Personality and Team Effectiveness

8 GROUPS AND TEAMS

How Can Working with Others Increase Everybody’s Performance?

Major Topics I’ll Learn And Questions I Should Be Able To Answer

1. 8.1

GROUP CHARACTERISTICS

MAJOR QUESTION: How can knowledge of groups and their key characteristics make me more successful?

2. 8.2

THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

MAJOR QUESTION: How can understanding the group development process make me more effective at school and work?

3. 8.3

TEAMS AND THE POWER OF COMMON PURPOSE

MAJOR QUESTION: What are the characteristics of effective team players, team types, and interdependence, and how can these improve my performance in teams?

4. 8.4

TRUST BUILDING AND REPAIR—ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR SUCCESS

MAJOR QUESTION:  How can I build and repair trust in ways that make me more effective at school, work, and home?

5. 8.5

KEYS TO TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

MAJOR QUESTION: What are the keys to effective teams, and how can I apply this knowledge to give me an advantage?

Figure 8.1  summarizes what you will learn in this chapter. The main focus is on groups and teams and associated processes within the Organizing Framework. You’ll see that group and team dynamics affect outcomes across all levels of OB. For instance, groups and teams powerfully affect the individual-level outcomes of their members such as task performance, work attitudes, turnover, flourishing, and creativity. Groups and teams similarly affect their own collective outcomes, such as group/team performance, group satisfaction, and group cohesion and conflict. Finally, because many organizations consist of teams, they also affect organization-level outcomes like financial performance, organizational performance, customer satisfaction, and innovation. 

Page 295

FIGURE 8.1     Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB © 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors. In addition to being responsible for important outcomes, such as rescuing the injured or even saving their lives, military medical teams illustrate many team concepts covered in this chapter. These medical teams, for instance, serve both organizational and individual functions. They complete complex tasks that individuals alone simply cannot, and they also confirm individual team member’s self-esteem and sense of identity. The members of military medical teams fulfill various task and maintenance roles essential to effective team dynamics and functioning, such as information seeker and encourager, respectively. Fundamental to all of this are the teamwork competencies of the team members, such as possessing and applying their relevant knowledge and skills in constructive ways for the benefit of the soldiers they save and the overall team.SOURCE: Sgt. Daniel Schroeder/U.S. Army

Page 296

Winning at Work

Using Team Charters to Boost Effectiveness

When working in teams, most students and employees hurry into the task at hand. While this works sometimes, social scientists and OB professionals have identified a better approach. They recommend that individuals in the team create  team charters  that detail members’ mutual expectations about how the team will operate, allocate resources, resolve conflict, and meet its commitments. 1  This process may include identifying member strengths, setting goals, agreeing on processes for communication and decision making, and deciding how to measure and use contributions from members. In OB concept the situation always matters. The same is true for teams. The implication is that every team is comprised of unique individuals and operates within a particular context. This means that each team will be confronted with its own opportunities and challenges. It is during the team charter process that team members are encouraged to anticipate the opportunities, needs, and challenges of the team. For instance, the team charter process provide the chance to determine and agree upon expectations for the team and its members. Creating charters also is a way to anticipate and then avoid and overcome potential and consequential conflicts.

1. Mission statement: Like organization mission statements, team charter mission statements describe why a team exists—its overarching purpose. Be careful not to describe this in terms of a goal, such as get a good grade. Missions focus on and articulate a higher purpose. For example, the American Humane Society's is: “Celebrating animals, confronting cruelty.”

2. Team vision: Vision statements are forward-looking and describe what the team looks like when functioning at its best. A vision has more detail than a mission statement and describes how its actions and deliverables (products and services) affect specific outcomes and stakeholders, such as other team members, customers, professors, other students and coworkers, and suppliers.

3. Team identity: It helps to create a team name and perhaps a logo or to help signify membership. These can serve as important ways for team members to connect to the team and to distinguish the team and its members from other individuals and teams. Think of the names and mascots of sports teams and the functions they serve. It can be helpful to use the same elements in your own teams at school and work. Team rosters including each member’s name, email address, phone number, and schedule can make communicating and planning teamwork much more efficient. This task becomes even more useful if each member’s team-related strengths and responsibilities are included.

4. Boundaries: Boundaries identify the values, such as timely and quality work, to which team members will commit. Many effective teams also describe the legitimate activities of the team, which are details about what the team will and will not do and what members will and will not do in the name of the team. It also is important to agree to and describe the key stakeholders affected by the team's activities. This clarifies who the team does and does not serve.

5. Operating guidelines: Describe the team structure and processes, including how leadership and other roles will function, how decisions will be made, how work will be allocated, and how members will communicate with each other and with those outside the team. It also can be very helpful to describe how conflict will be managed, both processes and consequences.

6. Performance norms and consequences: Team researchers have shown that effective teams often outline the performance expectations, including: how team and member performance will be assessed; how members are expected to interact with each other; how dysfunctional behaviors will be managed; how team members will be disciplined for not adhering to team norms; the process for terminating a member from the team; expectations for team meetings; expectations for member contributions to team projects; consequences for work that is late or of poor quality; how great for team projects will be allocated to individual team members.2

7. Charter endorsement: Every team member should sign an endorsement signifying commitment to the elements of the charter. 

What’s Ahead in This Chapter

We begin  Part Two  of this book with a discussion of groups and teams. Your performance at work and school improves when you understand the differences between formal and informal groups, because the two have different functions, roles, norms, and dynamics. Next we describe the group and team development process, and then we differentiate groups from teams and explore important team concepts, such as different types of teams and the nature of their interdependence. A number of key team characteristics also are explored, including team competencies and teamwork. The value of trust is covered next, because trust is a critical element for group and team functioning. We close by exploring facilitators for team effectiveness—common purpose, composition, collaboration, and rewards.

The text is dimmed because right now it is less relevant for you to study. You can always reveal the text by clicking it.

x

Page 297

8.1

GROUP CHARACTERISTICS

MAJOR QUESTION

How can knowledge of groups and their key characteristics make me more successful?

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Groups can be formal or informal, and they serve multiple functions. As a group member you can play many different roles. Group roles and norms are the means by which expectations are communicated to groups and their members. They are powerful forms of social control that influence group and member behavior. They also influence a number of important outcomes across the levels in the Organizing Framework.

Drawing from the field of sociology, we define a  group  as (1) two or more freely interacting individuals who (2) share norms and (3) goals and (4) have a common identity. These criteria are illustrated in  Figure 8.2 . Think of the various groups to which you belong. Does each group satisfy the four criteria in our definition?

FIGURE 8.2     Four criteria of a group

A group is different from a crowd or organization. Here is how organizational psychologist E. H. Schein helps make the distinctions clear:

The size of a group is … limited by the possibilities of mutual interaction and mutual awareness. Mere aggregates of people do not fit this definition [of a group] because they do not interact and do not perceive themselves to be a group even if they are aware of each other as, for instance, a crowd on a street corner watching some event. A total department, a union, or a whole organization would not be a group in spite of thinking of themselves as “we,” because they generally do not all interact and are not all aware of each other. However, work teams, committees, subparts of departments, cliques, and various other informal associations among organizational members would fit this definition of a group. 3

The size of a group is thus limited by the potential for mutual interaction and mutual awareness. 4  People form groups for many reasons. Most fundamental is that groups usually accomplish more than individuals. It seems, for instance, that simply interacting with others improves both individual and team accuracy.

The performance benefits increase further still if the team receives feedback that describes which member’s approach is most effective. The rationale is that the team becomes more efficient, focuses on the best approach, and then applies and improves it, which raises performance even more. 5

How do we differentiate between formal and informal groups?

Page 298

Formal and Informal Groups

Individuals join or are assigned to groups for various purposes. A  formal group  is assigned by an organization or its managers to accomplish specific goals. Such groups often have labels: work group, team, committee, or task force. An  informal group  exists when the members’ overriding purpose in getting together is friendship or a common interest. 6  Formal and informal groups often overlap, such as when a team of analysts plays tennis after work. 

New Types and Functions of Informal Groups

In an era of job hopping, reorganizations, and mass layoffs, friendships forged at work often outlast a particular job or employer. For example, numerous successful companies—McKinsey & Co., Ernst & Young, and SAP—have developed and maintained corporate alumni groups. Instead of parting forever with former employees, organizations are increasingly using them as sources of new business, referrals for new job candidates, and even boomerang talent (former employees who eventually return to the firm).7 

Functions of Formal Groups

Formal groups fulfill two basic functions: organizational and individual (see  Table 8.1 ). Complex combinations of these functions can be found in formal groups at any given time.

TABLE 8.1   FORMAL GROUPS FULFILL ORGANIZATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL FUNCTIONS

Organizational Functions	Individual Functions
1. Accomplish complex, interdependent tasks that are beyond the capabilities of individuals.	1. Satisfy the individual’s need for affiliation.
2. Generate new or creative ideas and solutions.	2. Develop, enhance, and confirm the individual’s self-esteem and sense of identity.
3. Coordinate interdepartmental efforts.	3. Give individuals an opportunity to test and share their perceptions of social reality.
4. Provide a problem-solving mechanism for complex problems requiring varied information and assessments.	4. Reduce the individual’s anxieties and feelings of insecurity and powerlessness.
5. Implement complex decisions.	5. Provide a problem-solving mechanism for personal and interpersonal problems.
6. Socialize and train newcomers.	7.

SOURCE: Adapted from E. H. Schein, Organizational Psychology, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 149–151.

