CHAPTER 10

10.1
 group and team = refer to the interplay between two or more members
within an organization.
 Whereas a group is a collection of two or more people who share a
common interest or association, a team is a collection of people who work
interdependently as a unit.
 Teams are task oriented, and their members share common goals, work
toward those goals interdependently, and are accountable to one another
to achieve those goals.
 Teams have great potential for organizations. They can improve the quality
of decision making, enhance creativity, increase motivation, and help
facilitate organizational change.
 allow leaders to reduce their direct supervision of organizational members
and reassign some job duties from supervisors to team members.
 Teams are a good way to respond to the movement toward high-
involvement work cultures and flatter and more flexible organizational
structures
 the notion of groups focuses more on affiliation or the nature of the
interpersonal relationships among members. Not all groups are teams.
 Groups are typically more concerned with a common interest and the
benefits of the interpersonal relationships among their members, whereas
teams are generally more concerned with task and goal achievement.
 not to say that groups don’t work together to accomplish things;
nevertheless, group members typically carry out their tasks without having
to rely on the work of other members. In teams, members rely on other
members’ work or contributions to successfully complete tasks.
 Teams are generally smaller in size, owing to limitations on how many
people can work together interdependently.
 subteams may increase team productivity, it is important that the collective
maintain a strong common team identity.4 A team identity is the collective
sense of identification and loyalty that team members feel toward the
team.
 The following are types of teams you are likely to encounter in
organizations:
 Permanent Teams and Project Teams. Permanent teams are relatively
stable and ongoing, while project teams are intended to meet for a limited
time, achieve short-term goals, or solve a particular problem. Project team
members typically are chosen for their expertise and can include both
managers and non-managers who represent various departments.6 Healthy
interpersonal relationships are more important for permanent teams,
because their members will have to work together on an ongoing basis.
 Hierarchical Teams and Self-Managed Teams. In a hierarchical team one
person has the responsibility and legitimate authority. In recent years,
however, there has been a steady increase in the use of self-managed work
teams across a range of workplaces.7 A self-managed work team typically
consists of a small number of employees who are collectively given primary
responsibility to schedule work, assign tasks or job responsibilities, and
make decisions in their daily work.8 Members of self-managed teams tend
to enjoy their enhanced decision-making responsibility and control over
their jobs.9
 Functional Teams and Cross-Functional Teams. A functional team consists
of a team of members in a particular area or department, such as finance or
marketing. Because members have similar expertise and experiences, they
are more likely to get along well as a group. In contrast, cross-functional
teams bring together people with a variety of expertise and experiences
who provide a diversity of perspectives and information but may hinder
collaboration.
 On-site Teams and Virtual Teams. Most team members work alongside one
another in the same building or factory. On-site members see each other
regularly, often many times a day. A virtual team is composed of members
who live in geographically diverse settings and who may even belong to
different organizations. Members rarely if ever meet face-to-face; instead,
they interact by computer, video, and/or telephone. In multinational
organizations, team members may be spread across the globe.10
 Team-based work environments can also dignify organizational members,
contribute to meaningful work and creative expression, and promote
individual and collective well-being. For example, when team members
treat one another fairly and with respect, absenteeism decreases and team
performance is likely to increase.
 Leaders and team members need to learn to manage team processes in
order to avoid some common problems.
  most teams progress through a series of predictable developmental stages:
forming, storming, norming, performing, and, sometimes, adjourning.
 fifth occurs only when a team disbands. Adjourning is, in many ways, really
the opposite of forming. As a team disbands, members may bask in the
glow of their individual and team achievements and be saddened by the
loss of friendship and camaraderie.

