Team processes and communication Flashcards
Team processes
Reflects the different types of activities and interactions that occur within teams and contribute to their ultimate end goals
T/F team characteristics (member diversity, task interdependence, team size) affect team processes
True
T/F Team processes have a strong impact on team effectiveness
True
Process gain
Getting more from the team than you would expect according to capabilities of its individual members
Process loss
Getting less from the team than you would expect based on capabilities of individual members
Cause of process loss
Coordination loss and motivational loss
Coordination loss
Effort spent coordinating/integrating team member roles detracts from task-related work (production blocking - delays caused by team members not finishing their part of task)
Motivational loss
Workers don’t work as hard as they would working alone (social loafing - relying on others on team to complete the team task)
Taskwork processes
Creative behavior, decision making, boundary spanning
Creative behavior
Sharp focus, playful rules, stretch your brain, get physical. DONT let boss speak first, limit silly stuff, only include experts, and force everyone to have a turn
Decision making
Decision informity - do members possess adequate information about their own task responsibilities
Staff validity - Degree to which members make good recommendations to the leader
Hierarchical sensitivity - Reflects degree to which leader effectively weighs the recommendations of members
Decision Informity
Reflect whether members possess adequate information about their own task responsibilities
Staff validity
Refers to the degree to which members make good recommendations to the leader
Hierarchical sensitivity
Reflects the degree to which the leader effectively weighs the recommendations of the members
Boundary spanning
Ambassador activities - Communications that are intended to protect the team, persuade others to support team, or obtain important resources for the team tasks
Task coordinator - Communications intended to coordinate task-related issues w/ people or groups in other functional areas
Scout activities - Things team members do to obtain information about technology, competitors, or broader marketplace
Transition processes
Mission analysis, strategy formulation, goal specification
Mission analysis
Analysis of team’s task, the challenges facing the team, resources available for completing the team’s work
Strategy formulation
Development of courses of action and contingency plans, and adapting those plans in light of changes that occur in the team’s environment
Goal specification
Development and prioritization of goals related to the team’s mission and strategy
Action Processes
Monitoring progress towards goals, systems monitoring, helping behavior, coordination
Interpersonal Processes
Motivation and confidence building refers to things team members do or say that affect the degree to which members are motivated to work hard on the task
-Conflict management involves activities that the team uses to manage conflicts that arise in the course of its work
Relationship conflict
Personal disagreements based on personality and values
Task Conflict
Disagreements related to task. Can be proactive if members are free to express themselves without fear of reprisals and if group uses effective conflict management processes
Chain of communication
Information, sender, encoding, message, decoding, receiver, understanding (noise impacts all of it)
Communicator issues
Competence or emotional intelligence
Noise
Interference with the message being transmitted
Information richness
Amount and depth of information transmitted. Face to face has most richness due to body language cues and feedback
Network structures
all channels, circle, Y, wheel
What network channel has highest effectiveness in complex tasks?
All channels
Team states
Cohesion, potency, mental models, transactive memory
Cohesion
Members of teams develop strong emotional bonds to other members of their team and to the team itself
Groupthink
Happens in highly cohesive teams when members may try to maintain harmony by striving toward consensus on issues without ever offering, seeking, or seriously considering alternate viewpoints and perspectives.
Potency
Refers to the degree to which members believe that the team can be effective across a variety of situations and tasks
Transition processes
Mission analysis, strategy formulation, goal specification
Mission analysis
Analysis of the team’s task, challenges that face the team, resources available for completing the team’s work
Strategy formulation
Refers to the development of courses of action and contingency plans, adapting those plans in light of changes that occur in team’s environment
Goal specification
Development and prioritization of goals related to team’s mission and strategy
Action processes
Monitoring progress toward goals, systems monitoring, helping behavior, coordination
Interpersonal processes
Motivating and confidence building refers to things that team members do or say that affect the degree to which members are motivated to work hard on a task
Conflict management
Activities that the team uses to manage conflicts that arise in the course of its work
Relationship conflict
Personal disagreements based on personality and values
Task conflict
Disagreements relating to task. Can be proactive if members feel free to express views with our of reprisals and if group uses effective conflict management processes
Team communication processes
Information, sender, encoding, message, decoding, receiver, understanding
Communicator issues
Competence, emotional intelligence
Noise
Interference with the message being transmitted
Information richness
Amount and depth of information transmitted
Network Structure
All channels, circle, Y, wheel
What network structure is most effective for simple tasks
Wheel
What network structure is most effective for complex tasks
All channel
Team states
Cohesion, potency, mental models, transactive memory
Cohesion
Members of teams develop strong emotional bonds to other members of their team and to team itself
Groupthink
Highly cohesive teams when members may try to maintain harmony by striving towards consensus without considering alternative viewpoints
Potency
Refers to the degree to which members believe that the team can be effective across a variety of situations and tasks
Mental models
Level of common understanding among all team members with regard to important aspects of the team and its task
Transactive memory
How specialized knowledge is distributed among members in a manner that results in an effective system of memory for the team. Needs to involve EVERY team member. Memory systems are more complex than members who comprise them