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Understanding Individual and Organizational Functions of Groups

1. Think of a formal group in which you’re a member.

2. Describe how being a member of that group fulfills at least three of the five individual functions listed in  Table 8.1 . Be specific and use concrete examples.

3. Now describe in detail how the team fulfills at least two of the organizational functions.

Page 299

The pro bono efforts of law firm Baker Donelson, detailed in the OB in Action box, illustrate the individual and organizational functions of formal groups. 

OB IN ACTION  

Baker Donelson Gives It Away to Make a Difference

Law firm Baker Donelson highly values community service and has doubled its number of pro bono hours each year since 2008. The firm’s attorneys provided 20,000 hours of free legal assistance (worth over $22.5 million) in 2014 alone.8 To formalize their commitment to such work, they appointed a pro bono shareholder and created a pro bono committee. 9  Not only does this committee show the firm’s alignment of cultural values and norms, but it also illustrates both the organizational and individual functions of formal groups.

Specifically, the committee helps coordinate pro bono work across the many offices and practice areas of the firm (an organizational function). And free services support Baker Donelson’s organizational values and goals of being a good citizen in the communities and increasing attorney satisfaction (also organizational functions).

In addition, realizing opportunities to provide legal assistance to people, organizations, and causes that attorneys personally value can fulfill individual functions, such as confirming an attorney’s sense of identity as a caring individual, building strong work relationships, and living according to his or her values.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What do you think are the three greatest benefits to the firm of its pro bono work? Try to rank them in value.

2. Its pro bono work costs the firm tens of millions of dollars each year. How could this work lead to more paid business?

3. Most law firms do some amount of pro bono work. Why do you think Baker Donelson chooses to do so much? What difference does it make in terms of the firm’s competitiveness?

Next, let’s learn about roles and norms, two of the most powerful influences on individual behavior in groups. 

Roles and Norms: The Social Building Blocks of Group and Organizational Behavior

Groups transform individuals into functioning organizational members through subtle yet powerful social forces. These social forces, in effect, turn “I” into “we” and “me” into “us.” Group influence weaves individuals into the organization’s social fabric by communicating and enforcing both role expectations and norms. That is, group members positively reinforce those who adhere to roles and norms with friendship and acceptance. However, nonconformists experience criticism and even ostracism or rejection by group members. Anyone who has experienced the “silent treatment” from a group of friends knows what a potent social weapon ostracism can be. Let’s look at how roles and norms develop and why they are enforced.

Page 300

What Are Roles and Why Do They Matter?

A  role  is a set of expected behaviors for a particular position, and a  group role  is a set of expected behaviors for members of the group as a whole. 10  Each role you play is defined in part by the expectations of that role. As a student, you are expected to be motivated to learn, conscientious, participative, and attentive. Professors are expected to be knowledgeable, prepared, and genuinely interested in student learning. Sociologists view roles and their associated expectations as a fundamental basis of human interaction and experience.

Two types of roles are particularly important—task and maintenance. Effective groups ensure that both are being fulfilled (see  Table 8.2 ).  Task roles  enable the work group to define, clarify, and pursue a common purpose, and  maintenance roles  foster supportive and constructive interpersonal relationships. Task roles keep the Page 301group on track, while maintenance roles keep the group together. Members can play more than one role at a time, or over time.

TABLE 8.2   TASK AND MAINTENANCE ROLES

Task Roles	Description
Initiator	Suggests new goals or ideas
Information seeker/giver	Clarifies key issues
Opinion seeker/giver	Clarifies pertinent values
Elaborator	Promotes greater understanding through examples or exploration of implications
Coordinator	Pulls together ideas and suggestions
Orienter	Keeps group headed toward its stated goal(s)
Evaluator	Tests group’s accomplishments with various criteria such as logic and practicality
Energizer	Prods group to move along or to accomplish more
Procedural technician	Performs routine duties (handing out materials or rearranging seats)
Recorder	Performs a “group memory” function by documenting discussion and outcomes
Maintenance Roles	Description
Encourager	Fosters group solidarity by accepting and praising various points of view
Harmonizer	Mediates conflict through reconciliation or humor
Compromiser	Helps resolve conflict by meeting others halfway
Gatekeeper	Encourages all group members to participate
Standard setter	Evaluates the quality of group processes
Commentator	Records and comments on group processes/dynamics
Follower	Serves as a passive audience

SOURCE: Adapted from discussion in K. D. Benne and P. Sheats, “Functional Roles of Group Members,” Journal of Social Issues, Spring 1948, 41–49.

A project team member is performing a task function when he or she says at a meeting, “What is the real issue here? We don’t we seem to be getting anywhere.” Another individual who says, “Let’s hear from those who oppose this plan,” is performing a maintenance function. The group’s leader or any of its members can play any of the task and maintenance roles in combination or in sequence.

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Applying My Knowledge of Task and Maintenance Roles

1. Think of a formal or informal group of which you’re a member.

2. Describe the way at least three task roles are fulfilled, using examples of specific people and behaviors.

3. Do the same for at least three maintenance roles.

(Note: If necessary use more than one group to which you belong, but be sure to describe at least three task and three maintenance roles.)

The task and maintenance roles listed in  Table 8.2  can serve as a handy checklist for managers and group leaders who wish to ensure group development (discussed in the  next section  of this chapter) and effectiveness (the  last section  of this chapter). 

Sallie Krawcheck is one of the most influential women in business. She made her name on Wall Street but is now on her fourth career, starting a digital investment platform for women called Ellevest.11© Brad Barket/Getty Images

Leaders can further ensure that roles are being fulfilled by clarifying specifically what is expected of employees in the group. In 2009 Sallie Krawcheck, whom Fortune magazine had named one of the most powerful women on Wall Street and in business, took over as president of the Global Wealth and Investment Management group at Bank of America (BoA) and was quick to fulfill both task and maintenance roles.

At the then-embattled bank, Krawcheck quickly tended to task roles by appointing eight executives to oversee various operations within the group, such as heading the US brokerage force and private wealth management. New goals were set, and she also worked diligently on the maintenance role of integrating the culture of Merrill Lynch, which BoA had just acquired at the height of the financial crisis. 12

Learn about your own group role preferences by completing  Self-Assessment 8.1 . This knowledge can help you understand why you might have been more or less satisfied with a particular group or team of which you’ve been a member. Playing roles that don’t match your preferences is likely to be less satisfying. Furthermore, understanding your own preferences can enable you to set yourself up to be happy and productive in future groups, because you can volunteer for or position yourself to play the roles you prefer.

Page 302

SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.1  Group and Team Role Preference Scale

Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 8.1 in Connect.

1. Does your preferred role (the one with the highest score) match your perceptions? Justify your answer using examples of your behavior.

2. Given your preferred role, how can you be most effective in group assignments? What challenges might playing your preferred role cause for you? For your group?

3. Describe how playing your least preferred role (the one with the lowest score) has been problematic for you and one of your teams. Explain two ways you could improve your performance and that of your team by working on this deficiency.

What Are Norms and Why Do They Matter?

“A  norm  is an attitude, opinion, feeling, or action—shared by two or more people—that guides behavior.” 13  Norms help create order and allow groups to function more efficiently because they save groups from having to figure out how to do the same things each time they meet. Norms also help groups move through the development process. Can you imagine having to establish guidelines over and over again?

Norms are more encompassing than roles, which tend to be at the individual level in the Organizing Framework and pertain to a specific job or situation. Norms, in contrast, are shared and apply to the group, team, or organization.

Although norms are typically unwritten and are seldom discussed openly, they have a powerful influence on group and organizational behavior. Like organizational culture, individual and group behavior are guided in part by shared expectations and norms. For example, the 3M Co. has a norm whereby employees devote 15 percent of their time to thinking big, pursuing new ideas, or further developing something spawned from their other work. The “15 percent time” program, as it is called, was started in 1948 and supports the culture of innovation 3M is known for. Google, as well as other tech companies, has implemented a similar program allowing employees to allocate 20 percent of their time to ideas and projects beyond their own jobs. It is rumored, but not confirmed, that among the projects employees developed during this time were Gmail and Google Earth. 14

Norms serve many purposes and are thus reinforced by the group. Some of these reasons are listed in  Table 8.3 .

TABLE 8.3  WHY NORMS ARE REINFORCED

Norm	Reason	Example of reinforcement
“Make our department look good in top management’s eyes.”	Group/organization survival	A staff specialist vigorously defends the vital role of her department at a divisional meeting and is later complimented by her boss.
“Work hard and don’t make waves.”	Clarification of behavioral expectations	A senior manager takes a young associate aside and cautions him to be a bit more patient with coworkers who see things differently.
“Be a team player, not a star.”	Avoidance of embarrassment	A project team member is ridiculed by her peers for dominating the discussion during a progress report to top management.
“Make customer service our top priority.”	Clarification of central values	Two sales representatives are given a surprise Friday afternoon party for winning best-in-the-industry customer service awards from an industry association.

Page 303

Norms can emerge on their own over time. For instance, think of the group of friends you hung out with on Friday night. What were some of the unspoken norms of behavior? Were these norms the result of discussion and explicit agreement, or did they just happen?

In contrast, norms can also be purposefully created, which is what we advocate. Why leave things to chance, especially at work, when you can directly influence them for the better? The World Health Organization (WHO) sets norms, as described in the  Applying OB  box. While these recommendations are written, they are not formally required, which would make them actual rules.

