MNGT1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Team Building, Nominal Group Technique, Virtual Team
2 Jul 2018
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Teams and teamwork
LO1: How do teams contribute to organisations?
A team is a small group of people with complementary skills, who work together to accomplish
shared goals while holding themselves mutually accountable for performance results. Teamwork is
the process of people working together to accomplish these goals.
Teamwork problems:
Social loafing- tendency of some to avoid responsibility by free-riding in groups.
Personality conflicts can disrupt team
Tasks not always clear
Ambiguous agendas can waste time
Not everyone ready for work.
Lack of motivation of some.
Time wasted by ill prepared meetings.
Effective teams have members who perform a variety of roles. As well as the leadership function,
teams need people to record progress, provide new ideas and manage conflicts.
Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts; in teams, it is seen when
members’ individual talents and efforts are used to achieve/create more resources for problem
solving, improved creativity and innovation, improved quality of decision-making, greater
commitments to tasks, higher motivation through collective action, better control and work
discipline, more individual need satisfaction. Synergy achieves through collective action far more
than could otherwise be achieved- this is an important advantage for organisations facing
uncertainties and demand of increasingly complex operating environments.
Benefits of a team includes strong influence on individual attitudes and behaviours. When
experience is positive, working and being part of team helps satisfy individual needs.
Formal groups are officially recognised and supported by organisation, such as a work group,
department, unit or team. This could be a manager and the subordinates. An informal group is an
unofficial group such as friendship, interest or support groups, and emerge from relationships and
shared interests among members.
LO2: What are current trends in the use of teams?
•Committees bring people together outside of their daily job assignments to work in a small
team for a specific purpose. The task agenda is typically narrow, focused and ongoing.
Membership changes over time as the committee remains in existence. Committees are led
by a designated head or chairperson, who is held accountable for performance results.
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Organisations usually have a variety of permanent or standing committees dedicated to a
wide variety of concerns — diversity and compensation are two common examples.
•Task forces or project teams are formal teams convened for a specific purpose and expected
to disband when that purpose is achieved. They bring the team special skills and expertise
critical to its purpose. In order to achieve the desired results, task forces must be carefully
established and then well run.
•Cross-functional teams bring together members from different functional departments to
work on a specific problem/task. The members usually come together with the needs of the
whole organisation in mind, expected to share information, explore new ideas, seek creative
solutions and meet project deadlines. They are expected not to be limited by narrow
functional concerns, and should think and act cross-functionally and with the needs of the
whole organisation in mind.
•Employee involvement teams meet on a regular basis to use their talents to solve problems
and achieve continuous improvement. Using problem solving framework, the teams try to
bring the benefits of employee participation to bear on a wide variety of performance issues
and concerns. Another popular form is the quality circle, a team who meets regularly to plan
ways to improve work quality.
•A virtual team is a team who works together to solve problems through computer-based
interactions. Advantages include saved time and travel expenses, and allow members to
work collectively in a time-efficient way, and disadvantages include a difficulty for the team
to establish good working relationships due to lack of face-to-face time.
•International teams include members from at least 2 different countries. The challenge is to
manage cultural differences so that the team performs effectively. This has arisen as a result
of globalisation, international strategic alliances, mergers and joint ventures for example.
Positive impressions and trust among team members is critical for the success of
international teams. The creation of positive impressions and the development of trust
among team members who lack face-to-face meeting opportunities is critical for
international teams to be successful.
•Self-managing work teams are teams with members who have the authority to make
decisions on how work is shared and completed. Self-managing team members are held
collectively accountable, have discretion in task distribution and scheduling, train one
another, evaluate others performance and are responsible for total product quality.
LO3: How do teams work?
An effective team must perform tasks, satisfy members and remain viable in the future. On the
performance side, a work group or team is expected to transform resources into products that have
value for the organisation. An effective team is one that achieves and maintains high levels of both
task performance and member satisfaction, and retains its viability for future action. Any team can
be viewed as an open system that transforms various resource inputs into these outcomes. Among
the important inputs are such things as the organisational setting, the nature of the task, the team
size and the membership characteristics. Each of these factors plays a role in setting the stage for
group performance.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
A team is a small group of people with complementary skills, who work together to accomplish shared goals while holding themselves mutually accountable for performance results. Teamwork is the process of people working together to accomplish these goals. Social loafing- tendency of some to avoid responsibility by free-riding in groups. Effective teams have members who perform a variety of roles. As well as the leadership function, teams need people to record progress, provide new ideas and manage conflicts. Synergy achieves through collective action far more than could otherwise be achieved- this is an important advantage for organisations facing uncertainties and demand of increasingly complex operating environments. Benefits of a team includes strong influence on individual attitudes and behaviours. When experience is positive, working and being part of team helps satisfy individual needs. Formal groups are officially recognised and supported by organisation, such as a work group, department, unit or team. This could be a manager and the subordinates.
