Chapter 7 - Building, Leading and Managing Teams

Question 1

What does Schein suggest a group is?

Answer 1

Any number of people who:
Interact with one another
Are psychologically aware of one another and
perceive themselves to be a group

Question 2

What is a team?

Answer 2

A formal group. It has a leader and a distinctive culture and is geared towards a final result.

Question 3

What are the four types of groups?

Answer 3

Self-directed and autonomous groups
Reference groups
Formal groups
Informal groups

Question 4

What is a self-directed and autonomous group?

Answer 4

Based on the theory that the interaction of the task with the individual is best served by groups

Question 5

What is a reference group?

Answer 5

is a group the individual does not currently belong to but wants to join. (e.g. shop steward group).

Question 6

What is a formal group?

Answer 6

Membership is normally formal, often determined or constrained by the organisation into departments or divisions

Question 7

What is a informal group?

Answer 7

Membership is normally voluntary and informal. Individual members are dependent on each other, influence each other’s behaviour and contribute to each other’s needs

Question 8

What are the benefits of a group?

Answer 8

Increased productivity
Synergy - Synergy describes the phenomenon in which the combined activity of separate entities has a greater effect than the sum of the activities of each entity working alone
Improved focus and responsibility
Improved problem solving
Greater creativity
Increased satisfaction
Increased motivation
Improved information flows

Question 9

What are the problems with groups?

Answer 9

Conformity - Individuals can be persuaded by group pressures to agree with decisions which are obviously wrong, and which the person must know to be wrong
The abilene paradox - This is a famous case, which demonstrates that the group can end up with an outcome that none of the members wanted
‘Risky shift’ or group polarisation - This is the tendency for groups to take decisions which are riskier than any that the individual members would take on their own.
Groupthink - . This occurs within deeply cohesive groups where the members try to minimise conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analysing, and evaluating ideas.

Question 10

What is Tuckman’s model of team development?

Answer 10

Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning - If a team remains for a long time at the performing stage there is a danger that it starts to lose efficiency. It is often best to adjourn the team or make changes to the team membership

Question 11

What are the roles in Belbin’s team roles?

Answer 11

Co-ordinator
Shaper
Plant
Monitor-evaluator
Team worker
Resource-investigator
Implementer
Completer-finisher
Specialist

Question 12

What characteristics does a co-ordinator have?

Answer 12

Mature, confident. Good chairperson. Clarifies goals/delegates well

Question 13

What characteristics does a shaper have?

Answer 13

Challenging, dynamic. Thrives on pressure. Promotes activity

Question 14

What characteristics does a plant have?

Answer 14

Creative and thoughtful. Solves problems/generates ideas

Question 15

What characteristics does a monitor-evaluator have?

Answer 15

Strategic and discerning. Sees all options/good judge

Question 16

What characteristics does a team worker have?

Answer 16

Co-operative, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens/averts friction within the team

Question 17

What characteristics does a resource-investigator have?

Answer 17

Outgoing and enthusiastic. Explores opportunities and develops contacts.

Question 18

What characteristics does a implementer have?

Answer 18

The Implementer or Company Worker is practical, reliable and efficient. Turns ideas into action/organises work to be done.

Question 19

What characteristics does a completer-finisher have?

Answer 19

Conscientious and anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time

Question 20

What characteristics does a specialists have?

Answer 20

Knowledgeable, self-starting and dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply

Question 21

What characteristics doe Vaill claim that a high-performance team have?

Answer 21

Clarification of broad purposes and near term objectives.
Commitment to purposes
Teamwork focused on the task at hand
Strong and clear leadership
Generation of inventions and new methods

Question 22

What are the five key aspects that Peter and Wakeman suggest a successful team have?

Answer 22

The numbers should be small. Larger teams would be slower and harder to manage
The team should be of limited duration, and exist only to achieve a particular task
membership should be voluntary. Where Members do not want to be part of the group, they are unlikely to participate fully Communication should be informal and unstructured, with little documentation and no status barriers
It should be action-oriented. The team should create a plan for action not ‘just a form of words’.

Question 23

What does a distributed leadership perspective recongnise?

Answer 23

There are multiple leader

Question 24

What is distributive leadership also known as?

Answer 24

shared, or collective leadership and involves the sharing of the power base between a number of individuals

Question 25

Carson et al proposed that shared leadership is facilitated by an overall team environment that consists of three dimensions. What are the three dimensions?

Answer 25

Shared purpose – when team members have similar understandings of their team’s main objectives and take steps to ensure a focus on collective goals
Social support – extent to which team members actively provide emotional and psychological strength to one another
Voice – the degree to which a team’s members have input into how the team carries out its purpose.

Question 26

What is inter-group conflict defined as?

Answer 26

Inter-group conflict within organisations can be defined as the behaviour that occurs between organisational groups when participants identify with one group and perceive that other groups may block their groups’ goal achievement

Question 27

What are the three ingredients that inter-group conflict require?

Answer 27

Group identification.
There has to be an observable group difference of some form
Frustration - Frustration means that if one group achieves its goal the other will not.

Question 28

How do you manage inter-group conflict?

Answer 28

Confrontation
Member rotations
Intergroup training
Third party consultants
Super-ordinate goals