APPLYING OB

Health Norms—The Safe Surgery Checklist

The mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to improve health for people around the world. This includes improving surgical outcomes. So WHO created the Safe Surgery Checklist, identifying three stages of surgery and the important tasks associated with each. The aim is to “minimize the most common and avoidable risks endangering the lives and well-being of surgical patients.” 15  The checklist recommends that a surgery coordinator (a specific task role) be assigned to ensure that each task is complete before the surgical team moves to the next stage.16

Stage 1—(Sign In) Before Administering Anesthesia: Confirm patient identity, site, procedure, and consent; mark the site of the surgery; perform anesthesia safety check; turn pulse oximeter on. Stage 2—(Time Out) Before Incision: Confirm all team members have introduced themselves by name and role; surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurse confirm patient, procedure, and site; surgeon reviews critical steps and potential challenges; anesthesiologist checks for potential problems; nursing team reviews that all equipment and personnel are in place. Confirm appropriate medications have been administered. Stage 3—(Sign Out) Before Patient Leaves Operating Room: Nurse verbally confirms with the team—name of procedure has been recorded; instrument, sponge, and needle counts are correct; specimen is labeled and includes patient’s name; surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurse review post-op concerns, medications, and pain management.

·

Finally, another way to think about roles and norms is as peer pressure. Peer pressure is about expectations, and we all know how effective or problematic expectations can be. But at its root, peer pressure is simply the influence of the group on the individual, and the expectations of associated roles and norms are the means of this influence.

Page 304

8.2

THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

MAJOR QUESTION

How can understanding the group development process make me more effective at school and work?

THE BIGGER PICTURE

You’ll find working in groups and teams much easier when you recognize that they often follow a development process. One such process has five stages, and the other is called punctuated equilibrium. We explore both and help you understand the problems and benefits common to groups and teams as they evolve. Your application of this knowledge will enable you to more effectively manage individual- and group-level outcomes in the Organizing Framework and perform more successfully in work and school groups.

At work and school, groups and teams go through a development process. Sometimes this development is like the life cycle of products in marketing or like human development in biology. That is, it consists of stages of a specific number, sequence, length, and nature. 17  Other kinds of groups form, progress in a stable manner for a while, but then respond to an event by radically changing their approach. We’ll discuss models of both development processes in this chapter, beginning with the most popular—Tuckman’s five-stage model (see  Figure 8.3 ). 18

Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model of Group Development

Tuckman’s five-stage model of group development—forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning—has great practical appeal because it is easy to remember and apply. Notice in the top part of  Figure 8.3  how individuals give up an increasing amount of their independence as a group develops. The lower box of the figure also describes some of the issues faced by individual members and the larger group as it develops.  

FIGURE 8.3     Tuckman’s five-stage model of group development

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Applying My Knowledge of Group Development

Use the information in  Figure 8.3  to understand and explain your experiences of group development.

1. Think of a group to which you belong, such as a work group, athletic team, fraternity/sorority, or class project team.

2. Identify the stage of development that group is in today.

3. Compare the individual and group issues described in  Figure 8.3  to what you and the group you identified in No. 1 are actually experiencing.

4. Repeat this application for a group that no longer exists—a disbanded project team from work or a project team from last term are good choices. Then try to trace any issues back to the various stages of development in the model.

The five stages are not necessarily of the same duration or intensity. For instance, the storming stage may be practically nonexistent or painfully long, depending on the goal clarity, commitment, and maturity of the members.

Page 305

Stage 1: Forming

During the ice-breaking forming stage, group members tend to be uncertain and anxious about such unknowns as their roles, the people in charge, and the group’s goals. Mutual trust is low, and there is a good deal of holding back to see who takes charge and how.

Some research shows that conflict among group members is actually beneficial during this stage. For instance, early conflict in product development teams can boost creativity. 19  However, the results can also be quite different. For example, in the life-and-death situations sometimes faced by surgical teams and airline cockpit crews, the uncertainty inherent in the early stages of development (forming and storming) can be dangerous. 

Stage 2: Storming

The storming stage is a time of testing. Individuals test the leader’s policies and assumptions as they try to decide how they fit into the power structure. Subgroups may form and resist the current direction of a leader or another subgroup. In fact, some management experts say the reason many new CEOs don’t survive is that they never get beyond the storming stage. For instance, Ron Johnson joined JCPenney after leaving Apple, and he never convinced employees and top managers to accept his radical rebranding of the aging retailer. As CEO he fired thousands of employees, and much of the old guard, but many of those who remained resisted his plan, as did the board of directors. 20  Marissa Mayer has had a similar experience at Yahoo. She took the helm of a struggling company, changed strategies, fired thousands, and never really gained support from important stakeholders, such as investors, industry partners, and the remaining employees.21 Many groups stall in Stage 2 because of the way the use of power and politics can erupt into open rebellion.

Stage 3: Norming

Groups that make it through Stage 2 generally do so because a respected member, other than the leader, challenges the group to resolve its power struggles so work can be accomplished. Questions about authority and power are best resolved through unemotional, matter-of-fact group discussion. A feeling of team spirit is Page 306sometimes experienced during this stage because members believe they have found their proper roles.  Group cohesiveness , defined as the “we feeling” that binds members of a group together, is the principal by-product of Stage 3. 22  

Stage 4: Performing

Activity during this vital stage is focused on solving task problems, as contributors get their work done without hampering others. This stage is often characterized by a climate of open communication, strong cooperation, and lots of helping behavior. Conflicts and job boundary disputes are handled constructively and efficiently. Cohesiveness and personal commitment to group goals help the group achieve more than could any one individual acting alone.

Stage 5: Adjourning

The group’s work is done; it is time to move on to other things. The return to independence can be eased by rituals such as parties and award ceremonies celebrating the end and new beginnings. During the adjourning stage, leaders need to emphasize valuable lessons learned.

Target CEO Brian Cornell made dramatic changes to the executive suite when he took the helm. In the midst of struggling performance he removed the chief stores officer and head merchant. He then hired a new chief information officer and made the former CFO the chief operations officer. These staffing moves were intended not only to provide new leadership, but also to align the senior leadership team and boost its performance. Another way to look at this is that perhaps the previous team had “normed” but just wasn’t performing. So Cornell started over with a largely new group.© Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Punctuated Equilibrium

In contrast to the discrete stages of Tuckman’s model, some groups follow a form of development called  punctuated equilibrium . Groups establish periods of stable functioning until an event causes a dramatic change in norms, roles, and/or objectives. The group then establishes and maintains new norms of functioning, returning to equilibrium (see  Figure 8.4 ). Extreme examples of punctuated equilibrium often occur because of disruptive technologies, such as Apple’s introduction of iTunes. This innovation caused all players in the music industry to radically change their approaches from digital to streaming and from purchasing entire albums to buying individual songs and subscriptions. Walmart’s low-price approach to big-box retailing also revolutionized an industry. In such scenarios companies and teams that can adapt will realize tremendous new opportunities, but those that don’t often find themselves obsolete and go out of business. This phenomenon plays out at all levels of OB. Many individual’s careers have been ignited due to punctuated equilibrium. This means that punctuated equilibrium at the organizational level drives significant change, development, and opportunity at the group and individual levels too. Apply your new knowledge of OB to be sure your career is one of them.

FIGURE 8.4   Punctuated equilibrium

Page 307

8.3

TEAMS AND THE POWER OF COMMON PURPOSE

MAJOR QUESTION

What are the characteristics of effective team players, team types, and interdependence, and how can these improve my performance in teams?

THE BIGGER PICTURE

When you better understand the difference between groups and teams, you’ll be well equipped to perform better in both. You’ll find practical tips in our discussion of critical teamwork competencies, along with a description of various types of teams. This section concludes with a discussion of team interdependence, a characteristic that is fundamental to the functioning of teams.

A  team  is a small number of people who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves collectively accountable. Besides being a central component of the Organizing Framework, teams are a cornerstone of work life. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt offers this blunt overview: 

You lead today by building teams and placing others first. It’s not about you. 23

This means practically all employees need to develop their skills related to being good team players and building effective teams. It also means that in today’s team-focused work environment, organizations need leaders who are adept at teamwork themselves and can cultivate the level of trust necessary to foster constructive teamwork. Employees reported that the three traits of their most admired bosses were trust in employees, honesty/authenticity, and great team-building skills. 24  To help you be more effective in the team context, let’s begin by differentiating groups and teams.

A Team Is More than Just a Group

Management consultants at McKinsey & Co. say it is a mistake to use the terms group and team interchangeably. After studying many different kinds of teams—from athletic to corporate to military—they concluded that successful teams tend to take on a life of their own. A group becomes a team when it meets the criteria in  Table 8.4 .

TABLE 8.4     CHARACTERISTICS OF TEAMS

A GROUP BECOMES A TEAM WHEN …

Leadership becomes a shared activity.

Accountability shifts from strictly individual to both individual and collective.

The group develops its own purpose or mission.

Problem solving becomes a way of life, not a part-time activity.

Effectiveness is measured by the group’s collective outcomes and products.

SOURCE: R. Rico, M. Sánchez-Manzanares, F. Gil, and C. Gibson, “Team Implicit Coordination Processes: A Team Knowledge-Based Approach,” Academy of Management Review, January 2008, 163–184.

Bob Lane, the former CEO of Deere & Co., emphasized the purpose and effectiveness of teams when he talked about his company being a team, not a family. A reporter Page 308summarized his words this way: “While family members who don’t pull their weight may not be welcome at the Thanksgiving dinner table, they remain members of the family. But if you’re not pulling your weight here, I’m sorry, you’re not part of the team.” 25  Lane clearly has strong views on the difference between groups and teams.

