topic 5: teams and culture

Question 1

what is a group?

Answer 1

a social aggregate that involve mutual awareness and potential mutual interaction. two or more persons who are interacting with one another in such manner that each person influences and is influenced by each person.

Question 2

what is a team?

Answer 2

two or more individuals who: socially interact, possess one or more common goals, are brought together to perform relevant tasks, exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, have different roles and responsibilities.

Question 3

teamwork processes

Answer 3

members interdependent acts that convert inputs to outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioral activities directed toward organizing task work to achieve collective goals.

Question 4

anticipation (implicit coordination)

Answer 4

expectations and predictions of demands of the task and the actions and needs of others.

Question 5

dynamic adjustment (implicit coordination)

Answer 5

actions taken on an ongoing basis in order to mutually adapt their behavior.

Question 6

team interpersonal processes

Answer 6

cohesion and culture are the main focus. climate is a manifestation of culture that provides a snapshot of the underlying assumptions which form a culture, culture is a set of meanings that is rooter in the deeper consciousness of organisations.

Question 7

Edgar Schein’s culture model

Answer 7

focuses on the deepest, often unconscious part of a group. the model consists of three domains: artifacts, espoused beliefs and values and underlying assumptions. artifacts are visible organisational structures and processes. espoused beliefs consist of strategies, goals and philosophies, underlying assumptions are defined as unconscious.

Question 8

forming stage (culture formation)

Answer 8

involves a period of orientation and getting acquainted. are asking questions as in “what is expected of me?”

Question 9

storming stage (culture formation)

Answer 9

the most difficult and critical stage to pass through, members may disagree on team goals, and subgroups and cliques may form around strong personalities or areas of agreement.

Question 10

norming stage (culture formation)

Answer 10

consensus develops around who the leader or leaders are, and individual member roles. interpersonal differences begin to be resolved and a sense of cohesion and unity emerges

Question 11

performing stage (culture formation)

Answer 11

consensus develops and cooperation have been well-established and the team is mature, organized, and well-functioning. there is no clear and stable structure, and members are committed to the team’s mission.

Question 12

adjourning stage (culture formation)

Answer 12

most of the team’s goals have been accomplished. the emphasis is on wrapping up the final tasks and documenting the effort and results.

Question 13

cohesion

Answer 13

the total field of forces causing members to remain in the group. the extent to which group members are attracted to the group and its goals.

Question 14

interpersonal attraction (cohesion)

Answer 14

a shared linking for or attachment to the members of the group

Question 15

task commitment (cohesion)

Answer 15

the extent to which the task allows the group to attain important goals or the extent to which a shared commitment to the group’s task exist. a little more important that interpersonal attraction.

Question 16

group pride (cohesion)

Answer 16

the extent to which group members exhibit liking for the status or the ideologies that the group supports or represents, or the shared importance of being a member of the group. a little more important than interpersonal attraction.

Question 17

emergent states

Answer 17

are beliefs that team members hold about the team goals, team member abilities and form early in the process.

Question 18

team confict

Answer 18

a characteristic of social grouping that reflects the degree to which objective or subjective differences exist between group members. interferes with team performance and lowers satisfaction.

Question 19

task conflict

Answer 19

focused on how the work gets done. had a negative effect on teamwork because of conflict about how a task is done or how tasks are distributed. sometimes task conflict have a positive effect, ensure a better understanding of the task.

Question 20

relation conflict

Answer 20

about personal taste, political preferences, values and interpersonal styles. this type of conflict can distract people from their tasks, create member anxiety, hinder people from solving problems together.

Question 21

process conflict

Answer 21

disagreements of the logistics of task accomplishments, a positive side of this conflict that it may enhance the reevaluation of processes, but the negatives still highly outweigh the positives.

Question 22

team training

Answer 22

skill focused, includes practice component, done in context, generally formal and systematic, form an instructional strategy, designed to enhance taskwork and teamwork.

Question 23

team building

Answer 23

does not target skill-based competencies, typically done in settings that do not approximate the actual performance, not systematic in nature, planned, improve the collaborative efforts of people who must work together to achieve goals.

Question 24

virtual teamwork

Answer 24

virtual teams who collaborate toward a common goal under conditions of geographical, temporal, or organizational dispersion, so that communication and coordination are predominantly based on electronic communication media.

Question 25

learning zone (Edmonson graph)

Answer 25

high psychological safety and high accountability for performance

Question 26

comfort zone (Edmonson graph)

Answer 26

high psychological safety and low accountability for performance

Question 27

apathy zone (Edmonson graph)

Answer 27

low psychological safety and low accountability for performance

Question 28

anxiety zone (Edmonson graph)

Answer 28

low psychological safety and high accountability for performance

Question 29

team interventions

Answer 29

organisations spend a lot of money on team development interventions, have the largest effects on financial measures of performance. key mechanisms that may be used to facilitate team effectiveness.