Chapter 6 Flashcards
When does a group become a team?
- share leadership
- individuals and team as a whole share accountability for the work of the team
- develop their own purpose and mission
- works on problem solving continuously
- measure of effectiveness is the team’s outcomes and goals not individuals
Why are teams popular in organizations?
- more flexible and responsive to changing events
- more motivational
- outperform individuals when tasks require multiple skillsets
What are the four types of teams?
- Problem-Solving
- Self-Managed
- Cross-Functional
- Virtual
Problem-Solving Teams
- 5-12 employees from same department
- process improvement teams with weekly meetings
- improve quality, efficiency, work environment
- do not have authority to unilaterally implement ideas
Self-Managed Teams
- 10-15 employees
- take on responsibility of their former managers
- planning, scheduling, assigning tasks
- struggle with conflict, but when confident, very effective
Cross-Functional Teams
- at same hierarchal level, but from different work areas who come together to accomplish a task
Virtual Teams
- uses computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members to achieve a common goal
- have special challenges; social rapport, less interaction, isolation
How to make virtual teams effective?
- establish trust across members
- monitor team progress closely (don’t get distracted or lose sight of goals)
- efforts and products of the virtual team are publicized throughout organization (avoid invisibility0
Multi-Team Systems
a collection of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal, a team of teams
What is a role?
a set of expected behaviours of a person in a given position in a social unit
What is role expectations?
how others believe a person should act in a given situation
Role Conflict
a situation in which individual finds that complying with one role requirement may make it more difficult to comply with another
Role Ambiguity
a person is unclear about their role
Role Overload
when too much is expected of someone based on what they can achieve realistically/do
Role Underload
too little is expected of someone and that person feels that he or she is not contributing to the group
Norms
acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared by other group members
What are the most common topics/issues of norms?
- Performance
- appearance
- social arrangement
- allocation of resources
How do norms develop?
- Explicit Statements made by a group member
- Critical events in the group’s history
- Primacy
- Carry over from past situations
What makes norms important?
- Facilitate group survival
- Increase predictability of group member behaviour
- Reduces embarrassing interpersonal problems
- Allows members to express the central values of the group and clarify what is distinctive about the group identity