Despite the differences, both groups and teams can perform at a high level. Think of your experiences. As you know, well-functioning groups or teams can be incredibly effective in achieving goals and quite fulfilling for members. You may also know that when not working well they can be a tremendous waste of time. Some experts describe team effectiveness in terms of maturity.

Mature groups are more effective. Completing  Self-Assessment 8.2  will help you better understand the maturity level of a current or past team of which you’re a member. 

SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.2  Is This a Mature Work Group or a Team?

Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 8.2 in Connect.

1. Does your evaluation help explain why the group or team was successful or not? Explain.

2. Was (or is) there anything you could have done (or can do) to increase the maturity of this group? Explain.

3. How will this evaluation help you be a more effective group member or leader in the future?

The following OB in Action box describes how important building an effective team is to leading Internet entrepreneur Kevin Ryan. Ryan clearly acknowledges that teams take time to develop. But he also is clear that he expects managers to control the process. 

OB IN ACTION  

Team Building Is an Important Part of Talent Management26

© Michael Nagle/Getty Images

Kevin Ryan knows a bit about building successful teams. He’s done it at a number of companies, such as DoubleClick, Gilt Groupe, Business Insider, Zola, and most recently Kontor. His leadership style emphasizes talent management, which he sees as the No. 1 responsibility of CEOs, and rigorous performance management. Both converge in his expectations of managers’ ability to build effective teams. These views are illustrated in his description of a conversation with a new manager.

Clear Expectations   “Five months from now, you need to have a great team. Earlier would be better, but five months is the goal. To do that, you’ll need to spend the next month evaluating the people you have right now. I hope they’re good. But if they’re not, we’ll make changes to replace them. If Page 309you need to promote people internally, we’ll do that. If you need to go outside, we’ll do that. You also need to make sure you retain your best people. I’m going to be really disturbed if I see that people we wanted to keep have started leaving your area.”

Consequences   Sadly, the manager in this case didn’t build a strong team. At four months, two key positions were still open and two key individuals had left. Ryan then asked, “Tell us what we can do to help. . . . If you need us to double your recruiting resources, we’ll do that.” At six months the situation had not improved. Ryan then said, “We’re done.”

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What are the benefits to Kevin Ryan’s approach to team building?

2. What are the potential shortcomings?

3. Explain why you would or would not want to be a manager for Kevin Ryan.

Being a Team Player Instead of a Free Rider

Teams collaborate and perform most effectively when companies develop and encourage teamwork competencies. Fair enough, but if these competencies are important, how can you measure them? Researchers have distilled five common teamwork competencies outlined in  Table 8.5 . The examples listed for each suggest ways they can be measured.

TABLE 8.5  COMMON TEAMWORK COMPETENCIES

Competency	Examples of Member Behaviors
1. Contributes to the team’s work	· Completed work in a timely manner · Came to meetings prepared · Did complete and accurate work
2. Constructively interacts with team members	· Communicated effectively · Listened to teammates · Accepted feedback
3. Keeps team on track	· Helped team plan and organize work · Stayed aware of team members’ progress · Provided constructive feedback
4. Expects high-quality work	· Expected team to succeed · Cared that the team produced high-quality work
5. Possesses relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) for team’s responsibilities	· Possessed necessary KSAs to contribute meaningfully to the team · Applied knowledge and skill to fill in as needed for other members’ roles

Notice that all these competencies are action-oriented. This means being a team player is more than a state of mind: It’s about action!

Evaluating Teamwork Competencies

There are at least two ways to use  Table 8.5  and your knowledge of teamwork competencies. The first is as tools to enhance your self-awareness. The second is as a means to measure your performance and that of other members of your team.  Self-Assessment 8.3  can be useful for both. 

Page 310

Many of your business courses require team assignments and some require peer evaluations. Complete  Self-Assessment 8.3  to learn about your own teamwork competencies and/or to evaluate the performance of the members of one of your teams at school (for a class, sport, club, or fraternity/sorority). Knowledge of your teamwork competencies can help you determine which competencies are your strongest and those that are opportunities for improvement. You can then choose to play to your strengths and/or develop your deficiencies.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.3  Evaluate Your Team Member Effectiveness

Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 8.3 in Connect.

1. Which competencies are your strongest (have the highest average scores)?

2. Do these scores match your own impressions of your teamwork competencies?

3. Which competency is your lowest? Describe two things you can do to further develop and display this competency.

4. Which competency do you feel low performers most often lack in the teams of which you’re a member?

5. Describe the pros and cons of using this tool to do peer evaluations for team assignments in school.

Adapted from M. W. Ohland, M. L. Loughry, D. J. Woehr, L. G. Bullard, R. M. Felder, C. J. Finelli, R. A. Layton, H. R. Pomeranz, and D. G. Schmucker, “The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness: Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale for Self- and Peer Evaluation,” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2012, 609–30. Reprinted with permission of Academy of Management.

What Does It Mean to Be a Team Player?

Understanding and exhibiting the competencies noted in  Table 8.5  is an excellent start on becoming a team player. And while everybody has her or his own ideas of the characteristics that are most important, most people likely include the three Cs of team players:

· Committed

· Collaborative

· Competent 27

Think of it this way: The three Cs are the “cover charge” or the bare minimum to be considered a team player. Effective team players don’t just feel the three Cs—they display them. Think of somebody on one of your teams who clearly displays the three Cs and somebody who does not. How do the differences affect you? The team?

While there are many potential reasons some people are not team players, a particularly common and problematic one is social loafing. Let’s see what that means.

What Is Social Loafing?

Social loafing  is the tendency for individual effort to decline as group size increases. To illustrate the point, consider a group or team of which you’re a member and ask yourself: “Is group performance less than, equal to, or greater than the sum of its parts?” Can three people working together, for example, accomplish less than, the same as, or more than they would working separately? A study conducted more than a half-century ago found the answer to be less than. In a tug-of-war exercise, three people pulling together achieved only two-and-a-half times the average individual rate. Eight pullers achieved less than four times the individual rate. 28  

Social loafing is problematic because it typically consists of more than simply slacking off. Free riders (loafers) not only produce low-quality work, which causes others to work harder to compensate, but they often also distract or disrupt the work of other team Page 311members. And they often expect the same rewards as those who do their work. You undoubtedly have many examples from your own experiences. Given social loafing is so common and problematic, let’s look at how to guard against it.

1. Limit group size.

2. Ensure equity of effort to reduce the possibility that a member can say, “Everyone else is goofing off, so why shouldn’t I?” 

3. Hold people accountable. Don’t allow members to feel they are lost in the crowd and can think, “Who cares?”

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Guarding against Social Loafing

1. Think of a group or team situation in which one of the members was loafing.

2. Given what you just learned, what do you think was the cause of the free riding or loafing?

3. Describe in detail two things you could have done to prevent loafing from happening.

4. Describe what you can do in a future group assignment in school to avoid or reduce social loafing. Be specific.

Now let’s discuss various types of teams. Understanding the differences can make you a more effective team member and leader.

Types of Teams

As the world of work becomes more complex, so too do the types of teams. We can differentiate some common ones by particular characteristics, such as:

1. Purpose of the team.

2. Duration of the team’s existence.

3. Level of member commitment.

Work Teams

Work teams have a well-defined and common purpose, are more or less permanent, and require complete commitment of their members. Professional sports teams’ top priority is to win games, which they hope will also lead to higher ticket sales and more television viewers. The same teams exist from season to season, and membership is a full-time, all-consuming job for each player. An audit team at work is the same: It is full of auditors who work full time auditing.

Project Teams

Project teams are assembled to tackle a particular problem, task, or project. Depending on their purpose, their duration can vary immensely, from one meeting to many years. For instance, your employer may assemble a team to brainstorm ideas for generating more business with a certain customer. This project team may be limited to only one meeting, whether virtual or face-to-face. Or a project team may be responsible not only for creating ideas for more business with that customer, but also for executing the ideas over the course of one or more years. 

Members of project teams most often divide their time between the team and their primary jobs and responsibilities. They may be from the same department, product, customer, or service area in an organization, or they may be from different functional disciplines such as finance, operations, or marketing. And as you may have already experienced, any given employee may be a member of multiple project teams at one time.

Page 312

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional  teams are created with members from different disciplines within an organization, such as finance, operations, and R&D. Cross-functional teams can be used for any purpose, they can be work or project teams, and they may have a short or indefinite duration. New-product development is an area in which many organizations utilize cross-functional teams. Brian Walker, CEO of furniture maker Herman Miller, described how the company uses cross-functional teams to leverage the talents of employees in product development and boost company performance:

We’re big believers in putting teams together … we’re very willing to move folks around between departments. In our design process, for example, we deliberately create tension by putting together a cross-functional team that includes people from manufacturing, finance, research, ergonomics, marketing and sales. The manufacturing guys want something they know they can make easily and fits their processes. The salespeople want what their customers have been asking for. The tension comes from finding the right balance, being willing to follow those creative leaps to the new place, and convincing the organization it’s worth the risk. 29

Self-Managed Teams

Self-managed teams  are groups of workers who have administrative oversight over their work domains. Administrative oversight consists of activities such as planning, scheduling, monitoring, and staffing. These are normally performed by managers, but in self-managed teams employees act as their own supervisors. Self-managed teams have a defined purpose and their duration can vary, along with the level of member commitment. Cross-functional, work, and project teams can all be self-managed.

