6.1: Defining Teams and Teamwork

6.1.1: Defining a Team

Learning Objective

Define teams, particularly as they pertain to the business environment or organizational workplace

Key Points

• In a business setting most work is accomplished by teams of individuals. Because of this, it is important for employees to have the skills necessary to work effectively with others.
• Organizations use many kinds of teams, some of which are permanent and some of which are temporary.
• Teams are used to accomplish tasks that are too large or complex to be done by an individual or that require a diverse set of skills and expertise.

Key Term

team

A group of people working toward a common purpose.

A team is a group of people who work together toward a common goal. Teams have defined membership (which can be either large or small) and a set of activities to take part in. People on a team collaborate on sets of related tasks that are required to achieve an objective. Each member is responsible for contributing to the team, but the group as a whole is responsible for the team’s success.

Teams in the Workplace

Sports teams are a good example of how teams work. For instance, a basketball team has individual players who each contribute toward the goal of winning a game. Similarly, in business settings most work is accomplished by teams of individuals who collaborate on activities with defined outcomes. Because teams are so prevalent in business organizations, it is important for employees to have the skills necessary to work effectively with others.

Organizations typically have many teams, and an individual is frequently a member of more than one team. Some teams are permanent and are responsible for ongoing activities. For instance, a team of nurses in a maternity ward provides medical services to new mothers. While patients come and go, the tasks involved in providing care remain stable. In other cases a team is formed for a temporary purpose: these are called project teams and have a defined beginning and end point linked to achieving a particular one-time goal.

The Purpose of Teams

Organizations form teams to accomplish tasks that are too large or complex for an individual to complete. Teams are also effective for work that requires different types of skills and expertise. For example, the development of new products involves understanding customer needs as well as how to design and build a product that will meet these needs. Accordingly, a new product-development team would include people with customer knowledge as well as designers and engineers.

6.1.2: Defining Teamwork

Learning Objective

Identify the processes and activities by which team work gets done

Key Points

• Teamwork involves shared responsibility and collaboration toward a common outcome.
• Teamwork processes can be divided into three categories: the transition process, action processes, and interpersonal processes.
• Five characteristics of effective teamwork are shared values, mutual trust, inspiring vision, skills, and rewards.

Key Terms

teamwork

The cooperative effort of a group of people seeking a common end.

conflict resolution

Working to resolve different opinions in a team environment.

conflict

Friction, disagreement, or discord arising between individuals or groups.

Teamwork involves a set of tasks and activities performed by individuals who collaborate with each other to achieve a common objective. That objective can be creating a product, delivering a service, writing a report, or making a decision. Teamwork differs from individual work in that it involves shared responsibility for a final outcome.

Teamwork

Human skill involves the ability to work effectively as a member of a group and to build cooperative effort in a team.

Teamwork Processes

While the substance of the tasks involved in teamwork may vary from team to team, there are three processes that are common to how teamwork gets done: the transition process, action processes, and interpersonal processes. During each of these processes, specific sets of activities occur.

1. The transition process is the phase during which a team is formed. Activities include:

• Mission analysis: establishing an understanding of the overall objective
• Goal specification: identifying and prioritizing the tasks and activities needed to achieve the mission
• Strategy formulation: developing a course of action to reach the goals and achieve the mission

2. Action processes comprise the phase during which a team performs its work. Activities include:

• Monitoring milestones and goals: tracking progress toward completion of tasks and activities
• Monitoring systems: tracking the use of resources such as people, technology, and information
• Coordination: organizing and managing the flow of team activities and tasks
• Team monitoring and support: assisting individuals with their tasks by, for example, providing feedback and coaching

3. Interpersonal processes include activities that occur during both the transition and action processes. These include:

• Conflict management: establishing conditions to avoid disagreement and resolving conflict when it occurs
• Motivation and confidence building: generating the willingness and ability of individuals to work together to achieve the mission
• Affect management: helping team members to regulate their emotions as they work together

Characteristics of Effective Teamwork

An effective team accomplishes its goals in a way that meets the standards set by those who evaluate its performance. For instance, a team may have a goal of delivering a new product within six months on a budget of $100,000. Even if the team finishes the project on time, it can be considered effective only if it stayed within its expected budget.

Effective teamwork requires certain conditions to be in place that will increase the likelihood that each member’s contributions—and the effort of the group as a whole—will lead to success. Effective teams share five characteristics:

• Shared values:a common set of beliefs and principles about how and why the team members will work together
• Mutual trust: confidence between team members that each puts the best interest of the team ahead of individual priorities
• Inspiring vision:a clear direction that motivates commitment to a collective effort
• Skill/talent:the combined abilities and expertise to accomplish the required tasks and work productively with others
• Rewards:recognition of achievement toward objectives and reinforcement of behavior that supports the team’s work

Effective teamwork requires that people work as a cohesive unit. These five characteristics can help individuals collaborate with others by focusing their efforts in a common direction and achieving an outcome that can only be reached by working together.

6.1.3: The Role of Teams in Organizations

Learning Objective

Recognize the role of a team in an organization, and illustrate the team process.

Key Points

• Due to global and technological factors, the importance of combining competencies and building strong teams is increasing.
• By combining resources (both across management levels and functional disciplines), organizations can create unique synergies and core competencies.
• Cross-functional teams utilize a wide variety of unique skill sets to build teams capable of achieving complex objectives.
• When carrying out a process in a team, it’s important to set objectives and strategy, carry out objectives, and build strong interpersonal efficiency.

Key Terms

cross-functional teams

Teams with members that have diverse skill sets, enabling synergy across core competencies.

synergy

The ability for a group to accomplish more together than they could accomplish individually.

The Modern Organization

Teams are increasingly common and relevant from an organizational perspective, as globalization and technology continue to expand organizational scope and strategy. In organizations, teams can be constructed both vertically (varying levels of management) and horizontally (across functional disciplines). In order to maintain synergy between employees and organize resources, teams are increasingly common across industries and organizational types.

The Role of Teams

The primary role of a team is to combine resources, competencies, skills, and bandwidth to achieve organizational objectives. The underlying assumption of a well-functioning team is one of synergy, which is to say that the output of a team will be greater than the sum of each individual’s contribution without a team architecture in place. As a result, teams are usually highly focused groups of employees, with the role of achieving specific tasks to support organizational success.

Cross-Functional Teams

Some organizations have a need for strong cross-functional teams that enable various functional competencies to align on shared objectives. This is particularly common at technology companies, where a number of specific disciplines are combined to produce complex products and/or services.

Team Processes

When considering the role of a team, it’s important to understand the various processes that teams will carry out over time. At the beginning of a team set up (or when redirecting the efforts of a team), a transitional process is carried out. Once the team has set strategic goals, they can begin progressing towards the completion of those goals operationally. The final team process is one of interpersonal efficiency, or refining the team dynamic for efficiency and success. 

More specifically, these processes can be described as follows:

Transitional Process

• Mission analysis
• Goal specification
• Strategy formulation

Action Process

• Monitoring progress toward goals
• Systems monitoring
• Team monitoring and backup behavior
• Coordination

Interpersonal Process

• Conflict management
• Motivation and confidence building
• Affect management

The Impact of Team Building

This chart allows you to visualize data from a study on team-building, and its impact on team performance. Building a strong organizational culture for successful teams requires commitment to team processes.