10.2
 first category of team development is forming.
 volunteer to join a team or they may be selected for their task-specific
experience or perspectives.
 If a leader can select team members, conventional wisdom suggests that
selection should maximize team diversity.
 Team members may differ in the function of their jobs, tenure within the
organization, or their age, ethnicity, education, and even personality. More
diversity allows the team to draw on a variety of perspectives and
experiences in performing its tasks. Functional diversity and diversity in
educational backgrounds have the strongest relationships with team
performance and creativity.
 also can cause significant problems in the quality of interactions, leading to
lower team performance, less communication, more conflict, and the
withdrawal of team members from the group.
 diversity on a team can be influenced by the way the team is led.
 Cultural differences may create problems early in a team’s formation
because members tend to be less satisfied and feel less connected in
culturally diverse teams than members do in teams who all share similar
cultural backgrounds.
 team may divide into subgroups
 better that it be multicultural, with members representing a number of
cultures.
 increase in diversity may minimize the tendency for subgroups to form and
may prevent any one culture from being a minority.
 uncertainty about how the team members will work together and whether
the team will be successful. The main issues in members’ minds tend to be
questions about what the team will be doing and why it is important.
 high levels of commitment but low levels of competency working in the
team, the team may require more structure and directive behaviour from
the leader.
 Teams can benefit from creating an informal or formal charter that states
the goal of the project
 Roles may relate to team facilitation, such as the role of note taker, scribe,
or timekeeper. Or they may relate to a role or function, such as project
manager, department liaison, analyst, or team spokesperson.
 Ground rules are explicit agreements among team members regarding how
to behave in such matters as being on time, communicating, and resolving
conflict
 Task cohesion is members’ shared commitment to achieving a goal
 task cohesion will be high when the rewards for team success are clear and
compelling.
 task cohesion is more important than social cohesion in contributing to
team performance, social cohesion, the attachment
 Social cohesiveness is fostered when team members build mutual trust
 social cohesiveness can be facilitated by something as simple as managing
the team’s size.
 Teams that are smaller tend to be more cohesive.
 The forming process within team development from a sustainable
perspective also includes developing a shared understanding of the team’s
sense of place and purpose in the organization.
 building a shared team identity grounded in its organizational context.
 connecting with other individuals and teams, and with the overarching
purpose of the organization, is the focal point of activities in this category.
 Once members have agreed on the goals, a leader might then ask them to
come up with ground rules for working together to meet the goals.
 a conventional perspective, the answer may be someone who has the
expertise to help the team achieve its goals; from a sustainable perspective,
the answer is more about who might add meaning through their
participation or find it meaningful to be a part of the team.
 Sustainable teams are more inclusive of organizational members as well as
of suppliers, customers, and possibly even community members.
 Membership also is more fluid during forming, as members move in and
out of the meetings to explore the team’s purpose and to provide input.
  sustainable team members during forming is exploring potential roles
instead of defining specific roles.

10.3
 second category of team development behaviours—storming—are conflict
and discouragement. Team conflict is a real or perceived difference in
interests between two or more team members. Relational conflict can
detract from the performance of the team and contribute to dissatisfaction
within the team, whereas task conflict can sometimes improve
performance if it enhances information sharing.
 During storming, there is emphasis on managing conflict, as members sort
out what it means to retain and express their individuality in the context of
their membership in the group.
 Feelings tend to be those of discouragement and frustration,
 The central underlying issues for team members are whether the team will
get through this, whether the team will achieve its goals, and when the
conflict will be resolved
 Participating in solving problems develops a sense of shared identity and
trust among members. Deliberately modelling helping others can create a
virtuous cycle in which this positive behaviour is embraced by more
members
 A focus on others also makes it easier for members to exhibit self-control
over their own self-interests and thereby better serve the interests of the
team.
 barriers such as a lack of time or information= need to negotiate for more
resources, seek out the necessary information, explore using technology to
improve communication, or schedule more frequent meetings.
 Sometimes conflict may be healthy, such as when it motivates members to
rally around their cause and work harder or when the discussion of diverse
opinions and perspectives raises the quality of resulting decisions.
 When there is too much conflict, performance suffers because members
are unco-operative and chaos erupts. When there is too little conflict,
performance suffers because members become complacent and fail to
respond to new ideas, and they avoid discussing differences of opinion that
might provide useful information for the team. Moderate amounts of
conflict can improve performance because members constantly question
 and improve work practices, pushing one another to innovate, and there is
a healthy tension in the organization.
 that little or no conflict can be a sign of complacency.
 Conflict can occur for a variety of reasons.
 compete against one another for key scarce resources like money,
information, or supplies.
 because members have to worry that a colleague will get more of
something than they will.
 Conflict is also likely when someone’s ability to achieve goals or objectives
is connected to—and hampered by—the actions of another team member.
 Team task interdependence refers to the extent to which team members
require resources or support from other team members to complete their
tasks
 Conflict also may arise when individual group members do not get along
with one another based on their personal characteristics.
 an obvious way to resolve conflict is to increase the resources available to
the team.
 leaders can engage in boundary-spanning activities such as lobbying or
bargaining with other departments and upper management for resources.
 conflict from task interdependence can sometimes be resolved by
redesigning and improving the underlying structures and systems that
caused the problem in the first place.
 clarifying expectations, improving communication systems, or creating a
team identity.
 A third approach to resolving conflict, especially when goals clash, is to
appeal to a superordinate goal—that is, a higher-level goal recognized as
important by team members—that may be jeopardized if the issue remains
unresolved.
 leaders with strong interpersonal and behavioural skills may be able to help
other members overcome interpersonal conflict with their colleagues.
 Teams that have higher levels of emotional stability and openness to
experience are more likely to succeed at transforming conflict into
something positive for the team
 Conflict: a sustainable perspective it is not necessarily something to be
avoided or quickly solved.
 conflict can contribute to team performance
  A sustainable approach welcomes different perspectives as an opportunity
for members to broaden their own understanding and build relationships
 transformed into a source of deeper understanding and greater
appreciation of diverse perspectives
 Encouraging diversity of opinion is important because having different
perspectives increases a team’s creativity
 Using a transformative approach, a sustainable team member addresses
conflict by asking questions and offering suggestions that prompt other
members to see matters from a higher level of abstraction, changing their
perspective from specific positions to more general goals, from parts of an
issue to a broader view, and from individual concerns to system concerns.