Leadership responsibilities often are shared and shift as the demands on and members of self-managed teams change. 30  Outside managers and leaders maintain indirect accountability. This contrasts with the hierarchical or centralized types of management historically found in teams. The vast majority of major US companies use self-managed teams. 31  The OB in Action box describes some potential benefits of self-managed teams.

OB IN ACTION  

The Art of the Self-Managing Team32

Many argue, and some convincingly, that great teams don’t last. Many disassemble because their members move on to other opportunities. One implication of this fact is that organizations and their leaders obsess too much over choosing the best members—chances are they will leave. However, companies W.L. Gore, Worthington Industries, Semco, and Morning Star provide insights into how to overcome this common hurdle and continually create top-performing self-managed teams.

The Opposite of Chaos   Some managers fear teams that are not under direct managerial control. But effective self-managed teams are not free-wheeling, undisciplined, or chaotic. They instead are focused and more effective than many conventional teams over time. Company founder Bill Gore says, “At Gore we don’t manage people. . . . We expect people to manage themselves.” 33

Self-managed teams at these companies share three characteristics:

1. Competence Rules the Day. Most employees and team members do not have job titles. However, that does not mean a lack of leadership. Everybody knows who the leaders are, and they typically are those who have “served their colleagues best, have offered the most useful ideas, and have worked the Page 313hardest and most effectively for the team’s success. At W.L. Gore, they say you find out if you’re a leader by calling a meeting and seeing if anyone comes.” Even assigned or explicit leaders are “transparently competence-based.” 34  A strict hierarchy is followed by most emergency room teams—attending physicians, fellows, and finally residents.

2. Clear Goals and Expectations. Most organizations do goal setting poorly, and even those that do it well can do it better. That said, each employee at Morning Star, a tomato processor, creates a “letter of understanding” with colleagues who are most affected by his or her work. This letter explains in great detail what each person can expect of the other. It not only clarifies goals and expectations, but it also boosts goal commitment.

3. Shared Values. Effective self-managed teams are clear about what they value. Surgical teams are keenly focused on patient safety and good medical outcomes. This focus is shared by everyone on the team despite the fact that members routinely come and go.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. These organizations make self-managed teams look simple and effective. If this is true, why do you think more organizations don’t use them?

2. Assume you’re a founder and CEO of a company. Argue both for and against using self-managed teams in your organization.

Self-managed does not mean workers are simply turned loose to do their own thing. Indeed, an organization embracing self-managed teams should be prepared to undergo revolutionary changes in its management philosophy, structure, staffing and training practices, and reward systems. Managers sometimes resist self-managed teams, due to the perceived threat to their authority and job security. 

Now that you’ve learned about some common team types and their characteristics, we turn our attention to virtual teams. Virtual teams are a common and critically important type of team with unique characteristics.

Virtual Teams

Technology not only allows people to communicate where, when, and with whom they wish, but it also allows many people and organizations to work without offices. What are the advantages and disadvantages for you personally of telecommuting and virtual work?© Image Source/Getty Images RF

Virtual teams  work together over time and distance via electronic media to combine effort and achieve common goals. 35  Traditional team meetings are location-specific. You and other team members are either physically present or absent. Members of virtual teams, in contrast, report in from different locations, different organizations, and often different time zones and countries.

Advocates say virtual teams are very flexible and efficient because they are driven by information and skills, not by time and location. People with needed information and/or skills can be team members, regardless of where or when they actually do their work. 36  Nevertheless, virtual teams have pros and cons like every other type of team.

Page 314

Best Uses of Virtual Teams

Virtual teams and distributed workers present many potential benefits: reduced real estate costs (limited or no office space); ability to leverage diverse knowledge, skills, and experience across geography and time (you don’t have to have an SAP expert in every office); ability to share knowledge of diverse markets; and reduced commuting and travel expenses. The flexibility often afforded by virtual teams also can reduce work–life conflicts for employees, which some employers contend makes it easier for them to attract and retain talent.37 

Obstacles for Virtual Teams

Virtual teams have challenges, too. It is more difficult for them than for face-to-face teams to establish team cohesion, work satisfaction, trust, cooperative behavior, and commitment to team goals.38 Many of these are important elements in the Organizing Framework. So virtual teams should be used with caution. It should be no surprise that building team relationships is more difficult when members are geographically distributed. This hurdle and time zone differences are challenges reported by nearly 50 percent of companies using virtual teams. Members of virtual teams also reported being unable to observe the nonverbal cues of other members and a lack of collegiality.39 These challenges apply to virtual teams more generally, as does the difficulty of leading such teams.40 When virtual teams cross country borders, cultural differences, holidays, and local laws and customs also can cause problems.

Effective Virtual Team Participation and Management

We put together a collection of best practices to help focus your efforts and accelerate your success as a member or leader of a virtual team: 41

1. Adapt your communications. Learn how the various remote workers function, including their preferences for e-mail, texts, and phone calls. It often is advisable to have regularly scheduled calls (via Skype). Be strategic and talk to the right people at the right times about the right topics. Don’t just blanket everybody via e-mail—focus your message. Accommodate the different time zones in a fair and consistent manner.

2. Share the love. Use your company’s intranet or other technology to keep distributed workers in the loop. Acknowledging birthdays and recognizing accomplishments are especially important for those who are not regularly in the office. Newsletters also can help and serve as a touch point and vehicle for communicating best practices and success stories.

3. Develop productive relationships with key people on the team. This may require extra attention, communication, and travel, but do what it takes. Key people are the ones you can lean on and the ones who will make or break the team assignment.

4. Be a good partner. Often members of virtual teams are not direct employees of your employer but are independent contractors. Nevertheless, your success and that of your team depend on them. Treat them like true partners and not hired help. You need them and presumably they need you.

5. Be available. Managers and remote workers all need to know when people can be reached, where, and how. Let people know and make yourself available.

6. Document the work. Because of different time zones, some projects can receive attention around the clock, as they are handed off from one zone to the next. Doing this effectively requires that both senders and receivers clearly specify what they have completed and what they need in each transfer.

7. Provide updates. Even if you are not the boss, or your boss doesn’t ask for them, be sure to provide regular updates on your progress to the necessary team members. 42

8. Select the right people. Effective virtual workers generally prefer and do well in interdependent work relationships. They also tend to be self starters and willing to Page 315take initiative. Such independent thought contrasts starkly with people who prefer to wait for instructions before taking action. 43

9. Use your communication skills. Because so much communication is written, virtual team members must have excellent communication skills and write well in easy-to-understand and to-the-point language.

Face Time

Researchers and consultants agree about one aspect of virtual teams—there is no substitute for face-to-face contact. Meeting in person is especially beneficial early in virtual team development, and team leaders are encouraged to meet even more frequently with key members. 44  Face-to-face interactions can be as simple as lunch, water-cooler conversations, social events, or periodic meetings. Whatever the case, such interactions enable people to get familiar with each other and build credibility, trust, and understanding. This reduces misunderstandings and makes subsequent virtual interactions more efficient and effective, and it also increases job performance and reduces conflict and intentions to quit. 45

Face-to-face interactions enable people to get real-time feedback, forge meaningful and real connections, and get a better sense of what others actually think and feel.46 Moreover, virtual teams cannot succeed without additional and old-fashioned factors, such as effective decision making, good communication, training, a clear mission and specific objectives, effective leadership, schedules, and deadlines. 47  Underlying many of these is one of the truly essential elements to effective teams of all types—trust. You’ll learn more about this in the  next section . But first let’s explore interdependence. 

Team Interdependence

One of the most important aspects of teams is interdependence, or the extent to which members are dependent on each other to accomplish their work.48 We discuss two common forms of interdependence—task and outcome.  Task interdependence  is the degree to which team members depend on each other for information, materials, and other resources to complete their job tasks.  The degree of task interdependence is determined by the degree of interaction between members and the amount of coordination required among them. There are four basic types of task interdependence, ranked by how much team member interaction and coordination are required. The types are illustrated in  Figure 8.5 .

FIGURE 8.5    Types of team interdependence

1. Pooled. Many pharmaceutical and other sales teams illustrate pooled interdependence. Each member sells a chosen drug to his or her customers, which requires little or no interaction or coordination with other representatives. At the end of the month all reps’ sales are added together to arrive at a team sales total. 

2. Sequential. Manufacturing or assembly processes are typically sequential. PCs manufacturing teams, for example, require that motherboards and hard drives be installed before the box can be closed and fastened.

3. Reciprocal. Hiring processes sometimes use reciprocal interdependence. Candidates are interviewed by members of HR and then separately interviewed by the hiring manager or members of that department, and the two communicate and decide to whom to make the offer.

4. Comprehensive. Product development teams often utilize comprehensive interdependence. Online games, for instance, require significant back and forth between those who create the idea, write the code, test, and market the game. It isn’t just a linear or sequential process.

Outcome interdependence is “the degree to which the outcomes of task work are measured, rewarded, and communicated at the group level so as to emphasize collective outputs rather than individual contributions.” 49  Outcome Page 316interdependence is determined by the extent to which team members’ objectives and rewards are aligned. 

Task interdependence provides opportunities for interaction, sharing, and coordination.50 The form of interdependence should match what the team requires to achieve its goals. A common mission or purpose helps a team and its members see how their own efforts and outcomes contribute to the larger department or organization.51 And rewarding teamwork is likely to further enhance actual teamwork and team performance.

The text is dimmed because right now it is less relevant for you to study. You can always reveal the text by clicking it.

x

Page 317

8.4

TRUST BUILDING AND REPAIR—ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR SUCCESS

MAJOR QUESTION

How can I build and repair trust in ways that make me more effective at school, work, and home?