This chart visualizes data from a study on team-building, and it’s impact on team performance. Building a strong organizational culture for successful teams requires commitment to team processes.

6.1.4: Types of Teams

Learning Objective

Recognize the differences between types of teams and their uses

Key Points

• An organization may use different types of teams depending on the work that needs to be accomplished to meet its goals.
• Common teams include project teams, virtual teams, and cross-functional teams.
• Project teams are created for a defined period of time to achieve a specific goal.
• Virtual teams have members who work in separate locations that are often geographically dispersed.
• Cross-functional teams bring together people with diverse expertise and knowledge from different departments or specialties.

Key Term

cross-functional team

A group of people from different departments in an organization working toward a common goal.

Depending on its needs and goals, a company may use different types of teams. Some efforts are limited in duration and have a well-defined outcome. Other work requires the participation of people from different locations. Still other projects depend on people with a broad and diverse range of knowledge and expertise.

Different Kinds of Teams

Teams may be permanent or temporary, and team members may come from the same department or different ones. Common types of teams found in organizations include project teams, virtual teams, and cross-functional teams.

• Project teams are created for a defined period of time to achieve a specific goal. Members of a project team often belong to different functional groups and are chosen to participate in the team based on specific skills they can contribute to the project. Software development is most commonly done by project teams.
• Virtual teams have members located in different places, often geographically dispersed, who come together to achieve a specific purpose. Academic researchers often work on virtual teams with colleagues at other institutions.
• Cross-functional teams combine people from different areas, such as marketing and engineering, to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Healthcare services are frequently delivered by interdisciplinary teams of nurses, doctors, and other medical specialists.

It is common for an organization to have many teams, including teams of several types. Effective teamwork depends on choosing the type of team best suited to the work that needs to be accomplished.

6.1.5: Advantages of Teamwork

Learning Objective

Identify the sources of benefits teamwork creates

Key Points

• When a team works well together as a unit they are able to accomplish more than the individual members can do alone.
• Teamwork creates higher quality outcomes that are more efficient, thoughtful, and effective, as well as faster.
• Individuals benefit from teamwork through mutual support and a great sense of accomplishment.

Key Terms

diverse

Consisting of many different elements; various.

efficiency

The extent to which a resource, such as electricity, is used for the intended purpose; the ratio of useful work to energy expended.

The primary benefit of teamwork is that it allows an organization to achieve something that an individual working alone cannot. This advantage arises from several factors, each of which accounts for a different aspect of the overall benefit of teams.

Higher Quality Outcomes

Teamwork creates outcomes that make better use of resources and produce richer ideas.

• Higher efficiency: Since teams combine the efforts of individuals, they can accomplish more than an individual working alone.
• Faster speed: Because teams draw on the efforts of many contributors, they can often complete tasks and activities in less time.
• More thoughtful ideas: Each person who works on a problem or set of tasks may bring different information and knowledge to bear, which can result in solutions and approaches an individual would not have identified.
• Greater effectiveness: When people coordinate their efforts, they can divide up roles and tasks to more thoroughly address an issue. For example, in hospital settings teamwork has been found to increase patient safety more than when only individual efforts are made to avoid mishaps.

Better Context for Individuals

The social aspect of teamwork provides a superior work experience for team members, which can motivate higher performance.

• Mutual support: Because team members can rely on other people with shared goals, they can receive assistance and encouragement as they work on tasks. Such support can encourage people to achieve goals they may not have had the confidence to have reached on their own.
• Greater sense of accomplishment: When members of a team collaborate and take collective responsibility for outcomes, they can feel a greater sense of accomplishment when they achieve a goal they could not have achieved if they had worked by themselves.

The total value created by teamwork depends on the overall effectiveness of the team effort. While we might consider simply achieving a goal a benefit of teamwork, by taking advantage of what teamwork has to offer, an organization can gain a broader set of benefits.

6.1.6: Hazards of Teamwork

Learning Objective

Identify the common pitfalls teams can encounter that limit their performance

Key Points

• The social aspect of collaborative work makes teams vulnerable to pitfalls that can hurt performance.
• Common pitfalls involve poor group dynamics such as weak norms, lack of trust, and interpersonal conflict.
• Poor team-design choices such as size, skill sets, and assignment of roles can negatively affect a team’s ability to complete tasks.

Key Term

groupthink

A process of reasoning or decision making by a group, especially one characterized by uncritical acceptance of or conformity to a perceived majority view.

The collaborative nature of teams means they are subject to pitfalls that individuals working alone do not face. Team members may not always work well together, and focusing the efforts of individuals on shared goals presents challenges to completing tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible. The following pitfalls can lead to team dysfunction and failure to achieve important organizational objectives.

Individuals Shirking Their Duties

Since team members share responsibility for outcomes, some individuals may need to do additional work to make up for those not contributing their share of effort. This can breed resentment and foster other negative feelings that can make the team less effective. One cause of this is the failure of the team to establish clear norms of accountability for individual contributions to the group effort.

Skewed Influence over Decisions

Sometimes an individual or small number of team members can come to dominate the rest of the group. This could be due to strong personalities, greater abilities, or differences in status among members. When individuals either do not feel listened to or believe their ideas are not welcome, they may reduce their efforts.

Lack of Trust

Effective collaboration requires team members to have confidence that everyone shares a set of goals. When that belief is missing, some individuals may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas with the group. Lack of trust can also lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings, which can undermine the group’s efforts.

Conflicts Hamper Progress

While conflicts are a common aspect of working together and can even be beneficial to a team, they can also negatively affect team performance. For instance, conflict can delay progress on tasks or create other inefficiencies in getting work done.

Lack of Teaming Skills

When team members do not have the collaboration skills needed to work well with others, the overall ability of the team to function can be limited. As a result, conflicts may be more likely to arise and more difficult to resolve.

Missing Task Skills

A team that does not have the expertise and knowledge needed to complete all its tasks and activities will have trouble achieving its goals. Poor team composition can lead to delays, higher costs, and increased risk.

Stuck in Formation

Sometimes the group cannot move from defining goals and outlining tasks to executing its work plan. This may be due to poor specification of roles, tasks, and priorities.

Too Many Members

The size of the team can sometimes affect its ability to function effectively. Coordination and communication are more complex in a larger team than in a smaller one. This complexity can mean that decisions must take into account greater amounts of information, meetings are more challenging to schedule, and tasks can take longer to complete.

Groupthink

Outcomes can suffer if team members value conflict avoidance and consensus over making the best decisions. People can feel uncomfortable challenging the group’s direction or otherwise speaking up for fear of breaking a team norm. This phenomenon is known as “groupthink.” Groupthink can limit creativity, lead to poor choices, or result in mistakes that might otherwise have been avoidable.

While teams offer many benefits, their effectiveness rests on how well members can avoid common pitfalls or minimize their negative consequences when they occur.

6.1.7: Differences Between Groups and Teams

Learning Objective

Differentiate between a group and a team

Key Points

• A group is two or more individuals who share common interests or characteristics and whose members identify with each other due to similar traits.
• Teams and groups differ in five key ways: task orientation, purpose, interdependence, formal structure, and familiarity among members.

