Lecture 5: Teams

Question 1

What is a team

Answer 1

Group of people that
•Are interdependent
•Bounded: members and non-members know who is in the team and who isn’t
•Operate in a social system: interact with others outside the team
•Stable
•Have the authority to manage their work and internal processes

Question 2

How is a group different from the team

Answer 2

Stronger interdependence
Stronger focus on collective performance
Stronger commitment to a common goal
Stronger focus on complementarity synergy
Stronger mutual accountability

Question 3

What is an effective team?

Answer 3

Quantity, quality, and timeliness of the productive output
Team Viability: Increased ability to perform as a unit after working together
Outcomes for individual members: Satisfaction & learning

Question 4

What should we do when constructing a team?

Answer 4

Articulate compelling team purpose
=evoking interest, attention, or admiration
The purpose should be Clear, Challenging, Consequential

Question 5

Size of the team

Answer 5

• process gains stop at around 5 team members
• process loses increase with more team members
  –> generally 4 to 6 is a good number
  after 10 process losses are higher than gains

Question 6

Name four prespectives on team composition

Answer 6

(1) The traditional personnel-position fit model
(2) The personnel fit model with teamwork considerations
(3) The relative contributions model
(4) The team profile model

Question 7

(1)The traditional personnel-position fit model

Answer 7

Main logic:
•Teams whose members are, on average, smarter do better (Devine & Philips, 2001)
•Teams whose members have more positional knowledge/talent do better (e.g. Cooke et al, 2003)
•Teams whose members are, on average, more conscientious do better (Bell, 200

Question 8

Evidence that contradicts the traditional personnel-position fit model

Answer 8

• most competitive chickens in the same place–> die
• In sports where there is a lot of interdependence, the number of top athletes doesn’t have linear relationshpi[ with performance

Question 9

(2) The personnel fit model with teamwork

Answer 9

considerationsPerspective: Talent isn’t everything, teamwork skills (in the broadest sense) bring it all together
Focus on
-Coordination skills
-Cooperativeness
-Team orientation
- Collective intelligence of the team

Question 10

The personnel fit model with teamwork research highlights

Answer 10

Teams whose members are, on average, more agreeable do better (Bell, 2007)
Teams whose members are, on average, more socially sensitive do better (Woolley et al., 2010)
Teams whose members have more teamwork knowledge do better (Morgesonet al., 2005)

Question 11

What are the main predictors of collective intelligence?

Answer 11

• The proportion of women (more comunal/ better EQ)
• Member social sensitivity
• Equality of participation

Question 12

(3) The relative contributions model Perspective

Answer 12

-some members’ KSAOs have a bigger impact on team effectiveness than others
–not everybody needs to be a star, but some positions need a star more than others
Focus on: Core roles = roles that
•encounter more of the team’s problems
•have greater exposure to tasks the team is performing
•are more central to the workflow

Question 13

The relative contributions model perspective (research highlights)

Answer 13

The talent of core role holders contributes more to team performance than talent of more peripheral members (Humphrey et al., 2009)

Question 14

(4) The team profile model Perspective:

Answer 14

The configuration of members’ characteristics impacts team effectiveness above and beyond their mere presence

Question 15

Optimistic and pessimistic perspective on diversity

Answer 15

Optimistic: diversity good for teams because of enhanced information processing
Pessimistic: diversity is bad for performance and team viability because it leads to categorizations

Question 16

Social identity theory and intergroup bias

Answer 16

you are more likely to benefit an ingroup member at the expense (punishing) of the outgroup member even when differences between the groups are almost non-existant (minimal group paradigm)

Question 17

Social identity theory

Answer 17

• -> we identify our self with a group and have a need to maintain a positive view of the group (positive social identity).
• when we don’t have a positive view, we engage in social creativity, mobility or competition

Question 18

The integrative perspective

Answer 18

Team divesity –> social categorization–>Inergroup bias–> information processing –> team performance

Question 19

The integrative perspective: what affects the path between team diversity –> information processing

Answer 19

• Task, ability, motivation
  Diverse teams do better than homogeneous teams when:
  -The task is complex rather than simple (Weggeet al., 2008)
  -The members are motivated to learn and engage with new information rather than searching for quick consensus (Kearney et al., 2009)

Question 20

What affects the path from team diversity to categorization?

Answer 20

Easy categories
Diverse teams do worse than homogeneous teams when-Differences are aligned in such a way that makes for easy divisions into subgroups along“faultlines”(Thatcher& Patel,2012)

Question 21

What are faultlines?

Answer 21

Differences that are aligned in such a way that makes for easy divisions into subgroups

Question 22

What does affect social categorization –> intergroup bias path

Answer 22

Altitudes and relations
Diverse teams do better than homogeneous teams when
-Members share a positive “diversity mindset”(e.g., Homan et al., 2007)
-Members have high levels of openness for experience (Homan et al., 2008)

Question 23

Implications of the integrative perspective for composing teams

Answer 23

• Fit team to task
• Avoid fault lines in team composition
• Consider members’ motivation
• Consider members’ experience with and attitudes towards working on diverse teams and work on positive diversity mindset