10.4
 Another category of team development behaviour is referred to as
norming. Norms are shared beliefs about social and task behaviours in a
group.49
 Team norms can be informal, such as dress codes and whether members
work overtime to help one another meet deadlines, or formal, such as
standardized operating procedures governing the frequency of group
meetings and processes for sharing information. In one sense, norming is
“getting on track.”
 they develop shared mental models of the best ways to complete tasks and
the appropriate ways to interact with one another.
 can promote group performance because they indicate common
expectations, guide informal practices, help the group avoid interpersonal
problems, and define the group’s identity.
 Team members engaged in norming tend to experience feelings of
optimism and acceptance of one another and the task.
 if the team emerges from the storm clouds, its progress contributes to the
formation of a positive attitude toward the team and its goals
 main issue in the minds of members is whether the team will now work
together effectively or spiral back into conflict.
 include making functional norms explicit by “driving a stake in the ground.”
 Another strategy is to plan a time during or outside team meetings for
celebrating progress and positive contributions
 providing symbolic but tangible rewards, such as a smoothie for someone
who helped defuse tensions in the team or lunch for the whole team when
they have worked overtime.
 Two norms critical to team performance that require a team leader’s
attention are workload sharing and information sharing.
 A functional workload-sharing norm is when each team member is
contributing equally to achieve the team’s task
 contributions may not be the same, as team members perform different
roles, but they may be equal in the amount of effort required
 Another functional workload-sharing norm is backing up or helping other
team members who have a heavy workload
 balancing the workload within the team, but it also can be harmful to the
team if the helper’s tasks go undone or the team member being helped
reduces his or her effort
 typical dysfunctional norm relating to workload sharing is evident when one
or more team members engage in free riding—doing less than their best or
contributing less than their fair share to reach the team’s goal.
 Free riders may lack commitment to the team’s goals or reduce their
contributions because they believe the team can achieve the goal without
their full participation.
 Free riding is most common when individual contributions are difficult to
monitor or measure
 highly capable, and when team members are low in conscientiousness.
 Techniques to reduce free riding include monitoring team members’
contributions, making members accountable for their work, and training
members to constructively manage their emotional responses to free
riders.
 Information sharing is necessary for teams to benefit from the knowledge,
creativity, and unique perspectives of team members.
 the potential for teams to outperform individuals is linked to a team’s
capacity for information sharing.
 Teams perform better when they share more information, but this is
particularly true when team processes encourage team members to
exchange unique information.
 leaders of virtual teams should encourage both a high quality (unique
information) and a high quantity of information sharing.
 Another reason could be that team members may have an introverted
personality or may lack confidence in their ideas.
 might intentionally withhold information to speed up the decision-making
process once a satisfactory option has been presented.
 Satisficing describes a decision process in which an adequate option—one
that meets the minimum criteria for a solution—is chosen instead of the
best possible option
 Satisficing may result in suboptimal team decisions, unless the decision is
relatively unimportant and the cost of investing more time and energy to
determine a better option would be greater than the benefit that would
result from the better option.

