TEAMWORK &

TEAMBUILDING
Some Quotes

• Coming together is a Beginning.

Keeping together is a Progress.
Working together is a Success.
• Teamwork divides the task and
double the Success
• Talent wins games, but teamwork
and intelligence wins
championships.
• There is no I in Teamwork
What is TEAM???
• A group of people, contributing their
individual knowledge and skills but working
together to achieve a common goal/task.
• Teams are often comprised of people who
do not know each other and who must work
hard to develop productive working
relationships despite personal differences
and cultural practices.
Benefits of a Team
• Shared workloads
• Chances for leadership and personal
satisfaction
• Sense of belonging to a successful
process
• Ability to accomplish more than if work
done independently
Types of team
A model of team effectiveness
ORGANIZATIONAL & TEAM
ENVIRONMENT
• Reward System:
 At least partly awarded for team performance.

• Communication system:
 Poorly designed communication system can starve
team for valuable information & feedback.
 Imp when team members are geographically
dispersed

• Physical space:
 Layout of an office & manufacturing facility.
• Organisational structure:
 Few layers of management
 Autonomy & responsibility for their work

• Organizational leadership:
 Support from top leaders to align rewards,
communication system, structure etc.
 Provide coaching & support
 Ensures teams have authority to solve their own
problems & resources to accomplish their tasks

• Organizational environment:
 External environment – competitive- motivates to stay
close with the team
TEAM DESIGN
• Task Characteristics:
 Teams tend to be more effective
when they work on well structured
task with meaningful goals within
their collective knowledge & skills.
Task interdependence
• The degree to which a task
requires employees to share
common inputs or
outcomes(reward), or to interact in
the process of executing their
work.
• Higher task interdependence –
greater need for people to work in
teams.
Levels of task interdependence
• Pooled
interdependence:
 Lowest level
interdependence
 Individual operates
independently except
for reliance on a
common resource or
authority
 Eg: share common
payroll, cafeteria &
other organizational
resources
• Sequential
Interdependence
 When output of
one person
becomes the
direct input for
another person or
unit.
 Eg:
manufacturing
process
• Reciprocal
Interdependence:

 Higher level of
Interdependence
 Output is
exchanged back
& forth among
individual.
Team size
• Team size should not be no more than 10
people.
• The general rule is that teams should be
large enough to provide the necessary
competencies & perspectives to perform
the work, yet small enough to maintain
efficient coordination & meaningful
involvement of each member.
• Larger teams –less effective - consumes
more time & effort coordinating their roles
& resolving differences .
Team composition
• Select people with the necessary motivation
& competencies to work together.
• Team diversity:
 Homogeneous teams: teams that include
member with common technical expertise,
demographics(age, gender), experiences or
values.
 Heterogeneous teams: Teams that include
members with diverse personal
characteristics & backgrounds.
Stages of TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Adjourning
Team norms
• Norms are informal rules & expectations that
groups established to regulate the behavior of
their member.
• Develop guidelines, protocols, or rules.
• Establish them by the team through consensus.
• Regulate proper and acceptable behavior by and
between team members.
• Commit to agreement to follow these rules.
• Typical Group Norms:
 Input from all team members
 Team meeting schedule and project timeline
 Communication protocols
 Conflict resolution protocols

Note: A copy of the established norms

must be provided to each team member.
Team roles
• Role is a set of behavior that
people are expected to perform
because they hold certain position
in a team & organization.
• Roles are formally assigned to
specific people
Eg: leader – initiate discussion
Team cohesiveness
• The degree of attraction people feel
towards the team & their motivation
to remain members.

• It is an emotional experience.

