Teams

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Teams
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Outline

• Definition
• Examples of Work Teams
• Team Development
• I-P-O Models
• Team Success and Failure

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Class Model
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Quick Comic
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Discussion Question

• Have you found it useful to work in teams?

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What is a Team?

• What are the characteristics of a team?
• Two or more individuals
• Interdependent in their tasks
• Share one or more common goals
• Work together towards these goals
• See themselves and are seen by others as a social
  entity
• And are embedded in a larger organizational
  structure

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Discussion Question

• According to Katzenbach and Smith (2003), what is
  the difference between a group and a team?

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Examples of Work Teams

• Work teams are pervasive in industry, across all
  organizational levels
• Top Management Team
• Sales Team
• Customer Service
• Research Development
• Quality Control
• Safety Compliance

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Why Study Teams?

• Increasing use of groups/ teams in organizations
• Fortune 1000 Study (Lawler et al., 1995)
• Use of problem solving groups (23 increase
  1987-1993)
• Use of self-managed work teams (150 increase
  1987-1993)
• Study of organizations with over 100 employees
• 82 use some sort of teams
• 53 of all employees on a team
• All indications are that the trend is continuing!

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Teams and Your Future Work

• Every major U.S. company is currently trying or
  considering some form of empowered work teams in
  their organizations (Stewart, Manz, Sims,
  1999)
• Those companies that use teams effectively will
  gain a competitive advantage over those that do
  not
• New skills must be developed by team members in
  areas such as communications, planning,
  problem-solving, teamwork (an executive
  speaking at a conference sponsored by the Center
  for Executive Excellence, 2000)
• To use team effectively, employees must have team
  skills
• Employees with teams skills will be the most
  successful and sought after

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Stages of Team Development
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Explaining Team Performance
A popular model to explain how groups achieve
outcomes
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Discussion Question

• What types of inputs matter?
• What types of processes are important?

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Understanding Team Performance

• Team Characteristics
• Team size
• Ability, experience, expertise of members
• Team personality
• Amount of time together
• The Character of the Team

• Team Processes
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Cooperation
• Strategy
• Teamwork
• Psychological safety
• How Team Members Interact

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Quick Videos

• Some success stories for you hoop fans
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vKtCLsUuCF34

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When Do Team Succeed?

• Small size (max. 10)
• Complimentary skills
• technical
• problem solving/decision making
• interpersonal

• Common purpose
• Specific goals
• Common approach
• Mutual accountability

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Discussion Question

• What do you think are some potential problems in
  terms of the team processes in this clip?
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vJtEabrR0I7Q

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Quick Comic
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When Do Teams Fail?

• Group polarization
• Group decisions become more extreme than
  individual decisions
• Overly influential individuals
• High status individuals do all the talking
• Groupthink
• Emphasizing consensus over dissent
• Social loafing
• Individuals work less hard in group
• Diffusion of responsibility
• No one person is responsible for
  decision/implementation
• Production-blocking
• Quantity and quality of ideas better for
  individuals working separately than those working
  in a group

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Discussion Question

• What can be done to reduce these negative team
  processes?

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Take-Home Points

• Teams are an important part of our work lives
• The I-P-O model is a good way to think about team
  performance
• There are a number of potential pitfalls that
  teams can fall into