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Trust sometimes seems like a rare commodity in today’s turbulent workplace. But you’re about to see why it’s so important at all levels of the Organizing Framework. Moreover, in the context of teams, trust is essential because it facilitates all interactions within and between teams. With this understanding you’ll be empowered to apply your knowledge to build trust and to repair it when it has been damaged or diminished.

Trust  is the willingness to be vulnerable to another person, and the belief that the other person will consider the impact of how his or her intentions and behaviors will affect you. 52 We can hardly overstate the value of trust in organizational life. Only respectful treatment was rated higher as a predictor of employee job satisfaction,53 and many would see trust and respect as highly correlated.

Trust is the lubricant of interpersonal relationships within and between all organizational levels in the Organizing Framework, and thus it also drives performance across levels (see  Figure 8.6 ). Lack of trust, for example, is a key factor in employee turnover. One study found that 59 percent of employees quit their jobs due to trust issues, which were linked to a lack of leader communication and honesty.54 Trust within groups of hospitality employees was also associated with increased motivation and performance.55  

FIGURE 8.6      Percent of people who engage in each behavior based on trust SOURCE: 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, Edelman.com, January 17, 2016,  http://www.edelman.com/news/2016-edelman-trust-barometer-release/ .

Arthur Gensler, founder of a leading global architecture and design firm, said this about trust:

Trust in business enjoys two main benefits. The first is with your clients. If they know you are honest and direct with them, they usually are willing to work through challenges with you, and they won’t hesitate to be a referral source when things go well. The second benefit is that authentic collaboration will take root within your firm. Your people can trust each other to act honorably and to fulfill their defined roles on a project assignment or company initiative according to shared company values. 56

Yet these have not been good times for trust in the business world. As Richard Edelman, whose company produces the famous Trust Barometer each year, said, the sad state of trust “is directly linked to the failure of key institutions to provide answers or leadership in response to events such as the refugee crisis, data breaches, China’s stock market downturn, Ebola in west Africa, the invasion of Ukraine, the FIFA bribery Page 318scandal, VW’s manipulation of emissions data, massive corruption at Petrobras, and exchange-rate manipulation by the world’s largest banks.”57   

Given this grim commentary, and because trust is so important, we will explore ways in which to build trust and to repair it when it has been damaged. But let’s first learn about different forms of trust.

Three Forms of Trust

For our purposes in OB, we discuss three particular forms of trust:

1. Contractual trust. Trust of character. Do people do what they say they are going to do? Do managers and employees make clear what they expect of one another?

2. Communication trust. Trust of disclosure. How well do people share information and tell the truth?

3. Competence trust. Trust of capability. How effectively do people meet or perform their responsibilities and acknowledge other people’s skills and abilities? 58

Answering these questions provides both a good assessment of trustworthiness and a guide for building trust.

Page 319

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Applying My Knowledge of Trust

1. Describe a person with whom you have a high level of contractual trust, then a person with whom you have a low level. What are the implications for your relationship with each?

2. Think of an instance when you demonstrated communication trust by making an admission that was difficult, perhaps even costly for you, but you did it anyway. Now think of a time when somebody violated this type of trust with you. What were your reactions in each case?

3. Describe an instance when competence trust was violated, by you or somebody else. What was the result? (Hint: Group assignments in school often provide examples.)

Building Trust

You may already believe that to get trust you must give trust. The practical application of this view, and of new knowledge we’ve gained about trust, is to act in ways that demonstrate each of the three types of trust. Doing so builds trust. You can also benefit by practicing the following behaviors for building and maintaining trust:

· Communication. Keep team members and employees informed by explaining policies and decisions and providing accurate feedback. Be candid about your own problems and limitations. Tell the truth. 59

· Support. Be available and approachable. Provide help, advice, coaching, and support for team members’ ideas.

· Respect. Delegation, in the form of real decision-making authority, is the most important expression of managerial respect. Delegating meaningful responsibilities to somebody shows trust in him or her. Actively listening to the ideas of others is a close second.

· Fairness. Be quick to give credit and recognition to those who deserve it. Make sure all performance appraisals and evaluations are objective and impartial.

· Predictability. Be consistent and predictable in your daily affairs. Keep both expressed and implied promises.

· Competence. Enhance your credibility by demonstrating good business sense, technical ability, and professionalism. 60

If trust is a matter of give and take, it will be helpful to know how trusting you are of others.  Self-Assessment 8.4  can help you learn about different aspects of your interpersonal trust. Besides improving your self-awareness, knowledge of your interpersonal trust can also provide guidance for how you can more effectively build trust with others—friends, classmates, coworkers, and bosses.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.4  How Much Do You Trust Another?

Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 8.4 in Connect.

1. Which particular items in this questionnaire are most central to your idea of trust? Why?

2. Does your score accurately depict the degree to which you trust (or distrust) the target person?

3. Why do you trust (or distrust) this individual?

4. If you trust this person to a high degree, how hard was it to build that trust? Explain.

5. Given your inclination to trust others (your score on the assessment), describe three implications for your work in group assignments and project teams at school.

Page 320

Repairing Trust

Just as trust can be built, so can it be eroded. The violation of trust, or even the perception of it, can diminish trust and lead to distrust. As you probably know from personal experience, trust is violated in many ways—sometimes deliberately and sometimes unwittingly. In any case, it is important to repair trust when it has been damaged.

Regardless of who is responsible for eroding or damaging trust, both parties need to be active in the repair of trust. Dennis and Michelle Reina studied thousands of instances of broken trust in business and developed seven steps for regaining it.  Figure 8.7  illustrates their recommendations as an upward staircase, to show how individuals must work their way back from distrust, one step at a time, to finally regain what they have lost. This seven-step process can help whether you are the perpetrator or the victim.

FIGURE 8.7     Reina seven-step model for rebuilding trustSOURCE: Adapted from D. Reina and M. Reina, Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace: Seven Steps to Renew Confidence, Commitment, and Energy (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2010), 13. 

We conclude this section with an observation about trust from Lars Dalgaard, a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and the founder and former CEO of SuccessFactors, a human capital consulting firm: 

The funny thing is that you’re actually a stronger leader and more trustworthy if you’re able to be vulnerable and you’re able to show your real personality. It’s a trust multiplier, and people really will want to work for you and be on a mission together with you. 61

Page 321

8.5

KEYS TO TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

MAJOR QUESTION

What are the keys to effective teams, and how can I apply this knowledge to give me an advantage?

THE BIGGER PICTURE

You will thrive in team settings when you better understand the characteristics of high-performing teams. You can use these characteristics as facilitators to function more successfully in group and team settings. You will also benefit from the practical suggestions, supported by research and practice, with which we conclude the chapter, such as how to foster and reward collaboration and teamwork.

Characteristics of High-Performing Teams

Current research and practice have identified the following eight attributes of high-performance teams:

1. Shared leadership—interdependence created by empowering, freeing up, and serving others.

2. Strong sense of accountability—an environment in which all team members feel as responsible as the manager for the performance of the work unit.

3. Alignment on purpose—a sense of common purpose about why the team exists and the function it serves.

4. Open communication—a climate of open and honest communication.

5. High trust—belief that member actions and intentions focus on what’s best for the team and its members.

6. Clear role and operational expectations—defined individual member responsibilities and team processes.

7. Early conflict resolution—resolution of conflicts as they arise, rather than avoidance or delay.

8. Collaboration—cooperative effort to achieve team goals. 62

The 3 Cs of Effective Teams

With the above characteristics in mind, you might ask: How do you build a high-performing team? The short answer is to use the three Cs. (Note: These three Cs are at the team level, in contrast to the three Cs of effective team players discussed earlier that focus on the individual or team member level.) The three Cs are:

· Charters and strategies

· Composition

· Capacity

Charters and Strategies

Both researchers and practitioners urge groups and teams to plan before tackling their tasks, early in the group development process (the Page 322storming stage). These plans should include  team charters  that describe how the team will operate, such as through processes for sharing information and decision making (teamwork). 63 Team charters were discussed in the Winning at Work feature at the beginning of this chapter. Teams should also create and implement  team performance strategies , deliberate plans that outline what exactly the team is to do, such as goal setting and defining particular member roles, tasks, and responsibilities. 64

Composition

Team composition  describes the collection of jobs, personalities, knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience levels of team members. When we think of it this way, it is no surprise that team composition can and does affect team performance. Team member characteristics should fit the responsibilities of the team if the team is to be effective. Fit facilitates effectiveness and misfit impedes it—you need the right people on your team. 

Recent research on Tour de France cycling teams revealed that teams with greater diversity in tenure—with some new riders, some longtime riders, and some in between—had better team performance, measured as the number of riders finishing in Paris. What makes this finding intriguing is that diversity in terms of members’ skills, previous Tour stage wins, age, and experience had no effect on team performance!68 © Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

Research shows that in the early stages of team development (forming and storming), teams perform better when members have a high tolerance for uncertainty (a personality trait). This same finding applies to self-managed and virtual teams, due to their relative lack of imposed direction and face-to-face communication. 65  Team research also shows that teams with members who possess high levels of openness or emotional stability deal with task conflict better than those without these composition characteristics. 66  Finally, in the university context, top management teams (presidents, vice presidents, and chancellors) who were more diverse in terms of educational and disciplinary backgrounds generated more funding for research and improved school reputations.67

The bottom line: Create teams with the composition to match the desired objectives. Knowledge of OB and the Organizing Framework, in particular, can be very helpful in this regard.