Key Terms

group

A number of things or persons that have some relationship to one another. A subset of a culture or of a society.

team

Any group of people involved in the same activity, especially referring to sports and work.

While all teams are groups of individuals, not all groups are teams. Team members work together toward a common goal and share responsibility for the team’s success. A group is comprised of two or more individuals that share common interests or characteristics, and its members identify with each other due to similar traits. Groups can range greatly in size and scope. For example, members of the millennial generation are a group, but so is a small book club formed by neighbors who enjoy reading.

Groups differ from teams in several ways:

• Task orientation: Teams require coordination of tasks and activities to achieve a shared aim. Groups do not need to focus on specific outcomes or a common purpose.
• Degree of interdependence: Team members are interdependent since they bring to bear a set of resources to produce a common outcome. Individuals in a group can be entirely disconnected from one another and not rely on fellow members at all.
• Purpose: Teams are formed for a particular reason and can be short- or long-lived. Groups can exist as a matter of fact; for example, a group can be comprised of people of the same race or ethnic background.
• Degree of formal structure: Team members’ individual roles and duties are specified and their ways of working together are defined. Groups are generally much more informal; roles do not need to be assigned and norms of behavior do not need to develop.
• Familiarity among members: Team members are aware of the set of people they collaborate with, since they interact to complete tasks and activities. Members of a group may have personal relationships or they may have little knowledge of each other and no interactions whatsoever.

Sometimes it is difficult to draw a distinction between a team and a group. For instance, a set of coworkers might meet on occasion to discuss an issue or provide input on a decision. While such meetings typically have an agenda and thus a purpose and some structure, we would not necessarily think of those in attendance as a team. The activity scope and duration is just too small to involve the amount of coordination of resources and effort that teamwork requires.

6.2: Types of Teams

6.2.1: Task Forces

A task force is a temporary team created to address a single piece of work, a problem, or a goal.

Key Points

• The term “task force” originated in the United States Navy. A naval task force was designed to provide flexibility in operations since it could be formed without the reorganization or repurposing of the fleet.
• Today, many organizations use task forces to bring together experts to assess, make recommendations, or take other actions to address a single issue or topic.

Key Terms

substitute

A replacement or stand-in for something that achieves a similar result or purpose.

entrant

A participant.

“Task force” is a phrase that originated in the United States Navy during World War II. At the time, naval operations were performed by formal groupings such as fleets or squadrons, but the war created new challenges for the U.S. Navy that demanded flexibility in how resources were used. Formation of a task force allowed officers and equipment that formally belonged to different groups to come together for a single specific purpose, without reassigning responsibility for those assets or requiring the reorganization or repurposing of the fleet. Task forces were temporary and easily disbanded after their work was complete.

Today, in government, business, and other arenas, task forces are special ad-hoc committees created especially to deal with single problems or issues. For example, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) comprises independent national experts in prevention that use evidence-based and clinical preventative techniques to improve health outcomes for Americans. Examples of this kind of care would be routine screenings for disease, such as mammograms. As in the USPSTF, members of a task force are typically experts, and the group operates with a specific charge and within a specific time frame. The task force usually begins by assessing the factors that relate to its work. Next, the team typically identifies and analyzes possible solutions and develops recommendations and plans for implementing them.

Generally, a task force will not have responsibility for implementing its recommendations once they are made, although individual team members may have a role in doing so. Task forces do not have the power to compel others to accept their recommendations. Indeed, the results of their work may be accepted in part, rejected in part, or even ignored altogether.

A team created by political parties to deal with campaign finance reform is an example of a task force. The task force is expected to study the issue, assess possible actions to be taken, and then make its recommendations in the form of a report. The results of the task force’s efforts then might be used by legislators to draft laws that would redefine acceptable practices for funding political campaigns.

6.2.2: Cross-Functional Teams

A cross-functional team comprises people from different departments and with special areas of expertise working to achieve a common goal.

Learning Objective

Explain the purpose and benefit of cross-functional teams

Key Points

• Cross-functional teams combine people with different areas of expertise from separate departments such as finance, human resources, and marketing.
• The range of knowledge on cross-functional teams creates a broader perspective that can lead to new ideas and better solutions and also avert risks and poor outcomes.
• The diversity of cross-functional teams can create challenges to effective communication and collaboration.

Cross-functional teams include members who bring different types of knowledge and experience from areas such as finance, engineering, human resources, and marketing. These teams occasionally may draw on subject-matter expertise from outside the organization by inviting external consultants or customers to join a team. By combining people with diverse task-related backgrounds, cross-functional teams can take a broader approach to addressing a problem or completing a set of activities. This can lead to new ideas and more creative solutions. It can also make a team’s efforts more efficient and effective by including information that can help avert risks or poor outcomes.

Team

Cross-functional teams combine people with different knowledge and perspectives.

Example of a Cross-Functional Team

Many business activities require cross-functional collaboration to achieve successful outcomes. A common example is service improvement. To better meet customer expectations and achieve higher satisfaction rates, a company first needs to understand what customers are looking for. The marketing department is responsible for gathering that type of customer data. Operations staff members have expertise in how to design the process for delivering a service, so they would need to be involved in making any changes to that system. The human resources department oversees training, and employees may need new skills to succeed with the new process. If any information technology is involved in supporting the service improvement, then people from that department should be on the team. Finally, accountants may be needed to identify any new costs and additional savings. In this example, the team brings together people from five different functional areas.

Challenges of Cross-Functional Teams

Even though diversity of knowledge and perspective is the big advantage of cross-functional teams, it can also be a source of problems. People who work in the same discipline or area have a common understanding and a terminology for their work that is unknown to others. Shorthand expressions or common acronyms that are familiar to one person may be confusing to others. This can make communication between members of a cross-functional team difficult and subject to misunderstanding.

Cross-functional teams may be more likely than less complex teams to have members with divergent perspectives on how work gets done. For instance, engineers value precision and attention to detail, while those who come from more creative areas such as marketing may prefer a less rigid approach. These differences in styles may also be reflected in the personalities of team members. It can take extra effort to collaborate when you have to take into account the preferences and styles of widely dissimilar individuals.

In some organizations certain departments have more status than others. A common distinction is between those in areas that contribute directly to revenue, such as sales and manufacturing, and those that do not, including support departments like purchasing and IT. Perceived differences in relative importance or credibility can undermine the effectiveness of cross-functional collaboration.

6.2.3: Virtual Teams

A virtual team is a temporary group created to accomplish specific tasks by using technology to collaborate remotely.

Learning Objective

Differentiate among the six most common types of virtual teams and discuss the challenges they face

Key Points

• Virtual teams rely upon computing and communications technology, especially Internet access.
• Virtual teams are prevalent in today’s workforce, as they can be cost-effective and take advantage of technology and the availability of distributed employees.
• In order to function properly, virtual teams demand effective coordination in the form of project management.
• There are six common types of virtual teams: networked teams, parallel teams, project development teams, functional teams, service teams, and offshore information-systems development teams.

Key Term

Task processes

The various ways that the virtual team accomplishes work: communication, coordination of work efforts, and a fit between the technology and the task at hand.

