Chapter 10 Understanding Work Teams Flashcards
1 Analyze the growing popularity of teams in organizations.
As organizations have restructured themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently, they have turned to teams as a better way to use employee talents. Teams are more flexible and responsive to changing events than traditional departments or other forms of permanent groupings. They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband. But don’t overlook the motivational properties of teams.
2 Contrast groups and teams.
Goal:
Accountability:
Synergy:
Skills:
work group A group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each group member perform within his or her area of responsibility.
work team A group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs.
Work group Goal: Share information Accountability: Individual Synergy: Neutral (sometimes negative) Skills: Random and varied
Work team Goal: Collective performance Accountability: Individual and mutual Synergy: Positive Skills: Complementary
3 Compare and contrast four types of teams.
problem-solving teams, self-managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams.
problem-solving teams Groups of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.
Self-managed work teams are groups of employees (typically 10 to 15 in number) who perform highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors. Typically, these tasks are planning and scheduling work, assigning tasks to members, making operating decisions, taking action on problems, and working with suppliers and customers. Fully self-managed work teams even select their own members and evaluate each other’s performance. Supervisory positions take on decreased importance and are sometimes even eliminated.
cross-functional teams Employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task.
virtual teams パソコン/テクノロジーを駆使した遠隔チーム
4 Identify the characteristics of effective teams.
Three general categories of the key components of effective teams
Context, Composition, Process
Context:
- Adequate resources
- Leadership and structure
- Climate of trust
- Performance evolution and reward systems
Composition:
- Abilities of members
- Personality
- Allocating roles
- Diversity
- Size of teams（少人数が効率的）
- Member flexibility
- Member preferencesチームプレイが嫌な人とか
Process: (potential group effectiveness)+(Process gains)-(Process losses)=Actual group effectiveness
- Common purpose
- Specific goals
- Team efficacy(有効性)
- Conflict levels
- Social loafing(ぶらつく）
5 Show how organizations can create team players.
Selecting: Hiring Team Players
Training: Creating Team Players
Rewarding: Providing Incentives to Be a Good Team Player
6 Decide when to use individuals instead of teams.
チームを仕様するには時間と資源を要する。チームを仕様する事によって消費するその時間と資源の元を取れる業績を生み出さないとチームを有益的に使う事が出来ない。
どうやったらチームを使った方がいいかわかるか？三つのテストがある。
First, can the work be done better by more than one person? Simple tasks that don’t require diverse input are probably better left to individuals.
Second, does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals? Many service departments of new-vehicle dealers have introduced teams that link customer-service people, mechanics, parts specialists, and sales representatives. Such teams can better manage collective responsibility for ensuring customer needs are properly met.
The final test is to determine whether the members of the group are interdependent. Using teams makes sense when there is interdependence among tasks—the success of the whole depends on the success of each one, and the success of each one depends on the success of the others. サッカーはチームプレイ。水泳は個人プレイ。
7 Show how our understanding of teams differs in a global context.
● Effective teams have common characteristics. They have adequate resources, effective leadership, a climate of trust, and a performance evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions. These teams have individuals with technical expertise as well as problem-solving, decision-making, and interpersonal skills and the right traits, especially conscientiousness and openness.
● Effective teams also tend to be small—with fewer than 10 people, preferably of diverse backgrounds. They have members who fill role demands and who prefer to be part of a group. And the work that members do provides freedom and autonomy, the opportunity to use different skills and talents, the ability to complete a whole and identifiable task or product, and work that has a substantial impact on others.
● Finally, effective teams have members who believe in the team’s capabilities and are committed to a common plan and purpose, an accurate shared mental model of what is to be accomplished, specific team goals, a manageable level of conflict, and a minimal degree of social loafing.
● Because individualistic organizations and societies attract and reward individual accomplishments, it can be difficult to create team players in these environments. To make the conversion, management should try to select individuals who have the interpersonal skills to be effective team players, provide training to develop teamwork skills, and reward individuals for cooperative efforts.
4) Araceli is a team member in a large corporation. She never speaks in team meetings because she has seen members talk behind each other’s backs after the meetings. Members are constantly monitoring the other members’ work and looking for mistakes to point out in a meeting. According to the information provided, which contextual factor is lacking in Araceli’s team?
a) adequate resources
b) climate of trust
c) team structure
d) performance evaluations
e) leadership
B
6) Which of the following statements is true regarding size of teams?
a) The most effective teams have twelve to fifteen members.
b) When teams have excess members, cohesiveness declines.
c) As team size increases, social loafing decreases.
d) When teams have excess members, mutual accountability increases.
e) Members of large teams coordinate work better when pressed for time.
B
7) Which of the following is most likely to increase team efficacy?
a) providing vast and generic goals
b) helping the team achieve small successes
c) creating a team such that it has diverse members
d) ensuring that team goals are substantially difficult
e) reducing the number of members on a team drastically
B
9) Which of the following must be avoided if one wants to create and maintain an effective team?
a) task conflicts
b) reflexivity
c) specific goals
d) relationship conflicts
e) congruent mental models
D
