MGMT20001 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Team Building, Social Loafing, Punctuated Equilibrium
25 May 2018
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Department
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All teams exist to fulfil some purpose
1.
Teams members are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to
achieve common goals
2.
Teams members influence one another
3.
A team exists when its members perceive themselves to be a team
4.
Teams are groups of two or more people who interact and influence one another, are mutually
accountable for achieving common goals associated with organisational objectives and perceive
themselves as a social entity within an organisation.
Types of teams:
Team permanence - how long that type of team usually exists
1.
Skill differentiation - degree to which individuals bring diverse skills and knowledge to the
team
2.
Authority differentiation - degree that decision-making responsibility is distributed throughout
the team or is vested in one or a few members of the team
3.
Distinguishing characteristics:
Potentially minimise employee stress
-
Improves employee wellbeing
-
Backbone of social networks, which are important sources of trust building, information
sharing, power, influence and employee wellbeing
-
Informal groups are not created to serve organisational objectives but have a profound influence on
organisations and employees
Make better decisions
-
Develop better products and services
-
Create a more engaged workforce
-
Team members can quickly share information and coordinate tasks
-
Typically provide superior customer service - more breadth of knowledge and expertise to
customers
-
Employees have a drive to bond and are motivated to fulfil the goals of groups to which
they belong
○
More motivated when working in teams
-
Advantages of teams:
Teams and Informal Groups
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they belong
Accountable to fellow team members who monitor performance more closely
○
Co-workers become benchmarks of comparison
○
Resolve disagreements
○
Develop mutual understanding of their goals
○
Determine the best strategy for accomplishing those goals
○
Negotiate their specific roles
○
Agree on informal rules of conduct
○
Amplified when more people are added or replace others on the team
○
Process losses - resources (including time and energy) expended towards team development
and maintenance rather than the task
-
Higher when individual performance is hidden or difficult to distinguish from the
performance of others
○
Less prevalent when the task is interesting
○
Occurs less frequently among members who value team membership and believe in
working towards the team's objectives
○
Social loafing - the problem that occurs when people exert less effort (and usually perform at a
lower level) when working in teams than when working alone
-
Disadvantages of teams:
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Achievement of organisational objectives
1.
Satisfaction and wellbeing of its members
2.
Ability to survive long enough to fulfil its purpose
3.
A team is effective when it benefits the organisation and its members and when it survives long
enough to accomplish its mandate
Organisational and team environment:
The environment is a resource pool that either supports or inhibits the team's ability to function and
achieve its objectives
Team-based rewards are received
-
Leadership is supportive of team-oriented work structures
-
Structure assigns teams to distinctive clusters of work activity
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Information systems support team co-ordination
-
Physical layout of the team's workspace encourages frequent communication
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Team members tend to work together more effectively when
External competition
-
Changing societal expectations
-
The environment generates drivers for change within teams
Task characteristics
1.
Teams are more suited for complex work that requires skills and knowledge beyond the
competencies of one person
-
Easier to co-ordinate the work among several people
○
Ambiguous tasks can be performed well if teams have well-structured roles
○
Teams work better when the work is well-structured
-
Pooled interdependence occurs when an employee or work unit shares a common
resource with other employees or work units
○
Sequential interdependence occurs when the output of one person becomes the direct
input for another person or unit
○
Reciprocal interdependence occurs when work output is exchanged back and forth
among individuals
○
Task interdependence is the extent to which team members must share materials, information
or expertise to perform their jobs
-
Only applies when team members have the same task goals
○
The higher the level of task interdependence, the greater the need to organise people into
teams
-
Team size
2.
Large enough to provide the necessary competencies and perspectives to perform the work
-
Small enough to maintain efficient co-ordination and meaningful involvement of each member
-
Smaller teams have less process loss, feel more engaged and responsible and members get to
know one another better
-
Team composition
3.
Sharing resources
▪
Being sufficiently adaptive or flexible to accommodate the needs and preferences
of other team members
▪
Co-operating - willing and able to work together
○
Keep the team on track
▪
Help integrate the work performed by different members
▪
Co-ordinating - actively manage the team's work so that it is performed efficiently and
harmoniously
○
Team member competencies
-
Team design elements:
A Model of Team Effectiveness
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Document Summary
Teams are groups of two or more people who interact and influence one another, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organisational objectives and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organisation. Teams members are held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration to achieve common goals. A team exists when its members perceive themselves to be a team. Team permanence - how long that type of team usually exists. Skill differentiation - degree to which individuals bring diverse skills and knowledge to the team. Authority differentiation - degree that decision-making responsibility is distributed throughout the team or is vested in one or a few members of the team. Informal groups are not created to serve organisational objectives but have a profound influence on organisations and employees. Backbone of social networks, which are important sources of trust building, information sharing, power, influence and employee wellbeing. Team members can quickly share information and coordinate tasks.