A virtual team is a group of individuals in different geographic locations who use technology to collaborate on work tasks and activities. The use of this kind of team has become prevalent in organizations due to the reduced costs of technology, the increased availability of collaborative technologies, the shift toward globalization in business, and greater use of outsourcing and temporary workers. Virtual teams require effective project management to facilitate communication and coordinate member activities.

Types of Virtual Teams

There are six common types of virtual teams.

1. Networked teams are loosely organized; they are usually formed to address a short-term objective and are dissolved after they accomplish that objective. Similar to task forces and cross-functional teams, networked teams frequently bring together people with different expertise to bring broad perspectives to discussing an issue or problem.
2. Parallel teams are highly task-focused and draw on individuals from different functional areas and locations. While they generally complete their work on a defined schedule, parallel teams may not be disbanded but may instead remain to take on a subsequent set of tasks.
3. Project development teams work on complex sets of activities over a long time period. They may be formed to develop new products, deliver a new technology system, or redesign operational processes.
4. Functional teams are comprised of people from the same department or area who collaborate on regular and ongoing activities, examples of which include providing training, executing marketing initiatives, and conducting research and development.
5. Service teams work with customers to address their purchasing and post-purchase needs. These teams enable a company to provide consistent service, often 24/7, to support customers wherever they are.
6. Finally, information systems development (ISD) teams make use of lower-cost labor, typically offshore, to develop software. They are typically created by dividing up the work of larger projects and assigning specific pieces to independent contractors or teams of developers.

Challenges of Virtual Teams

The geographic dispersion of team members and the lack of regular face-to-face meetings present three challenges to the success of virtual teams.

1. Coordination of tasks: A virtual team needs a clear set of objectives and a plan for how to achieve them in order to focus and direct collaboration among team members. They need clear guidelines and norms for how individuals will accomplish their work. Even more than traditional teams where individuals work in the same location and time zone, virtual teams require effective project management to facilitate communication and coordination of tasks among members.
2. Team-member skills: Beyond their functional expertise and experience, virtual team members need to be effective users of technologies such as video conferencing and other collaboration tools. They must learn to communicate well in writing to avoid misinterpretations that might be more easily avoided in a face-t0-face conversation. When virtual teams cross national boundaries, differences in language and culture require the ability to negotiate barriers to communication and collaboration.
3. Relationships: Virtual team members need to build relationships with colleagues through the use of technology, which can often seem impersonal. Distance and lack of regular personal interaction can make it difficult for trust and group cohesion to develop. When these are missing, team members can lose focus and collaboration can suffer, leading to delays, conflict, and other performance issues.

6.2.4: Self-Managing Teams

A self-managing team is a group of employees working together who are accountable for all or most aspects of their task.

Learning Objective

Compare the advantages and disadvantages of self-managing teams.

Key Points

• Self-managing teams share work tasks and supportive or managerial tasks.
• Because they are both responsible for their outcomes and in control of their decision-making process, members of the self-managing team may be more motivated and productive than traditional teams.
• Self-managing teams are different from self-directed teams. Self-managing teams work toward goals that are set for them by outside leadership, whereas self-directed teams work toward a common goal that they define.

Key Term

self-managing team

A group with a common purpose in which tasks and responsibilities are determined by the members.

A self-managing team is a group of employees working together who are accountable for most or all aspects of their task. A self-managing team has considerable discretion over how its work gets done. This means the majority of key decisions about activities are made by people with direct knowledge of, and who are most affected by, those choices. Self-managing teams are distinct from self-directed teams. While the latter define their own goals, the scope of a self-managing team’s authority is limited by goals that are established by others.

Self-management

This diagram illustrates the idea that virtual, management, and work teams can be empowered by being allowed to self-manage and monitor the quality of their own output.

Advantages of Self-Managing Teams

Organizations in various fields use self-managing teams to boost productivity and motivate employees. Members of self-managing teams plan, coordinate, direct, and control their activities. For example, they set the work schedule and assign tasks. In this way they share both the managerial and technical tasks. Team members also share responsibility for their output as a whole, which can inspire pride in their accomplishments. Because they eliminate a level of management, the use of self-managing teams can better allocate resources and even lower costs.

Disadvantages of Self-Managing Teams

There are also potential drawbacks to self-managing teams. The lack of hierarchical authority means that personal relationships can overwhelm good judgment. It can also lead to conformity, which can inhibit creativity or make it difficult for team members to be critical of each other. Self-management adds a layer of responsibility that can be time-consuming and require skills that some team members may not have. Members of a self-managing team often need training to assist them in succeeding at jobs that have a broad scope of duties.

6.3: Building Successful Teams

6.3.1: Setting Team Goals and Providing Team Feedback

Periodic performance assessments help a team identify areas for improvement so it can better achieve its goals.

Learning Objective

Apply effective performance management procedures to the process of goal setting and feedback

Key Points

• How a team functions is as important an indicator of its performance as the quality of what it produces.
• Periodic assessments help a team identify its strengths and weakness and create plans to improve how members work together.
• Methods of collecting assessment data include discussions, surveys, and personality diagnostic tests.

Key Terms

implement

To bring about; to put into practice.

feedback

Critical assessment of information produced.

performance

The act of performing; carrying into execution or action; achievement; accomplishment.

Setting Goals and Providing Feedback

The way team members function as a group is as important to the team’s success as the quality of what it produces. Because how they work together is so important to achieving the team’s goals, members need to be attentive to how they interact and collaborate with each other. Periodic self-assessments that consider the team’s progress, how it has gotten there, and where it is headed allow the team to gauge its effectiveness and take steps to improve its performance.

To assess its performance, a team seeks feedback from group members to identify its strengths and its weaknesses. Feedback from the team assessment can be used to identify gaps between what it needs to do to perform effectively and where it is currently. Once they have identified the areas for improvement, members of the team and others (such as managers) can develop a plan to close the gaps.

A team can gather the necessary data by holding a meeting in which members discuss what has gone well and what they would like to change about how they work together. It can be beneficial to have a non–team member such as a supervisor or a member of the human resources department solicit opinions through a brief written survey. The team can then use the results as a starting point for its discussion.

Poor communication and conflict can disrupt a team’s performance, and sometimes these disruptions are caused by personality clashes between members. Another type of team assessment involves using diagnostic tests to identify the dominant personality traits of each member. Characteristics such as being an extrovert or an introvert can shape how people prefer to work and communicate. Having an understanding of personality differences among team members can prove useful for changing how they interact with each other.

6.3.2: Accountability in Teams

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies.

Learning Objective

Illustrate the concept of accountability in a team-based work environment

Key Points

• Accountability is the assignment of responsibility for outcomes to an individual or group to create an incentive for performance.
• Teams are accountable for achieving collective goals.
• Individual team members are accountable to each other for their effort and contributions to the team.
• Effective accountability for teams relies on making choices that support the team’s ability to succeed.

Key Term

accountability

The acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, and decisions.

Accountability

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, and decisions. In a management context, accountability explicitly identifies who is responsible for ensuring that outcomes meet goals and creates incentives for success.

For teams in particular, accountability means that all members share responsibility for their collective output and for their success in achieving their goals. Because teamwork is organized at the collective level rather than on a per-person basis, its results are the sum of each member’s efforts. Organizations often use team-based rewards to hold teams accountable for their work.

