MGT-4110:

Organizational Behavior

Team Dynamics

Professor Dr. AAhad M. Osman-Gani

What are Teams?

Groups of two or more people

Exist to fulfill a purpose

Interdependent -- interact and influence

each other

Mutually accountable for achieving

common goals

Perceive themselves as a social entity

8-2

11-3

Groups vs. Teams

Types of Teams

• Departmental teams

• Production/service/ leadership teams

• Self-directed teams

• Advisory teams

• Task force (project) teams

• Skunkworks

• Virtual teams

• Communities of practice

8-4

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

8-5

Advantages and Disadvantages of Teams

Advantages: • Make better decisions, products/services

• Better information sharing

• Higher employee motivation/engagement

- Fulfills drive to bond

- Closer scrutiny by team members

- Team members are benchmarks of comparison

Disadvantages: • Individuals better/faster on some tasks

• Process losses - cost of developing and maintaining teams

• Social loafing

8-6

How to Minimize Social Loafing

Make individual performance more

visible

• Form smaller teams

• Specialize tasks

• Measure individual performance

Increase employee motivation

• Increase job enrichment

• Select motivated employees

8-7

Team Effectiveness Model

•Task characteristics

•Team size

•Team composition

Team Design

• Accomplish tasks

• Satisfy member

needs

• Maintain team

survival

Team

Effectiveness

• Team development

• Team norms

• Team cohesiveness

• Team trust

Team Processes

Organizational

and Team

Environment

8-8

Organization/Team Environment

Reward systems

Communication systems

Organizational structure

Organizational leadership

Physical space

8-9

Team’s Task Characteristics

Teams work better when tasks are clear,

easy to implement

• learn roles faster, easier to become cohesive

• ill-defined tasks require members with diverse

backgrounds and more time to coordinate

Teams preferred with higher task

interdependence

• Extent that employees need to share materials,

information, or expertise to perform their jobs.

8-10

Levels of Task Interdependence

Sequential

Pooled

Reciprocal

Resource

A B C

A B C

A

B C

High

Low

8-11

Team Size

Smaller teams are better because:

• need less time to coordinate roles and resolve

differences

• require less time to develop more member

involvement, thus higher commitment

But team must be large enough to

accomplish task

8-12

Team Composition

Effective team members

must be willing and able

to work on the team

Effective team members

possess specific

competencies (5 C’s)

8-13

Five C’s of Team Member Competencies

8-14

Team Composition: Diversity

Team members have with diverse knowledge, skills, perspectives, values, etc.

Advantages: • better for creatively solving complex problems

• broader knowledge base

• better representation of team’s constituents

Disadvantages: • take longer to become a high-performing team

• more susceptible to “faultlines”

• increased risk of dysfunctional conflict

8-15

Existing teams

might regress

back to an

earlier stage of

development

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Adjourning

Stages of Team Development

8-16

11-17

Five-Stage Model

Team Development as Membership and Competence

Two central processes in team development

1. Team membership formation

• Transition from “them” to “us”

• Team becomes part of person’s social identity

2. Team competence development

• Forming routines with others

• Forming shared mental models

8-18

Team Roles

A set of behaviors that people are

expected to perform

Some formally assigned; others informally

Informal role assignment occurs during

team development and is related to

personal characteristics

8-19

Team Building

Formal activities intended to improve the

team’s development and functioning

Types of Team Building

• Clarify team’s performance goals

• Improve team’s problem-solving skills

• Improve role definitions

• Improve relations

8-20

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

8-21

Preventing/Changing Dysfunctional Team Norms

State desired norms when forming teams

Select members with preferred values

Discuss counter-productive norms

Reward behaviors representing desired

norms

Disband teams with dysfunctional norms

8-22

Team Cohesion

The degree of attraction people feel

toward the team and their motivation to

remain members

Both cognitive and emotional process

Related to the team member’s social

identity

8-23

Team

size

Member

interaction

• Smaller teams tend to be more cohesive

• Regular interaction increases cohesion

• Calls for tasks with high interdependence

Member

similarity

• Similarity-attraction effect

• Some forms of diversity have less effect

Influences on Team Cohesion

8-24

Team

success

External

challenges

• Successful teams fulfillmember needs

• Success increases social identity with team

• Challenges increase cohesion when not

overwhelming

Somewhat

difficult entry

• Team eliteness increases cohesion

• But lower cohesion with severe initiation

Influences on Team Cohesion (contd.)

8-25

Team Cohesion Outcomes

1. Motivated to remain members

2. Willing to share information

3. Strong interpersonal bonds

4. Resolve conflict effectively

5. Better interpersonal relationships

8-26

Team Norms Support

Company Goals

Team Norms Oppose

Company Goals

High Team Cohesiveness

Low Team Cohesiveness

Team Cohesion and Performance

Low task

performance

Moderately

high task

performance

Moderately

low task

performance

High task

performance

8-27

Trust Defined

Positive expectations one person

has of another person in situations

involving risk

8-28

Three Levels of Trust

Identification-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust

Calculus-based Trust

High

Low

8-29

Self-Directed Teams

Cross-functional work groups organized around

work processes, that complete an entire piece of

work requiring several interdependent tasks, and

that have substantial autonomy over the execution

of those tasks.

8-30

Self-Directed Team Success Factors

Responsible for entire work process

High interdependence within the team

Low interdependence with other teams

Autonomy to organize and coordinate

work

Technology supports team

communication/coordination

8-31

Virtual Teams

Teams whose members operate across space,

time, and organizational boundaries and are

linked through information technologies to

achieve organizational tasks

• Increasingly possible because of:

- Information technologies

- Knowledge-based work

• Increasingly necessary because of:

- Organizational learning

- Globalization

8-32

Virtual Team Success Factors

Member characteristics

• Technology savvy

• Self-leadership skills

• Emotional intelligence

Flexible use of communication

technologies

Opportunities to meet face-to-face

8-33

Team Decision Making Constraints

Time constraints • Time to organize/coordinate

• Production blocking

Evaluation apprehension • Belief that others are silently evaluating you

Peer pressure to conform • Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms

Groupthink

• Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value consensus at the price of decision quality

• Concept losing favor -- consider more specific features

8-34

General Guidelines for Team Decisions

Team norms should encourage critical

thinking

Sufficient team diversity

Ensure neither leader nor any member

dominates

Maintain optimal team size

Introduce effective team structures

8-35

Constructive Conflict

People focus their discussion on the issue while

maintaining respectfulness for others having

different points of view.

Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into

personal attacks

Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA

8-36

Rules of Brainstorming

1. Speak freely

2. Don’t criticize

3. Provide as many ideas as possible

4. Build on others’ ideas

8-37

Evaluating Brainstorming

Strengths:

• Produces more creative ideas

• Less evaluation apprehension when team

supports a learning orientation

• Strengthens decision acceptance and team

cohesiveness

• Sharing positive emotions encourages

creativity

Weaknesses:

• Production blocking still exists

• Evaluation apprehension exists in many groups

8-38

Electronic Brainstorming

Relies on networked computers to submit

and share creative ideas

Strengths -- more creative ideas, minimal

production blocking, evaluation

apprehension, or conformity problems

Limitations -- too structured and

technology-bound

8-39

Describe

problem

Individual

Activity

Team

Activity

Individual

Activity

Write down

possible

solutions

Possible

solutions

described

to others

Vote on

solutions

presented

Nominal Group Technique

8-40

Thanks!