Page 323

Capacity

Team adaptive capacity  (adaptability) is the ability to make needed changes in response to demands put on the team. It is fostered by team members who are both willing and able to adapt to achieve the team’s objectives. Described in this way, team adaptive capacity is a matter of team composition—the characteristics of individual team members. And it is an input in the Organizing Framework that influences team-level outcomes. 69  

Collaboration and Team Rewards

Collaboration is the act of sharing information and coordinating efforts to achieve a collective outcome. It’s safe to assume that teams whose members collaborate are more effective than those whose members don’t.70 Collaboration is what enables teams to produce more than the sum of their parts.71 Many factors can influence collaboration, including how teams are rewarded. In this  final section  we’ll explore how to foster collaboration and the role rewards can play. 

Collaboration—The Lifeblood of Teamwork

As interdependence increases, so too does the need for and value of collaboration. Today’s business landscape, characterized by globalization, outsourcing, strategic partnering, and virtual teams, makes collaboration ever more important.72 That said, many things can interfere with collaboration. To help foster collaboration, we recommend the following as a starting point:

1. Communicate expectations. Clarifying roles and responsibilities for each team member is essential. Identify and communicate both individual and team accountability.

2. Set team goals. SMART goals for teams are a good place to start, but also review goals regularly as a team (weekly, monthly, or quarterly). Be sure individual roles and responsibilities align with team goals.

3. Encourage creativity. Create a safe environment where employees can take risks without fear of humiliation or career damage. Nurture a “can do” attitude within the team, and foster it by asking why or why not instead of saying yes or no.

4. Build work flow rhythm. Technology can be of great assistance. Project management software as well as other scheduling tools can help team members know exactly what they need to do and when. This can greatly assist in their coordination efforts and help assure that interdependent needs of team members are met.

5. Leverage team member strengths. Set individuals up to win by identifying and utilizing their strengths. The key to realizing the benefits of the team is to appropriately utilize the strengths of its individual members.73   

Reward Collaboration and Teamwork

Rewards matter, and dissatisfaction with rewards is a common cause for suboptimal team performance. Despite the need to work collaboratively, many if not most professional service firms (law, accounting, and consulting practices) measure and reward individual contributions, such as billable hours, up-or-out promotion systems (either qualify for partner or find another job), and competition between team members.74 In contrast, Whole Foods Market uses teams extensively throughout the organization, and most incentives are team-based, not individual. If a team’s department or store reduces costs and/or boosts revenues, then the team earns a share of the financial benefits. 75  

Organizations that foster the greatest collaboration and assemble the most effective teams typically use hybrid reward systems that recognize both individual and team performance.  Table 8.6  provides guidance on how to reward performance in teams, based on the desired outcome (speed or accuracy) and the degree of interdependence (low, moderate, high). These guidelines can give you a tremendous head start in determining how best to reward and motivate team performance.76 

Page 324

TABLE 8.6    RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING THE COORDINATION AND MOTIVATION OF TEAMS AND TEAM MEMBERS

	LOW INTERDEPENDENCE	MODERATE INTERDEPENDENCE	HIGH INTERDEPENDENCE
Speed	Relay Teams	Road Cycling Teams	Crew Teams
	What to measure: Individual performance	What to measure: Individual performance	What to measure: Team performance
	How to measure: Managerial assessment	How to measure: Managerial assessment	How to measure: Managerial and peer assessment
	How to reward: Competitive rewards	How to reward: Competitive rewards	How to reward: Cooperative rewards
Accuracy	Gymnastics Teams	Basketball Teams	Synchronized Swimming Teams
	What to measure: Individual performance	What to measure: Team performance	What to measure: Team performance
	How to measure: Managerial assessment	How to measure: Managerial and peer assessment	How to measure: Managerial and peer assessment
	How to reward: Competitive rewards	How to reward: Cooperative rewards	How to reward: Cooperative rewards

SOURCE: R. K. Gottfredson, “How to Get Your Teams to Work,” Industrial Management, July/August 2015, 25-30.

Appropriate rewards for collaboration and teamwork motivate at both the individual and team levels, and they also positively influence many important outcomes across all levels in the Organizing Framework. The following  Problem-Solving Application  illustrates how collaboration, teamwork, and performance management were applied in hospitals and nursing homes to improve patient and financial outcomes.

PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION

Together, Hospitals Combat a Common Foe77

The Foe

Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile for short, is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The vast majority of people infected are patients in hospitals and nursing homes. Some enter the facility with the infection, but it also is common for people admitted for other reasons to acquire it once there. Another common source of infection is patients who are transferred from one facility to another and bring the bacteria with them, introducing it to a new patient population.

How It Does Its Damage

Overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics is largely responsible for this resistant bacteria. It is extremely difficult to kill and can live on bed rails, call buttons, and doorknobs for up to five months if they are not cleaned effectively.

Patients must ingest C. difficile to become infected. Typically they must also be on antibiotics that wipe out the good bacteria in their gut, allowing C. difficile to thrive there. This means prevention is Page 325partly a matter of hygiene among care providers and in nursing home and hospital environments, and partly a matter of prescribing practices.

Costs and Responsibilities

The C. difficile problem occurs across the United States, but a number of hospitals and nursing homes in the Rochester, New York, area had a particular problem. For instance, a group of hospitals was spending an additional $4 million to $5 million a year to deal with C. difficile-related problems. Moreover, Medicare is increasingly rewarding or punishing hospitals based on performance outcomes, such as infection rates and readmissions. The organizations therefore had both moral and financial incentives to act. Potential solutions were made more difficult because these same hospitals and nursing homes in the area compete on a daily basis for patients, doctors, and dollars. 

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

1. Step 1:Define the problem(s) confronting the hospitals and nursing homes.

2. Step 2:Identify the major causes of the problem(s).

3. Step 3:Make your recommendations.

We conclude the chapter with perhaps the most incredible and challenging application of teamwork—the International Space Station. Teamwork in this context is literally out of this world!

OB IN ACTION  

Exemplary Teamwork at NASA

Crew members of Expedition 30 pose for an in-flight crew portrait in the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle Edoardo Amaldi (ATV-3) while docked with the International Space Station.© Rex Features/AP Photo

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) epitomizes teamwork. NASA epitomizes the effective structure and implementation of multi-team teams. They have to be experts, as controlling space craft is obviously incredibly complex and difficult. Today, the organization’s challenges related to the International Space Station (ISS) are substantially greater. This is due to the fact that NASA is one of five space agencies around the globe that jointly control the International Space Station. These agencies have rotated responsibilities 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, since 2000! The space station itself was built and is maintained by the five space agencies, which represent 23 countries. Yet effective coordination and collaboration occur almost seamlessly, even as team members come and go and responsibilities repeatedly cross international borders. As part of the space station’s crew, NASA overcomes common challenges faced by many teams today.

Page 326

Dynamic Composition   The members of the various teams continually change. Astronauts from several countries routinely come and go, for example, because their time on board the ISS is limited for their safety. Imagine the time and resources required to continually prepare new members to live on the space station. Technical, physical, and cultural training requirements are immense, not least because all team members must effectively execute their responsibilities when on board. 

Technology and Distance   Communication is critical and an ever-present challenge. Ground control must communicate with both the ISS and its various locations on the ground. It’s not as simple as making a cell phone call or Skyping. Distance is an obvious obstacle. NASA, and its partners, must overcome the “us” versus “them” dynamic between the flight crew and mission control. In addition to language differences at both mission control and the ISS, isolation is a problem. Astronauts can be on board the station for up to a year at a time. The confined spaces and lack of communication with family and friends are incredibly stressful. Thankfully, new technology enables the flight crew to communicate more frequently and privately with others on the ground.

The Ultimate Telecommuters   An interesting way to think of astronauts and cosmonauts, is to think of them as the most extreme telecommuters! Most if not all the challenges discussed in this chapter are experienced by those involved in the ISS—both on the ground and in space. 78

YOUR THOUGHTS?

Imagine you’re a leader of the ISS flight crew.

1. What team challenges do you think would be most enjoyable for you?

2. What team challenges do you think would be most problematic for you?

3. What would you do to ensure the team works effectively and safely?

Your work life, and life more generally, is awash in teams. Apply the OB knowledge and tools gained in this chapter to be more successful and fulfilled when you work with others.

Page 327

What Did I Learn?

You learned that working with others can increase everybody’s performance because groups and teams can, and often do, accomplish more than individuals. You learned that roles and norms are the building blocks of group and team behavior. We explored group development processes, along with ways to differentiate groups and teams and the characteristics of effective team players. We saw the different types of teams and the value of interdependence. You learned how to boost your personal effectiveness further still by understanding trust and knowing how to repair it. Finally, we addressed the elements that foster team effectiveness and collaboration. Reinforce your learning with the Key Points below and consolidate it using the Organizing Framework. Challenge your mastery of the material by answering the Major Questions in your own words.

Key Points for Understanding Chapter 8

You learned the following key points:

8.1

GROUP CHARACTERISTICS

· Groups consist of two or more individuals who share norms, goals, and identity.

· Both formal and informal groups are useful.

· Roles are expected behaviors for a particular job or position, and group roles set expectations for members of a group.

· Norms are shared attitudes, opinions, feelings, or actions that help govern the behaviors of groups and their members.

8.2

THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

· Groups often evolve or develop along five defined steps: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

· Punctuated equilibrium is another form of group development, in which normal functioning is disrupted by an event that causes the group to change the way it operates. It then settles into this new mode of operation or equilibrium.