Accountability for team members also implies that individuals have a responsibility to each other to complete tasks and contribute to the group effort. One benefit of teamwork is the mutual support and assistance that team members can provide each other. A sense of accountability to the team creates an incentive for individuals to provide help when needed. Since team tasks are interdependent, the quality of one person’s work affects that of the others. Teams use norms and other forms of social pressure to hold one another accountable.

Conditions for Effective Accountability

For accountability to work, teams need to have the resources, skills, and authority to do what they are being held responsible for. If leaders expect teams to accept the blame for failing to achieve an assigned goal, they should ensure that success is within the team’s reach. For this reason, the choices made about goal-setting, team composition, and process design have a direct effect on the degree of responsibility a team can assume for its performance.

Government accountability

Governing authorities have the obligation to report, explain, and answer for resulting consequences of their actions.

6.3.3: Choosing Team Size and Team Members

Team size and composition affect team processes and outcomes.

Learning Objective

Justify the importance of drafting a team that reflects a manageable size and conducive skill sets

Key Points

• The optimal size and composition of teams will vary depending on the team’s purpose and goals.
• Team size should take into account the scope and complexity of required tasks and activities.
• As a whole, team members should bring all the necessary skills and knowledge to meet the team’s goals.

Key Term

Composition

The proportion of different parts to make a whole.

Team size and composition affect team processes and outcomes. The optimal size and composition of teams depends on the scope of the team’s goals. With too few people, a team will not have the resources and skills it needs to complete its tasks. Too many members can make communication and coordination difficult and lead to poor team performance.

Research shows that teams perform best with between five and nine members. Dr. Meredith Belbin did extensive research on teams prior to 1990 in the UK that suggested that the optimum team size is eight roles plus a specialist as needed. Fewer than five members resulted in decreased perspectives and diminished creativity. Membership in excess of twelve resulted in increased conflict and greater potential of subgroups forming that can disrupt team cohesion.

The mix of knowledge and expertise on a team is also important. Individuals should be selected for teams so that as a whole the group has all the expertise needed to achieve its goals. For this reason, cross-functional teams may be larger than groups formed to work on less complex activities. Similarly, a task force charged with making recommendations in a short time frame would benefit from having fewer members.

Teams benefit from similarities in background among members, which can reduce conflict and miscommunication. Having fewer differences can also reduce the amount of time a team takes to become an effective working group since there is less need to adjust individual work styles. On the other hand, more diversity in skills and experience brings broader perspectives and different approaches to the team’s work. Having members with different skill sets also reduces redundancies and allows for the more efficient assignment of people to various teams.

6.3.4: Team Building

Team building is an approach to helping a team become an effective performing unit.

Learning Objective

Identify how to achieve team success and the underlying value of team building from a broader organizational perspective

Key Points

• Team building refers to a wide range of activities intended to help a team become an effective performing unit by increasing members’ awareness of how they interact with each other.
• Team building is important as a team is being formed and can also be valuable after a team has begun its work.
• Activities that facilitate team building include introductory meetings, collaborative games, simulations, and retreats.

Key Terms

team

A group of people linked in a common purpose.

retreat

An event during which people shift focus from their daily routines and responsibilities to personal or group development.

Team building refers to a wide range of activities intended to help a team become an effective performing unit. To achieve this, team building aims to increase team members’ awareness and understanding of their working relationships by focusing on their interactions with each other. The purpose is to create a cohesive group from a set of individuals and avoid common pitfalls that can undermine a team, such as conflict, miscommunication, and lack of trust.

Team-building activities require the participation of all team members. These often take place when a team is first created and can include activities such as the team working on a brief exercise to begin the process of collaboration or individuals simply introducing themselves. Sometimes organizations use more intensive and time-consuming activities such as off-site, day-long retreats with an agenda that can include interpersonal bonding exercises, simulations, personality and communication style assessments, and group-dynamics games. The human resources department may coordinate team building, though sometimes companies hire consultants or trainers skilled in facilitating those types of activities.

A team can also benefit from team building after its work has begun. Sometimes teams recognize that members are missing abilities that make collaboration easier, such as problem solving or conflict-resolution skills. Training sessions that address these deficiencies build the team’s ability to work together. After people have been working together for a while, social norms can develop that interfere with a team’s performance. Individuals might be afraid to challenge decisions if it has become unacceptable to question a team’s leader, or work habits such as tardiness to meetings may have become commonplace. A discussion among team members creates an opportunity to address factors that are standing in the way of their working together effectively.

6.3.5: Stages of Team Development

The Forming–Storming–Norming–Performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965.

Learning Objective

Evaluate each of the stages in team development for opportunities, threats and strategy

Key Points

• Teams move through a series of four phases—from when they are formed to when their work is complete.
• During the forming stage, a the team discusses it purpose, defines and assigns tasks, establishes timelines, and begins forming personal relationships.
• The often-contentious storming stage is the period when team members clarify their goals and the strategy for achieving them.
• The norming stage is when the team establishes its values for how individuals will interact and collaborate.
• Performing is the stage of team development when team members have productive relationships and are able to communicate and coordinate effectively and efficiently.
• While teams move through the four stages in sequence, the phases may overlap or be repeated.

Key Terms

performing

The stage of group development when team members have productive relationships and are able to communicate and coordinate effectively and efficiently.

forming

The stage of group development when the team discusses its purpose, defines and assigns tasks, establishes timelines, and begins forming personal relationships.

storming

The stage of group development when the team clarifies its goals and its strategy for achieving them.

norming

The stage of group development when the team establishes its values for how individuals will interact and collaborate.

Teams move through a series of stages, beginning when they are formed and ending when they are disbanded. Bruce Tuckman identified four distinct phases of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Each has a primary purpose and a common set of interpersonal dynamics among team members. Tuckman proposed that all are inevitable and even necessary parts of a successful team’s evolution.

The Forming Stage

The first step in a team’s life is bringing together a group of individuals. Individuals focus on defining and assigning tasks, establishing a schedule, organizing the team’s work, and other start-up matters. In addition to focusing on the scope of the team’s purpose and how to approach it, individuals in the formation stage are also gathering information and impressions about each other. Since people generally want to be accepted by others, during this period they usually avoid conflict and disagreement. Team members may begin to work on their tasks independently, not yet focused on their relationships with fellow team members.

Jets in formation

All teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, and performing.

The Storming Stage

Once their efforts are under way, team members need clarity about their activities and goals, as well as explicit guidance about how they will work independently and collectively. This leads to a period known as storming—because it can involve brainstorming ideas and also because it usually causes disruption. During the storming stage members begin to share ideas about what to do and how to do it that compete for consideration. Team members start to open up to each other and confront one another’s ideas and perspectives.

Because storming can be contentious, members who are averse to conflict will find it unpleasant or even painful. This can decrease motivation and effort by drawing attention away from tasks. In some cases storming (i.e., disagreements) can be resolved quickly. Other times a team never leaves this stage and becomes stuck and unable to do its work. Patience and consideration toward team members and their views go a long way toward avoiding this.

