for friendship or a common interest.

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 VARIOUS TYPES of TEAMS
• Work teams: have a clear purpose that all members share, usually
permanent, and members must give their complete commitment to the
team’s purpose in order for the team to succeed.
• Project teams: assembled to solve a particular problem or complete a
specific task, such as brainstorming new marketing ideas for one of the
company’s products.
• Cross-functional teams: include members from different areas
within an organization, such as finance, operations, and sales.
• Self-managed teams: groups of workers who are given
administrative oversight for their task domains.
• Virtual teams: work together over time and distance via electronic
media to combine efforts and achieve common goals.

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 VIRTUAL TEAM: BENEFITS and CHALLENGES
Potential benefits:
• Reduced real estate costs.
• Ability to leverage diverse knowledge across geography
and time.
• Reduce commuting and travel expenses.
Potential challenges:
• Difficult to establish team cohesion.
• Inability to observe nonverbal cues.
• Not a substitute for face-to-face contact.

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 STAGES of GROUP and TEAM DEVELOPMENT
Figure 13.1
Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model

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 STAGE 1: FORMING
Forming
• Process of getting oriented and getting acquainted.
• “Why are we here?”
• “Where do I fit in here?”

• In this stage, leaders focusing on giving people time to

become acquainted and socialize.

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 STAGE 2: STORMING
Storming
• Characterized by the emergence of individual
personalities and roles and conflicts within the group.
• “What’s my role here?”
• “Why are we fighting over who’s in charge and who does
what?”

• In this stage, leaders should encourage members to suggest

ideas, voice disagreements, and work through their conflicts
about tasks and goals.

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 STAGE 3: NORMING
Norming
• Conflicts are resolved, close relationships develop, and
unity and harmony emerge.
• “What do the others expect me to do?”
• “Can we agree on goals and work as a team?”

• In this stage, leaders should emphasize unity and help

identify team goals and values.

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 STAGE 4: PERFORMING
Performing
• Members should concentrate on solving problems and
completing the assigned tasks.
• “How can I best perform my role?”
• “Can we do the job properly?”
• In this stage, leaders should allow members the
empowerment they need to work on tasks.

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 STAGE 5: ADJOURNING
Adjourning
• Members prepare for disbandment.
• “What’s next?”
• “Can we help team members transition out?”

• Leaders can help ease the transition by rituals celebrating

“the end” and “new beginnings.”

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 QUESTION #1
Jeff’s workgroup is having a lot of disagreement over
the direction the group should take. They are involved
in the __________ stage of group development.
A. forming
B. storming
C. norming
D. performing

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 BUILDING EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Collaboration
The most essential Trust
considerations in Performance
Motivation
building a group into
Composition
an effective team:
Roles
Norms
Effective Team Processes

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 COLLABORATION and TRUST
Collaboration
• The act of sharing information and coordinating efforts
to achieve a collective outcome.
Trust
• Reciprocal faith in others’ intentions and behaviors.

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 PERFORMANCE GOALS and FEEDBACK

• Teams are individuals organized for a

collective purpose.
• The team’s purpose is defined in terms of
specific, measurable performance goals with
continual feedback to tell team members how
well they are doing.

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 MOTIVATION and TEAM COMPOSITION
Team member interdependence
• Extent to which team members rely on common task-
related team inputs, and the amount of interpersonal
interactions needed to complete the work.
Team composition
• Reflects the collection of jobs, personalities, values,
knowledge, experience, and skills of team members.
• Teams perform better when members:
• Have a high tolerance for uncertainty.
• Possess high levels of emotional stability.
• Are diverse in their backgrounds.

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 TEAM ROLES
Roles
• A socially determined expectation of how an individual
should behave in a specific position.
Task roles
• Consists of behavior that concentrates on getting the
team’s tasks done; for example, initiator, information
seeker, opinion giver, elaborator, coordinator, evaluator,
recorder.
Maintenance roles
• Consists of behavior that fosters constructive
relationships among team members; for example,
encourager, harmonizer, compromiser, standard setter,
follower.
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 QUESTION #2
Layla works during her meeting to pull together the
ideas of her committee members into a coherent
whole. Layla is performing a ___________ role.
A. maintenance
B. relationship-oriented
C. task
D. social

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 TEAM NORMS
Norms
• General guidelines or rules of behavior that most group
or team members follow.
Why are norms followed?
• To help the group survive.
• To clarify role expectations.
• To help individuals avoid embarrassing situations.
• To emphasize group importance and identity.

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 EFFECTIVE TEAM PROCESSES
Team Processes
• Are “members’ independent acts that convert inputs to
outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioral
activities directed toward organizing task work to achieve
collective goals.”
Activities to improve team processes:
• Create a team charter.
• Engage in team reflexivity.
• Give team members a voice.

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 MANAGING CONFLICT
Conflict
• Process in which one party perceives that its interests are being
opposed or negatively affected by another party.
Functional conflict
• Benefits the main purposes of the organization and serves its
interests.
Dysfunctional conflict
• Hinders the organization’s performance or threatens its interest.

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 THREE KINDS of CONFLICT (1 of 2)
Personality conflicts
• Interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike,
disagreement, or differing styles.
• Personality clashes, competition for scarce resources,
time pressure, communication failures.
Intergroup conflicts
• Inconsistent goals, ambiguous jurisdictions (when
boundaries are unclear), and status differences.
• “We versus them.”

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 THREE KINDS of CONFLICT (2 of 2)
Multicultural conflicts
• Frequent opportunities for
clashes between cultures in
the global economy. Ways to build cross-cultural relationships.

1. Be a good listener.

2. Be sensitive to others’ needs.

3. Be cooperative, not overly competitive.

4. Advocate inclusive (participative) leadership.

5. Compromise rather than dominate.

6. Build rapport through conversations.

7. Be compassionate and understanding.

8. Avoid conflict by emphasizing harmony.

9. Nurture others (develop and mentor).

TABLE 13.3
Source: Adapted from R.L. Tung, “American Expatriates Abroad:
From Neophytes to Cosmopolitans,” Journal of World Business,
Summer 1998, table 6, p. 136.
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 HOW to STIMULATE CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT
1. Spur competition among employees.
2. Change the organization’s culture and procedures.
3. Bring in outsiders for new perspectives.
4. Use programmed conflict.

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 PROGRAMMED CONFLICT
Programmed conflict.
• Designed to elicit different opinions without inciting
people’s personal feelings.
Devil’s advocacy.
• Assigning someone to play the role of critic to voice
possible objections to a proposal and thereby generate
critical thinking and reality testing.
Dialectic method.
• Two people or groups play opposing roles in a debate in
order to better understand a proposal.

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 FIVE BASIC BEHAVIORS TO HELP YOU
BETTER HANDLE CONFLICT
Openness: State your views openly and honestly.
Equality: Treat others’ status and ideas as equal to yours.
Empathy: Try to experience the other person’s feelings
and point of view.
Supportiveness: Let the other person know you want to
find a resolution that will benefit you both.
Positiveness: Be positive about the other person and your
relationship.

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 FIVE CONFLICT-HANDLING STYLES
• Avoiding. Ignoring or suppressing a conflict: “Maybe the
problem will go away.”
• Obliging. Allows the desires of the other party to prevail:
“Let’s do it your way.”
• Dominating. Ordering an outcome, using formal authority
and power to resolve a conflict: “You have to do it my way.”
• Compromising. Both parties give up something to gain
something: “Let’s split the difference.”
• Integrating. Manager strives to confront the issue and
cooperatively identify the problem and seek a solution
“Let’s reach a win-win solution that benefits both of us.”

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