Team Dynamics Flashcards
What is a team?
Teams are groups of two or more people who interact and influence one another, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organisational objectives and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organisation.
What is the criteria that needs to be met for a group to be a team?
- It exists to complete a purpose (objective).
- The people are interdependent.
- The members of the team influence each other.
- The members of the team perceive themselves as a team.
What are the three characteristics (things that make some teams different from others) of a team?
- Team permanence.
- Skill differentiation.
- Authority differentiation.
What is team permanence?
Team permanence refers to how long a team exists.
What is skill differentiation?
Skill differentiation refers to how varied the skills each member of the team brings are.
What is authority differentiation?
Authority differentiation refers to the degree that decision making is distributed throughout the team.
What are the different kinds of teams?
- Departmental teams
- Production/service/leadership teams
- Self directed teams
- Task force (project) teams.
- Action teams
- Advisory teams
- Skunkworks
- Virtual teams
- Communities of practice.
What are informal groups?
Groups include people assembled together, whether or not they have any interdependence or organizationally focused objective. They primarily exist for the benefit of their members.
Are informal groups teams?
Usually no.
What are the benefits of informal groups?
- They minimize employee stress.
2. Encourage trust, info sharing, power, influence and wellbeing.
What are 7 advantages of working in a team?
- Better decisions.
- Better product and service output.
- More engaged employees.
- Sharing of information.
- Coordination.
- Increased motivation/bonding.
- Accountability/benchmarking.
Do people in teams work more effectively than individuals?
Under the right conditions - yes.
What are some challenges of working in teams?
- Process losses.
2. Social Loafing.
What are process losses?
Process losses refer to the time and effort that is spent on team maintaining/developing the team that could have been spent doing the core task.
How does complexity fit into the decision of whether a team is needed to complete some work?
If the work is highly complex = needs a team.
If the work is not complex = can be done individually.
What increases the intensity of process losses?
When people are added/replaced in a team.
What is social loafing?
Social loafing (also known as motivational process loss) is when team members exert less effort in a team vs working alone.
What factors influence social loafing?
- Peoples effort is hidden = more loafing.
- task is interesting = less loafing.
- people value team effort = less loafing.
What makes a team effective?
A team is effective when it benefits the organization and its members and when it survives long enough to accomplish its mandate. Also a team should satisfy its member’s needs.
What are the 5 elements of the team effectiveness model?
- Org and team environment
- Team design
- Team states
- Team processes
- Team effectiveness
What is the org/team environment?
Refers to all the things outside the team that might influence its performance. Environment is external.
Are team rewards good or bad?
Good. Teams tend to work better together when there are team rewards.
What org/team environment elements improve performance?
- Support of work structures.
- Rewards.
- When the org structure provides a team with their own ‘cluster’ of work.
- When IT supports collab.
- Physical layout supports collab.
- When there is external competition.
Define team design elements.
Team design elements are the size, task features and makeup of a team.
What are task characteristics?
Task characteristics are different kinds of features of tasks that need to be done by a team.
What are the different kinds of task characteristics?
- Task complexity.
- Task structure.
- Task interdependence (pooled, sequential and reciprocal).
If task interdependence is high, should the work be done as a team or alone?
As a team - but only if the team has the same goal.
What is the ideal team size?
Big enough to have the required competencies, but small enough that it is effectively able to communicate/coordinate (minimize process loss).