The Norming Stage

Successfully moving through the storming stage means that a team has clarified its purpose and strategy for achieving its goals. It now transitions to a period focused on developing shared values about how team members will work together. These norms of collaboration can address issues ranging from when to use certain modes of communication, such as e-mail versus telephone, to how team meetings will be run and what to do when conflicts arise. Norms become a way of simplifying choices and facilitating collaboration, since members have shared expectations about how work will get done.

The Performing Stage

Once norms are established and the team is functioning as a unit, it enters the performing stage. By now team members work together easily on interdependent tasks and are able to communicate and coordinate effectively. There are fewer time-consuming distractions based on interpersonal and group dynamics. For this reason, motivation is usually high and team members have confidence in their ability to attain goals.

While these four stages—forming, storming, norming, and performing—are distinct and generally sequential, they often blend into one another and even overlap. A team may pass through one phase only to return to it. For example, if a new member joins the team there may be a second brief period of formation while that person is integrated. A team may also need to return to an earlier stage if its performance declines. Team-building exercises are often done to help a team through its development process.

6.4: Factors Influencing Team Performance

6.4.1: The Role of Social Norms in Teams

Social norms are shared beliefs about how people should behave that influence team performance.

Learning Objective

Examine the way teams develop and integrate norms, both social and performance based, in the evolution of the team dynamic

Key Points

• Social norms create expectations and standards for acceptable behavior by team members.
• Norms may develop through explicit conversation among team members or emerge implicitly through the way they interact.
• Norms are different from rules in that, while rules are imposed and required, norms are agreed upon and reinforced through interpersonal relationships.
• By creating accountability and reducing uncertainty, norms can help a team perform effectively.

Key Terms

role

The expected behavior of an individual in a society.

socialize

To instruct, usually subconsciously, in the etiquette of a society.

dysfunctional

Counterproductive or disruptive to effective performance.

Social norms are sets of shared beliefs about how people should behave. Teams and other types of groups develop norms to indicate acceptable ways of interacting. Norms create expectations, set standards, and reflect the collective value of the team members. Once formed, norms are not easily changed.

How Norms Emerge

Teams can create norms through discussions among team members. Often, during the forming phase of team development, members will have conversations about standards of behavior for the group. By doing so, teams can identify and develop norms that support their collaboration and productivity.

Both establishing and maintaining norms are indicators of a team’s maturity, made possible only when members have developed working relationships. Effective norms can develop on their own, especially if team members have prior experience working on successful teams. However, without explicit direction dysfunctional norms such as aversion to new ideas or conflict avoidance may take hold.

Norms vs. Rules

Handshaking as a Norm

In some business cultures, it is a norm to shake someone’s hand upon meeting. Here, one businessman shakes another’s hand. In many situations, it would be normative for the businessman to also shake the nearby businesswoman’s hand.

Norms are different from rules. Rules require or prohibit behavior and are typically issued by someone with the authority to direct others to comply and to impose sanctions if they do not. People might agree or disagree with a rule, but they generally are not free to ignore them. In contrast, norms are sets of expectations, not edicts. Team members themselves agree upon and reinforce norms through how they behave with each other. The clearer and more explicit the norms, especially if they are written down, the more effective they are at influencing team members’ behavior.

Benefits of Norms

Through the process of developing shared norms of behavior, team members begin to hold each other accountable for how they contribute to the team. By pointing out when someone violates a norm, the team helps keep its performance on track.

To the extent that team members can rely on norms to shape behavior, the team may experience less uncertainty and more efficiency in how work gets done. For example, a norm about what constitutes timely completion of tasks may help focus individual efforts. Because people act in accordance with norms, their behavior can become predictable and provide stability to the team.

6.4.2: Team Cohesiveness

A group is in a state of cohesion when its members possess bonds linking them to one another and to the group as a whole.

Learning Objective

Explain how team cohesion contributes to team performance

Key Points

• Team cohesion is the degree to which individual members want to contribute to the group’s ability to continue as a functioning work unit.
• Cohesiveness develops over time out of interpersonal and group-level attraction, through collaboration, and as a result of a sense of belonging.
• Cohesive teams communicate more effectively, lead to higher member satisfaction, and can create efficiency in resource allocation.
• There can also be negative consequences to group cohesion. If the social pressures of the group intensify, it may lead to conformity and resistance to change.

Key Terms

incentive

Something that motivates, rouses, or encourages.

cohesion

The state of working together or being united.

Team cohesion is the degree to which individual members want to contribute to the group’s ability to continue as a functioning work unit. Members of cohesive teams have emotional and social bonds that link them to one another and to the group as a whole. These ties enable members to sustain their efforts on behalf of the team and make it more likely that the team will achieve its goals.

How Cohesion Develops

Team cohesion develops over time. Social scientists have explained the phenomenon of group cohesiveness in different ways. Some suggest that cohesiveness among group members develops from a heightened sense of belonging, as well as from collaboration and interdependence. Others note that cohesion comes from the interpersonal and group-level attraction common between people who share similar backgrounds and interests. Because teams have clear boundaries regarding membership, barriers to belonging also contribute to cohesion.

Consequences of Cohesion

Team cohesion is related to a range of positive and negative consequences. Cohesion creates a stronger sense of commitment to goals, which motivates higher individual effort and performance. Members of more cohesive groups tend to communicate with one another in a more positive fashion than those of less cohesive groups. As a result, members of cohesive groups often report higher levels of satisfaction and lower levels of anxiety and tension. This can improve decision making and encourage greater participation. Finally, by maintaining membership cohesive teams are able to continue to pursue new goals once they have fulfilled their original purpose. This makes allocation of resources more efficient, since an existing cohesive team can perform well and more quickly than a newly formed one.

Membership in a cohesive team can also have negative consequences. For example, cohesion can intensify social pressure to conform or limit individual expression. Cohesion can also make adaptation more difficult by making group processes inflexible or resistant to change.

6.4.3: Team Roles

Team roles define how each member of the group relates to the others and contributes to the team’s performance.

Learning Objective

Identify types of team roles and how they contribute to team performance

Key Points

• Team roles are sets of responsibilities and behaviors that establish expectations for how each member contributes to the team’s performance.
• Roles may be assigned formally or assumed by individuals voluntarily.
• Three types of roles are action-oriented, people-oriented, and idea-oriented.

Key Term

interdependent

Mutually dependent; reliant on one another.

A role is a set of related duties and behaviors that exist independently from the person who acts in that role. Roles are part of a team’s structure, and having a role defines each team member’s position in the group relative to the others. Team roles establish expectations about who will do what to help the team succeed.

Roles may be assigned formally to team members or be assumed by individuals voluntarily. Each role is best suited to a person with the necessary skills and experience, since without them it is difficult to achieve credibility or influence on others. Team roles are not necessarily linked to specific work tasks and may even include responsibilities that do not directly contribute to the team’s output.

Common Team Roles

The consultant Meredith Belbin studied high-performing teams and devised a typology based on how members contributed to the group’s success. In his model there are three types of team roles: action-oriented, people-oriented, and idea-oriented.