 Withholding information, intentionally or not, is a dysfunctional norm that

the leader of the team should address. Techniques for doing so include (1)
brainstorming, (2) the nominal group technique, and (3) the Delphi
technique
 a sustainable perspective, team norms are important, but there also must
be a spirit of freedom to preserve creative expression and counteract
tendencies to conform.
 The norm of workload sharing is still important, but the approach to dealing
with it is different. Whereas conventional theory focuses on limiting the
negative effects of free riders through monitoring and accountability, a
sustainable approach tries to promote the positive effects of consistent
contributors.
 there are three kinds of team members:
 Free riders—those who do as little as possible.
 Conditional contributors—those whose contribution depends on the
situation.
 Consistent contributors—those who contribute regardless of how little
their teammates do.
 sustainable approach to norming involves paying particular attention to
recognizing, reinforcing, and, sometimes, even rewarding team members
who consistently contribute to the tasks and goals of the team.
 The consistent-contributor effect holds for both high- and low-status team
members, although the influence of the high-status members is more likely
to be recognized by others.
  the behaviour of consistent contributors influences the norms of the group
by modelling service to the team.
 it is precisely this fear of exploitation and the potential for being a sucker
that makes being a consistent contributor seem irrational from a
conventional point of view. In the face of this vulnerability, sustainable
team members provide socioemotional support by recognizing,
encouraging, and drawing attention to the behaviour of consistent
contributors.
 a sustainable perspective, information sharing is an important norm not
only because it enhances team performance but also because it contributes
to social cohesion, co-operation, team member satisfaction, and learning.
 a form of collaboration that a leader can particularly influence through his
or her example and encouragement.
 During norming, sustainable leaders provide a bird’s-eye view of the forest
—a systems view—that team members engaged in the detailed work of
planting or cultivating one tree at a time might lose sight of.
 leader works as a servant outside the team to smooth the road on which
the team is travelling.
 leader’s focus is on encouraging but not dictating linkages both inside and
outside the team and on empowering members to collaborate.
 Norming in a group is solidified when the team members have developed a
shared set of expectations for workload, information sharing, and other
norms for guiding team member behaviour.

10.5
 Performing behaviours in a group occur when members have had
experience working alongside one another
 During performing activities, team members tend to experience feelings of
pride and confidence in their ability to reach the goals of the team.
 The main issues in their minds are how others think the team is doing and
what might be the next challenge for the team to conquer. The team seeks
recognition of its performance and desires feedback to meet the challenges
of improving performance and meeting new goals.
 willing to assume more responsibility for team management.
 performing presents the opportunity to delegate leadership responsibility
to another team member.
 Techniques for leaders during performing include maintaining and
improving team performance by managing motivation through feedback
and rewards.
 In moving from norming to performing, the leader’s task changes from
affirming progress to addressing deficiencies, and from recognizing
behaviours to rewarding results. The leader also needs to encourage new
challenging goals to avoid complacency.
 Focusing on team goals, feedback, and rewards will unite individuals,
encourage co-operative behaviour, and increase collective effort and
performance
 Feedback alone may be sufficient to motivate employees in the short run,
but financial incentives may be necessary to sustain motivation.
 Individual goals within a team can detract from performance if they
encourage maximizing individual performance, but they can be helpful if
they encourage individual contributions to the group goal.
 Another advantage of using group systems of feedback and rewards is that
group performance measurements may be more readily available and
easier to use than individual performance measurements.
 Concerns about free riders can steer leaders to provide feedback and
rewards to individual team members, but they need to approach this
delicate situation carefully.
 Most team members acknowledge that leaders with formal authority (that
is, managers) have a legitimate right to provide individual ratings, and they
believe managers to be less biased than fellow team members.
 A sustainable leader will naturally focus on team-level rewards to reinforce
a sense of community, and there are practical reasons for doing so—for
example, to promote co-operation, reinforce interdependency, and
increase collective motivation. If individual recognition or rewards are
deemed necessary, a sustainable leader will be inclined to have teams
decide how these rewards should be awarded.
 A sustainable leader is not likely to directly deliver feedback or prescribe
solutions during behaviours in the performing category.
 Teams that take time to evaluate their team functioning and past
performance enhance their learning and future performance.
 a leader can also seek out and provide sources of information that team
members can use to enhance team learning. If a leader can subtly reframe
failures or shortcomings as problem-solving opportunities, even negative
 feedback has the potential to stimulate co-operative behaviour within the
team
 a sustainable perspective, during performing information about what the
team has accomplished and learned should be diffused throughout the
organization and beyond to benefit others. Promoting the success of the
team and its expertise becomes a primary activity for the leader to enhance
organizational learning.
 even with a high-performing team, the leader should not step away from
the team entirely
 A team’s engagement with other teams or organizations is of benefit to
others, but it also accelerates the learning within the team itself.
 the inputs, processes, and outputs associated with each of these categories
of team development can differ somewhat based on whether the approach
the leader takes to team development is conventional or sustainable