• Cohesiveness is the glue that holds

the group together & ensure that its
member fulfill their obligation.
• Factors influence team cohesiveness:
 Member similarity

 Team size

 Member interaction

 Team success

 External competitions & challenges

Effect of team cohesiveness on task
performance
Team cohesiveness

LOW HIGH
Team norms support Moderately high task High task
company goals performance performance

Team norms conflict Moderately low task Low task performance

with company goals performance
The trouble with teams
• Sometimes Teams can’t take quick &
decisive actions.
• Process losses: resources (including time
& energy) expended towards team
development & maintenance rather than
task.
• Right environment to flourish
• Social loafing: A situation in which people
exert less efforts(and usually perform at
a lower level) when working in groups
than working alone.
Types of teams
• Self Directed Work Teams (SDWT)
Cross functional work groups
organized around work process,
that complete an entire piece of
work requiring several
interdependent tasks and that
have substantial autonomy over
the execution of those tasks.
Attributes of SDWT
Virtual teams
• Cross functional teams that operates across space,,
time, & organizational boundaries with member who
communicates mainly through information technology
• Permanent or temporary teams
• Relationship among members depends on certain
degree of trust

• Advantage: decreased cost

• Disadvantages: increased misinterpretation, lack of
trust, difficult to manage
TEAM DECISION MAKING
• Teams are more effective than
individuals in Identification of
problems-choosing alternative-
evaluating decisions
Constraints on team decision
making
• Time constraint:
 Teams take longer than individual in decision
making
 Production blocking – only one person can talk at a
time

• Evaluation apprehension:
 When individual are reluctant to mention ideas
that seem silly because they believe that other
team members are silently evaluating them
• Pressure to conform:
Strong group norms – suppress opinions

• Groupthink:
 The tendency of highly cohesive groups to value
consensus at price of decision making.
 Highly pressure on individual members to maintain
harmony by avoiding conflict & disagreement.
 Occurs when – leader is opinionated rather than
impartial, team under stress due to external threat,
has experienced recent failure in decision making
• Group polarization:
 The tendency of teams to make more
extreme decision than individual woking
alone
 Takes riskier decisions
 Individual feel less personally
responsible because decision is made
by team.
Team structures to improve creativity
&•DM
Constructive conflicts:
 Occurs when team members debates their
different perceptions about an issue in away that
keeps conflict focus on the task rather that
people.
 Discussion brings out meaningful dialogues with
minimal conflicts.
 Devil’s advocate – a team member selected to
take the opposition position of the group’s
preference..
 Point out weakness & potential problems so that it
is carefully scrutinized
• Brainstorming:
 A free wheeling, face to face meetings
where team members aren’t allowed to
criticize, but are encouraged to speak
freely, generates as many ideas as
possible & build on the ideas of others.
 Electronic Brainstorming
• Delphi technique:
 A structured team decision making
process of systematically pooling the
collective knowledge of experts on a
particular subject to make decisions,
predict the future or identifying
opposite view
 Delphi groups do not meet face to face.
• Nominal group technique:

Members
individuall
y rank
order
solutions
presented
TEAM BUILDING
• Any formal activity intended to improve
the development & functioning of team.
• Reshape team norms & strengthen
cohesiveness
• Popular intervention when high
membership turnover or members have
lost focus on their roles & objectives.
Types of team building
• Role definition
• Goal setting
• Problem solving
• Interpersonal process
10 Commandments for an
Enthusiastic Team

1.Help each other be

right – not wrong
2.Look for ways to make
ideas work – not for
reason they will not
3. If doubt – check it out.
Don’t make negative
assumptions about each
other.
4. Help each other win and
take pride in each other’s
victories.
5. Speak positively about
each other and about the
organization at every
opportunity.
6. Maintain a positive
attitude no matter what
the circumstances
7. Act with initiative and
courage as if it all depends on
you.
8. Do every thing with
enthusiasm – it’s contagious.
9. Whatever you want – give it
away.
10. Don’t lose faith – never give
up
Always Remember this
• Smooth roads never makes good
drivers. Smooth seas never make
good sailors. Clear skies never
make a good pilots. A problem
free life never makes a strong
and good person. Be strong
enough to accept the challenges
of life. Do not ask life, Why Me?
Instead say Try Me.