MGMT100 Chapter 17: Organisational Teams
MGMT100: MANAGING: PEOPLE, SYSTEMS AND CULTURE, WEEK 8
Learning Outcomes:
Demonstrate how effective management processes contribute to ethical human relations dynamics and
culture formation in an organisation (LO2)
Analyse management functions in the local and international context (LO8)
Essential Questions:
If you managed a team in markets that are changing rapidly how would you empower team members to
respond swiftly?
If you were in a multicultural team of people from different cultures and ethnicities, what would be the
effect on the team if all team members were of the same age group?
Notes:
Organisational teams:
• Team – a small group of people with complimentary skills, who work together to accomplish shared
goals
• Teamwork – the process of people working together to accomplish these goals
Challenges of teamwork:
• Roles that manages must perform in order to fully master the challenges of teams and teamwork:
o Supervisor – serving as the appointed head of formal work unit
o Facilitator – serving as the peer leader and networking hub for a special task force
o Participant – serving as a helpful contributing member of a project team
o Coach – serving as the external sponsor of a problem-solving team staffed by other
• Social loafing – the presiet of free-riders ho slak off eause resposiility is disussed in
teams and others are present to do the work
Synergy and the usefulness of teams:
• Synergy – the creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts
o Occurs when a team uses its membership resources fully and thereby achieve through
collective actions far more than could otherwise be achieved
o Gains competitive advantage
o eg. Telstra and Cisco working together
• Teamwork is useful for the following reasons:
o More resources for problem-solving
o Improved creativity and innovation
o Improved quality of decision-making
o Greater commitments to tasks
o Higher motivation through collective action
o Better control and work discipline
o More individual need satisfaction
Formal and informal groups:
• Formal groups – teams that are officially recognised and supported by the organisation for specific
purposes
o May be known as departments, units, teams, divisions
• Informal groups – are unofficial and emerge from relationship and shared interests among
members
o May be known as interest groups, friendship groups, support groups
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
MGMT100: MANAGING: PEOPLE, SYSTEMS AND CULTURE, WEEK 8
Trends in the use of teams:
• Committees – brings people together outside of their daily job assignments to work in a small team
for a specific purpose
o Task agenda is narrow, focused and ongoing
o eg. At David Jones, a management committee meets regularly to consider issues relating to
ho ell they are ipleetig the opays strategy
• Task forces – perform important work for the organisation, but exist only temporarily
o Very specific; completion deadlines are also clearly defined
o Team disbands once the task has been completed
• Cross-functional teams – bring together members from different functional departments from
within the organisation
o Team comes together to perform specific tasks with the needs of whole organisation in
mind
• Employee involvement teams – workers who meet on a regular basis outside of their formal
assignments with the goal of applying their expertise and attention to important workplace matters
o The general purpose of employee involvement teams is continuous improvement
• Virtual teams – people who work together and solve problems largely through computer-based
rather than face-to-face interactions
o Advantageous to those organisations who have become global and have members who are
physically dispersed
o Save time and travel expenses
• International teams – teams that include members from at least two different countries
o Advantageous to multinational companies
o Established to help manage the new organisational structure created from the shift in its
market
o Cultural difference can easily derail the performance – language barriers, understanding,
communication styles
• Self-managing work teams – members that have the authority to make decisions about how they
share and complete their work
o These teams are designed to create a high degree of task interdependence and who have
been given authority to make many decisions about how they go about doing the required
work
o Operate with participative decision-making, share tasks and responsibility
o Responsibilities include:
➢ Planning and scheduling work
➢ Training members in various tasks
➢ Sharing tasks
➢ Meeting performance goals
➢ Ensuring high quality
➢ Solving day-to-day operating problems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Demonstrate how effective management processes contribute to ethical human relations dynamics and culture formation in an organisation (lo2) Analyse management functions in the local and international context (lo8) Organisational teams: team a small group of people with complimentary skills, who work together to accomplish shared goals, teamwork the process of people working together to accomplish these goals. Improved quality of decision-making: greater commitments to tasks, higher motivation through collective action, better control and work discipline, more individual need satisfaction. Formal and informal groups: formal groups teams that are officially recognised and supported by the organisation for specific purposes, may be known as departments, units, teams, divisions. Informal groups are unofficial and emerge from relationship and shared interests among members: may be known as interest groups, friendship groups, support groups. Team development: stages of team development, forming a stage of initial orientation and interpersonal testing.
