USING TEAM IN AN
ORGANIZATION
GROUPS AND TEAMS DEFINED
Group Team
Common
Threads
Two or more
interdependent individuals
who influence one
another
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO
• Group - Two or more interdependent individuals who
influence one another through social interaction.
• Team - Two or more people, with work roles that require them
to be interdependent, who operate within a larger social
system (the organization), performing tasks relevant to the
organization’s mission, with consequences that affect others
inside and outside the organization, and who have membership
that is identifiable to those on the team and those not on the
team.
TYPES OF TEAMS
• Virtual teams - Teams in which members work together but are
separated by time, distance, or organizational structure
• Production teams – groups of associates who produce tangible
products
• Service teams – groups of associates who engage in repeated
transactions with customers
• Management teams – groups of senior-level managers who
coordinate the activities of their respective units
• Project teams – groups of associates (often from different
functional areas or organizational units) who temporarily serve as
teams to complete a specific project
• Advisory teams – groups of associates formed to advise the
organization on certain issues
TYPES OF TEAMS
• Self-Managing Teams. Have
considerable autonomy and control
over the work they do, and are
responsible for completing a whole
piece of work or an entire project.
Knowledge Affective
Criteria Criteria
TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
Is the Team
Outcome Needed?
Criteria
• Knowledge Criteria – reflect the degree to which the team
continually increases its performance capabilities. Teams are more
effective when they share knowledge and understanding.
• Affective Criteria – address the question of whether team members
have a fulfilling and satisfying team experience. One important
faction is the affective tone or general emotional state of the team.
• Outcome Criteria – refer to the quantity and quality of the team’s
output or to the extent to which the team’s output is acceptable to
clients. Should reflect synergy.
• Is the Team Needed? – does the project really need a team or would
one person be preferred?
FACTORS AFFECTING TEAM
EFFECTIVENESS
• Greater goal commitment
• Greater variety of skills and abilities used for
task achievement
Synergy • Greater sharing of knowledge
• Time and energy members spend
maintaining the team
• Managing, coordinating, and developing
Process Loss effective communication within the team
TEAM COMPOSITION
Identifies who are members of the
team and what human resources
(skills, abilities, and knowledge) they
bring to the team. Three common
assumptions which can lead to
mistakes:
• Assume that people who are similar to each other will work
better together – create homogeneous teams
• Assume everyone knows how or is suited to work in a team
• Assume that a larger team is always better
DIVERSITY
Both positive, negative, and neutral effects for demographic
diversity. Also need to consider values of team members.
Other factors to consider:
Type of task – Diversity works best when tasks
require innovation and creativity.
Outcome – Diversity may have a positive effect on
performance but a negative effect on members’
reactions to the team and subsequent behaviors, such
as turnover.
Time – Diversity can have negative effects in the short
run but positive effects in the long run.
Type of diversity – If team members are diverse on
factors that lead them to have different performance
goals or levels of commitment to the team, or to form
subgroups, the relationship between diversity and
performance will be negative.
PERSONALITY
The personality traits that have important effects
on team performance include:
• Agreeableness
• Emotional stability
• Individual conscientiousness
• Team-level extraversion
• Openness to experience
TEAM ORIENTATION
The extent to which an individual
works well with others, wants to
contribute to team performance, and
enjoys being on a team.
DESIGNING FOR TEAMWORK
What are your thoughts about the suggestions for
arranging an office – delineate boundaries; associates
should be able to see each other; create a quiet,
collaborative workspace; provide furniture that can be
rearranged; and ways to signal others that they are
unavailable and should not be disturbed?
Teamwork is more that furniture – it depends
on the culture, management system and
reward system. Agree or disagree? Why?
TEAM ROLES
Task Roles Socioemotional Roles
• Initiator/Contributor • Encourager • Standard Setter
• Information Seeker • Harmonizer • Observer
• Information Giver • Compromiser • Follower
• Elaborator • Gatekeeper
• Opinion Giver
• Coordinator
• Orienter Individual Roles
• Evaluator/Critic • Aggressor • Evader
• Energizer • Blocker • Help Seeker
• Procedural Technician • Dominator • Recognition
• Recorder Seeker
Task Roles – roles that require behaviors aimed at achieving the team’s
performance goals and tasks
• Initiator/Contributor - Suggests new ideas, solutions, or ways to approach the
problem
• Information Seeker - Focuses on getting facts
• Information Giver - Provides data for decision making
• Elaborator - Gives additional information, such as rephrasing, examples
• Opinion Giver - Provides opinions, values, and feelings
• Coordinator - Shows the relevance of various specific ideas to the overall
problem to be solved
• Orienter - Refocuses discussion when the team gets off topic
• Evaluator/Critic - Appraises the quality of the team’s work
• Energizer - Motivates the team when energy falters
• Procedural Technician - Takes care of operational details, such as technology
• Recorder - Takes notes and keeps records
Socio-emotional Roles – roles that require behaviors that support the
social aspects of the organization.
• Encourager - Provides others with praise, agreement, warmth
• Harmonizer - Settles conflicts among other members
• Compromiser - Changes his or her position to maintain team
harmony
• Gatekeeper - Controls communication process so that everyone gets
a chance to participate
• Standard Setter - Discusses the quality of the team process
• Observer - Comments on the positive or negative aspects of the team
process and calls for changes
• Follower - Accepts others’ ideas and acts as a listener
Individual Roles – roles that work against the team
• Aggressor - Attacks others
• Blocker - Unnecessarily opposes the team
• Dominator - Manipulatively asserts authority
• Evader - Focuses on expressing own feelings and thoughts
that are unrelated to the team goals
• Help Seeker - Unnecessarily expresses insecurities
• Recognition Seeker - Calls unnecessary attention to himself
or herself
NORMS
Rules or standards that regulate the team’s
behavior. Norms tend to emerge naturally and are
part of the team’s mental model. Sometimes
norms are written down.
• What types of norms exist in the classroom?
• How do norms help a team? How can norms
hurt a team?
TASK STRUCTURE
Divisible Unitary
Tasks Tasks
Maximization Optimization
Tasks Tasks
Additive Compensatory
Tasks Tasks
Disjunctive Conjunctive
Tasks Tasks
• Divisible tasks – tasks that can be separated into
subcomponents
• Unitary tasks – tasks that cannot be divided and
must be performed by an individual
• Maximization tasks – tasks with a quantity goal
• Optimization tasks – tasks with a quality goal
• Additive tasks – those in which individual inputs are simply
added together
• Compensatory tasks – those in which members’ individual
performances are averaged together to arrive at the team’s
overall performance
• Disjunctive tasks – those in which teams must work together
to develop a single, agreed upon product or solution
• Conjunctive tasks – those in which all members must
perform their individual tasks to arrive at the team’s overall
performance
STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning
• Forming (Orientation) - Members become familiar with
each other
• Storming (Conflict) - Disagreement and tension among
members
• Norming (Structure) - Cohesiveness and roles develop
• Performing (Work) - High task and goal orientation
• Adjourning (Dissolution) - Task completion and
termination of roles
OPINION SHARING
• What is the difference between group and
team?
• How can you explain the word teamwork in
your own perception?
• As a team member; Cite 3 task roles, 2 socio-
emotional roles and 1 individual role that you
can see in your own personality.