• Action-oriented roles are pragmatic—they focus on getting things done by taking ideas and turning them in practical plans. We think of these as leadership roles, since what they do can stimulate others to achieve goals.
• People-oriented roles deal with coordinating tasks, supporting communication, and facilitating working relationships. These roles can require negotiation skills, keen perception about human behavior, and good listening abilities.
• Idea-oriented roles involve generating new approaches, analyzing information, and thinking critically about the team’s work. Often these roles are filled by specialists with deep knowledge in a functional area or another type of subject-matter expertise.

Together these roles address both a team’s tasks and how it accomplishes them. Each type of role brings something valuable to how a team functions. When a role is missing because there is no one available to fill it, team performance can suffer.

6.4.4: Team Communication

Effective communication is often a key to the successful performance of team tasks.

Learning Objective

Explain the function of effective communication in team performance

Key Points

• A significant part of teamwork involves oral and written communication.
• Teams establish norms for the modes, frequency, and timing of communication between members and among the group.
• Teams use a mix of centralized and decentralized patterns of communication.
• Barriers to effective team communication include lack of shared vocabulary, poor speaking and writing skills, time constraints, and insensitivity to individual differences.

Key Terms

feedback

Critical assessment of information produced.

communication

The exchange of information between entities.

A major part of teamwork is communication. Team members send and exchange information to convey ideas, generate discussion, prompt action, create understanding, and coordinate activities. Effective communication means transmitting a message so that the recipient understands its content and intention. When team members communicate well, they can avoid common pitfalls such as misunderstandings, lack of trust, and conflict that can undermine team performance.

Team members share information in a variety of ways, including face-t0-face meetings and other forms of verbal communication, as well as in writing—through e-mail, texts, and memos. Teams develop practices for how members will communicate with each other and with the group as a whole. Norms typically emerge about preferred modes, frequency, and timing of communication.

Team communication

The basketball team here communicates by forming a huddle.

Patterns of Communication

Communication patterns describe the flow of information within the group and can be described as centralized or decentralized. When centralized, communication tends to flow from one source to all group members. Centralized communication results in consistent, standardized information being conveyed, but often restricts its flow to one direction. In contrast, decentralized communication means team members share and exchange information directly with each other and with the group. This allows information to flow more freely, but often with less consistency in format or distribution. The results can be incomplete, untimely, or poorly distributed messages. Most teams use a mix of the two approaches, choosing centralized communication for messages that are more complex, urgent, or time sensitive, and decentralized communication when discussion and idea generation are needed.

Barriers to Effective Team Communication

There are several barriers to effective communication within teams. These include lack of shared vocabulary or understanding of key task-related concepts, divergent personal styles of expression, and insensitivity to differences in individual characteristics such as age or gender. Good writing and speaking skills are essential to making oneself well understood. Limited time is often another factor in poor communication; understanding requires attention and effort, and it is easy to be distracted from one message by another. Virtual teams, especially those whose members are widely dispersed, can face additional challenges such as differences in language, culture, and time zones.

6.5: Managing Conflict

6.5.1: Styles of Interpersonal Conflict

Team conflict is a state of discord between individuals that work together.

Learning Objective

Explain the distinction between substantive and affective conflicts and between intra- and inter-organizational conflict

Key Points

• Conflict is a state of discord between people, or groups of people working together, caused by an actual or perceived opposition of needs, values, and/or interests.
• Substantive conflicts deal with aspects of performance or tasks and often relate specifically to the project or goals of a team or organization.
• Affective conflicts, also known as personal conflicts, revolve around personal disagreements or dislikes between individuals in a team.
• Organizational conflict may be intra-organizational, meaning it takes place across departments or within teams, or it may be inter-organizational, meaning it arises from disagreements between two or more organizations.

Key Terms

affective

Relating to, resulting from, or influenced by emotions.

substantive

Of the core essence or essential element of a thing or topic.

Conflict is a feature common to social life. In organizations, conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values, and/or interests between people working together. Conflict on teams takes many forms and can be minor, causing only brief disruption, or major, threatening the team’s ability to function and attain its goals. We can distinguish between two type of conflict: substantive and affective.

Substantive and Affective Conflict

Substantive conflicts deal with aspects of a team’s work. For example, conflicts can arise over questions about an individual’s performance, differing views about the scope of a task or assignment, disparate definitions of acceptable quality, or the nature of a project goal. Other substantive conflicts involve how team members work together. These process conflicts often involve disagreements over the strategies, policies, and procedures the group should use in order to complete its tasks.

Affective conflict relates to trouble that develops in interpersonal relationships among team members. While these personal conflicts emerge as people work together, they may have their roots in factors separate from the team’s purpose and activities. Affective conflicts are often based on personality conflicts, differing communication styles, perceptions about level of effort, or personal dislikes based on negative past experiences.

Intra-Organizational and Inter-Organizational Conflict

Both substantive and affective conflicts can be separated into those that happen within an organization and those that happen between two or more different organizations. Intra-organizational conflicts occur across departments in an organization, within work teams and other groups, and between individuals. Inter-organizational conflicts are disagreements between people—business partners, for example, or other collaborators, vendors, and distributors—in two or more organizations.

Arguing wolves

These wolves are expressing disagreement over territory or having some other type of conflict.

6.5.2: The Impact of Interpersonal Conflict on Team Performance

Conflict can have damaging or productive effects on the performance of a team.

Learning Objective

Analyze the way in which conflict can both help and hurt a team’s performance

Key Points

• Conflict is common within teams, especially during the storming phase of team development.
• Team conflict provides benefits including resolving misunderstandings, improving processes, and changing behaviors.
• Team conflict can have negative consequences such as reduced group cohesion and lower productivity, and it can even threaten the team’s existence.

Key Terms

interdependent

Mutually dependent; reliant on one another.

affective

Relating to, resulting from, or influenced by emotions.

Conflict occurs often in teamwork, especially during the storming phase of team development. While at first we might think of all conflict between team members as undesirable and harmful, the process of resolving conflicts can actually provide benefits to team performance. Whether a conflict is productive or not can depend on how team members perceive it, as well as how it affects progress toward the team’s goals.

Benefits of Team Conflict

Substantive conflicts can affect performance for the better by removing barriers caused by different assumptions or misunderstandings about a team’s tasks, strategy, or goals. Conflict can be constructive when it creates broader awareness about how team members are experiencing their work and thus leads to changes that improve members’ productivity. Conflict can also lead to process improvements, such as when it reveals a deficiency in how the team communicates, which can then be corrected. Clashes of ideas can lead to more creative solutions or otherwise provide perspectives that persuade the team to take a different approach that is more likely to lead to success.

Addressing personal conflicts that arise between members can facilitate cooperation by helping individuals adapt their behavior to better suit the needs of others. Although most people find conflict uncomfortable while they are experiencing it, they can come to recognize its value as the team progresses in its development.

Negative Consequences of Team Conflict

While sometimes conflict can lead to a solution to a problem, conflicts can also create problems. Discord caused by enmity between individuals can reduce team cohesion and the ability of team members to work together. Conflicts can create distractions that require time and effort to resolve, which can delay completion of tasks and even put a team’s goals at risk.

Communication can suffer when people withdraw their attention or participation, leading to poor coordination of interdependent tasks. Tension and heightened emotions can lower team members’ satisfaction, increase frustration, and lead to bad judgments. They can even prompt individuals to withdraw from the team, requiring the assignment of a new member or creating a resource scarcity that makes it more difficult for the team to fulfill its purpose. In extreme cases, conflict among members, if left unaddressed, can lead to the complete inability of the team to function, and thus to its disbandment.

6.5.3: Common Causes of Team Conflict

Team conflict is caused by factors related to individual behavior as well as disagreements about the team’s work.

Learning Objective

Identify the causes of conflict within an organization as a conflict manager.

Key Points

• Team conflict arises from how people perceive the actions of others and from differing views of the team’s work and how it should be accomplished.
• Common causes of team conflict include conflicting interests, incompatible work styles, competition over resources, failure to follow norms, poor communication, and performance deficiencies.

Key Terms

ambiguity

Something liable to more than one interpretation, explanation, or meaning.

affective

Relating to, resulting from, or influenced by emotions.

Conflict between team members comes from several sources. Some conflicts have their basis in how people behave, while others come from disagreements about the nature of the team’s work and how it is being accomplished.

• Competing interests: Conflict can arise when people have mutually incompatible desires or needs. For example, two team members with similar skills may both want a certain assignment, leaving the one who doesn’t receive it resentful.
• Different behavioral styles or preferences: Individuals may clash over their respective work habits, attention to detail, communication practices, or tone of expression. While these can affect coordination of interdependent tasks, they can especially inhibit direct collaboration.
• Competition over resources: Members may fight over the limited resources available to accomplish the team’s tasks. For example, if two people both rely on the action of a third person to meet identical deadlines, disagreements might arise over whose work should receive that person’s attention first.
• Failure to follow team norms: A team member creates conflict when she displays attitudes or behaviors that go against the team’s agreement about how it will function. If a group norm calls for prompt arrival at meetings and prohibits the use of mobile devices during discussions, ignoring these practices can engender conflict.
• Performance deficiencies: When some team members are either not contributing their share of effort or not performing at the expected level of quality, the impositions that result can create friction, which may be heightened when critical or highly visible tasks are involved.
• Poor communication: When team members do not share relevant information with each other, people may make decisions or take actions that others consider inappropriate or even harmful. Blame and questions about motives can result, creating discord among the team.
• Ambiguity about means and ends: Lack of clarity about tasks, strategies, and/or goals can lead people to make assumptions that others do not share or agree with, which can result in conflict.

Card game argument

Behavioral differences and personality clashes can cause conflict even among friends.

6.5.4: Constructive Team Conflict

Teams can use conflict as a strategy for enhancing performance.

Learning Objective

Explain how conflict can be used as a strategy for improving team performance

Key Points

• Team performance can benefit by using conflict to foster learning and process improvement.
• Team members can establish guidelines and norms that encourage constructive conflict.

Key Terms

innovation

A change in customs; something new and contrary to established patterns, manners, or rites.

conflict

A clash or disagreement between two opposing groups or individuals.

Teams may use conflict as a strategy for continuous improvement and learning. Recognizing the benefits of conflict and using them as part of the team’s process can enhance team performance. Conflict can uncover barriers to collaboration that changes in behavior can remove. It can also foster better decisions because it makes team members consider the perspectives of others and even helps them see things in new and innovative ways.

Addressing conflict can increase team cohesion by engaging members in discussions about important issues. Team members may feel more valued when they know they are contributing to something vital to the team’s success. Conflict can reveal assumptions that may not apply in the current situation and thus allow the team to agree on a new course. It can also draw attention to norms that have developed without the explicit agreement of team members and create the opportunity to endorse or discard them.

Generating Constructive Conflict

Team members and others can follow a few guidelines for encouraging constructive conflict. First, they can start by explicitly calling for it as something that will help improve the team’s performance. This helps people view conflict as acceptable and can thus free them to speak up.

Teams can lower the emotional intensity of any conflict be establishing clear guidelines for how to express disagreements and challenge colleagues. One helpful norm is to focus on the task-related element of a conflict rather than criticizing the traits of particular individuals. Another is to emphasize common goals and shared commitments, which can keep conflict in perspective and prevent it from overwhelming the team’s efforts.

6.5.5: Team Conflict Resolution and Management

Some ways of dealing with conflict seek resolution; others aim to minimize negative effects on the team.

Learning Objective

Differentiate between conflict resolution and conflict management

Key Points

• Conflict resolution aims to eliminate disagreements and disputes among team members; in contrast, conflict management seeks to minimize the negative effects of conflict on team performance.
• There are three main approaches to conflict resolution: integrative, distributive, and mediating.
• There are three main conflict-management tactics: smoothing, yielding, and avoiding.

Key Terms

dispute

An argument or disagreement.

resolution

The moment in which a conflict ends and the outcome is clear.

adversarial

Characteristic of an opponent; combative, hostile.

The way a team deals with conflicts that arise among members can influence whether and how those conflicts are resolved and, as a result, the team’s subsequent performance. There are several ways to approach managing and resolving team conflict—some leave the team and its members better able to continue their work, while others can undermine its effectiveness as a performing unit.

Conflict Resolution

Teams use one of three primary approaches to conflict resolution: integrative, distributive, and mediating.

1. Integrative approaches focus on the issue to be solved and aim to find a resolution that meets everyone’s needs. Success with this tactic requires the exchange of information, openness to alternatives, and a willingness to consider what is best for the group as a whole rather than for any particular individual.
2. Distributive approaches find ways to divide a fixed number of positive outcomes or resources in which one side comes out ahead of the other. Since team members have repeated interactions with each other and are committed to shared goals, the expectation of reciprocity can make this solution acceptable since those who don’t get their way today may end up “winning” tomorrow.
3. Mediating approaches bring in a third party to facilitate a non-confrontational, non-adversarial discussion with the goal of helping the team reach a consensus about how to resolve the conflict. A mediator from outside the team brings no emotional ties or preconceived ideas to the conflict and therefore can help the team identify a broader set of solutions that would be satisfactory to all.

Although these three approaches all bring overt conflict to an end, team cohesion can suffer if members perceive the process itself as unfair, disrespectful, or overly contentious. The result can be resentment that festers and leads to subsequent additional conflict that a more conciliatory process might have avoided.

Conflict Management

The primary aim of conflict management is to promote the positive effects and reduce the negative effects that disputes can have on team performance without necessarily fully resolving the conflict itself. Teams use one of three main tactics to manage conflict: smoothing, yielding, and avoiding.

1. The smoothing approach attempts to minimize the differences among the people who are in conflict with each other. This strategy often focuses on reducing the emotional charge and intensity of how the people speak to each other by emphasizing their shared goals and commitments.
2. The yielding approach describes the choice some team members make to simply give in when others disagree with them rather than engage in conflict. This is more common when the stakes are perceived to be small or when the team member’s emotional ties to the issue at hand are not particularly strong.
3. In the avoiding approach, teams members may choose to simply ignore all but the most contentious disagreements. While this can have short-term benefits and may be the best option when the team is under time pressure, it is the approach least likely to produce a sense of harmony among the team.

While conflict can increase the engagement of team members, it can also create distractions and draw attention away from important tasks. Because conflict management seeks to contain such disruptions and threats to team performance, conflicts do not disappear so much as exist alongside the teamwork.