· Knowledge of group development can help you understand group dynamics and be more effective in groups and teams.

8.3

TEAMS AND THE POWER OF COMMON PURPOSE

· Teams differ from groups in terms of shared leadership, collective accountability, collective purpose, and a focus on problem solving and collective effectiveness.

· Team players are committed, collaborative, and competent.

· Common forms of teams are work, project, cross-functional, self-managed, and virtual.

· Team interdependence describes the degree to which members depend on each other for information, materials, and other resources to complete their job tasks.

8.4

TRUST BUILDING AND REPAIR—ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR SUCCESS

· Trust is a belief that another person will consider the way his or her intentions and behaviors will affect you.

· Three common forms of trust are contractual, communication, and competence.

· Trust is critical to your short- and long-term success and, if damaged, can be repaired using a seven-step process.

8.5

KEYS TO TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

· High-performing teams have several characteristics, such as participative leadership, aligned purpose, future focused, and creativity.

· Charters and strategies, composition, and capacity are the three Cs of effective teams.

· Page 328Reward and collaboration are important means of fostering team effectiveness.

The Organizing Framework for Chapter 8

As shown in  Figure 8.8 , the process of group/team dynamics leads to a large number of outcomes at all three levels in the Organizing Framework.

FIGURE 8.8      Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB© 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.

Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 8

You should now be able to answer the following questions. Unless you can, have you really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter? Refer to the Key Points,  Figure 8.8 , the chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer the following major questions:

1. How can knowledge of groups and teams and their key characteristics make me more successful?

2. How can understanding the group development process make me more effective at school and work?

3. What are the characteristics of effective team players, team types, and interdependence, and how can these improve my performance in teams?

4. How can I build and repair trust in ways that make me more effective at school, work, and home?

5. What are the keys to effective teams, and how can I apply this knowledge to give me an advantage?

Page 329

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME

There are five practical ways you can apply the material in this chapter. First, learn which individual functions of groups are most important to you. This knowledge can help you understand why you are more satisfied in some groups than others. Knowledge of organizational functions can help you diagnose conflict and/or underperformance in some of the groups in which you are a member. Second, apply your knowledge of task and maintenance roles to identify ways you can make meaningful contributions to your groups and teams. If a role is missing and important, use your knowledge to fulfill it. Third, develop your teamwork competencies.  Table 8.5  provides examples of how to do it. These competencies will serve you in any group or team and increase your value throughout your career. Fourth, apply your knowledge to combat social loafing. Don’t let free riders add to or undermine your hard work. Fifth, your trustworthiness will make or break you. Pay attention to communication, support, respect, fairness, predictability, and your competence to boost your own trustworthiness. And when trust is diminished or violated, use  Figure 8.7  to repair it.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS 

There are six practical implications that will benefit you as a manager. First, identify the important task and maintenance roles in the various teams you manage or belong to. Be sure these important roles are fulfilled effectively (not always by you). Second, you can reduce frustrations when working in teams by understanding the group development process. Identify the particular stage of development the group is in, and then apply your knowledge to advance it to the next. Third, evaluate those you manage in terms of the three Cs of a team player—committed, collaborative, competent. These can help you explain both top performers and underperformers. Fourth, always be mindful of trust, both how trusting you are of your people and how trusting they are of you. Managing people is infinitely more difficult when trust is an issue—never underestimate its importance. Apply the knowledge you gained in this chapter to both build and repair trust (see  Figure 8.7 ). Fifth, Use team charters to set up your various teams to win. Doing this work early can pay great dividends and avoid conflict throughout the team’s existence. Last but not least, be sure the tangible and intangible rewards you offer support collaboration and teamwork. 

The text is dimmed because right now it is less relevant for you to study. You can always reveal the text by clicking it.

x

Page 330

Problem-Solving Application Case

Optimizing Team Performance at Google 79

Google is well on its way to ruling the universe. Whether this is its actual goal or not, the company’s short- and long-term success depend on the performance of its work teams. Realizing this, Google applied its immense human, technological, and financial resources to finding out what makes top-performing teams so effective. Despite its legendary achievements, the company knew that teams vary considerably in terms of their performance, member satisfaction, and level of cohesion and conflict. To understand why, it did what it does best—collect and analyze data. It created Project Aristotle and spent millions of dollars to gather mountains of data from 180 teams across the company. The only thing more surprising than what it found was what it didn’t find.

What Did Google Expect to Find?

Google sliced and diced the team data looking for patterns that would distinguish the most successful from the less successful teams. It expected that some combination of team member characteristics would reveal the optimal team profile. Such a profile or pattern never emerged. Google examined seemingly everything, such as team composition (team member personality, experience, age, gender, and education), how frequently teammates ate lunch together and with whom, their social networks within the company, how often they socialized outside the office, whether they shared hobbies, and team managers’ leadership styles.

It also tested the belief that the best teams were made up of the best individual contributors, or that they paired introverts with introverts and friends with friends. To the researchers’ amazement, these assumptions were simply popular wisdom. In sum, “the ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.” Even more puzzling was that “two teams might have nearly identical makeups, with overlapping memberships, but radically different levels of effectiveness,” 80  said Abeer Dubey, a manager in Google’s People Analytics division.

What Did the Company Actually Find?

It turned out it wasn’t so much who was in the group but the way the group functioned or operated that made the performance difference. Group norms—expected behaviors for individuals and the larger team—helped explain why two groups with similar membership function very differently. But this finding was only the beginning. Now Google needed to identify the operative norms.

Members of the Project Aristotle team began looking for team member data referring to factors such as unwritten rules, treatment of fellow team members, ways they communicated in meetings, and ways they expressed value and concern for one another. Dozens of potential norms emerged, but unfortunately the norms of one successful team often conflicted with those of another.

To help explain this finding, the Project Aristotle team reviewed existing research on teams and learned that work teams that showed success on one task often succeed at most. Those that performed poorly on one task typically performed poorly on others. This helped confirm their conclusion that norms were the key. However, they still couldn’t identify the particular norms that boosted performance or explain the seemingly conflicting norms of similarly successful teams. 

Then came a breakthrough. After intense analysis, two behaviors emerged. First, all high-functioning teams allowed members to speak in roughly the same proportion. Granted, they did this in many different ways, from taking turns to having a moderator orchestrate discussions, but the end result was the same—everybody got a turn. Second, the members of successful teams seemed to be good at sensing other team members’ emotions, through either their tone of voice, their expressions, or other nonverbal cues.

Having identified these two key norms, the Project Aristotle team was able to conclude that many other team inputs and processes were far less important or didn’t matter at all. Put another way, teams could be very different in a host of ways, but so long as everybody got and took a turn when communicating, and members were sensitive to each other, then each had a chance of being a top-performing team. With this knowledge in hand, now came the hard part. How to instill these norms in work teams at Google?

How could Google instill the appropriate communication practices, as well as build empathy into their teams’ dynamics?

Page 331

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to OB

Use the Organizing Framework in  Figure 8.8  and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.

1. Step 1: Define the problem.

A. Look first to the Outcomes box of the Organizing Framework to help identify the important problem(s) in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap between a desired and current state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure to consider problems at all three levels. If more than one desired outcome is not being accomplished, decide which one is most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.

B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and problems are generally viewed from a particular protagonist’s perspective. You therefore need to determine from whose perspective—employee, manager, team, or the organization—you’re defining the problem. As in other cases, whether you choose the individual or organizational level in this case can make a difference.

C. Use details in the case to determine the key problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that are not included in the case.

D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a problem? Focus on topics in the current chapter, because we generally select cases that illustrate concepts in the current chapter. (Reminder:  Chapter 8  is the first chapter in the Groups/Teams section of the book. Perhaps particular attention at this level is warranted.)

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using material from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework for  Chapter 8  and is shown in  Figure 8.8 . Causes will tend to show up in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

E. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework ( Figure 8.8 ) and determine which person factors, if any, are most likely causes to the defined problem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more likely to lead you to root causes of the problem. For example, do particular team member characteristics help explain the problem you defined in Step 1?

F. Follow the same process for the situation factors. For each ask yourself, Why is this a cause? By asking why multiple times you are likely to arrive at a more complete and accurate list of causes. Again, look to the Organizing Framework for this chapter for guidance.

G. Now consider the Processes box in the Organizing Framework. Are any processes at the individual, group/team, or organizational level potential causes of your defined problem? For any process you consider, ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations to arrive at the root causes.

H. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the causes, map them onto the defined problem.

Step 3: Make your recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see  Section 1.5 ). Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?

I. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the material in the current chapter that best suits the cause. Remember to consider the OB in Action and Applying OB boxes, because these contain insights into what others have done. These insights might be especially useful for this case.

J. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—both person and situation factors, as well as processes at different levels.

K.  Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

The text is dimmed because right now it is less relevant for you to study. You can always reveal the text by clicking it.

x

Page 332

Legal/Ethical Challenge

When Would You Fire the Coach? The President?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) routinely hands down sanctions for violations of rules on recruiting, academic eligibility, and illegal payments. At some schools violations occur repeatedly. Such patterns suggest that current efforts to prevent unethical conduct in college sports are ineffective, despite the severity of some NCAA sanctions. With this as background, the point of this Legal/Ethical Challenge is determining who should bear the consequences of such misconduct. Currently, it seems that leaders at different levels of universities reap the benefits of wins and championships, but that not all suffer the consequences of misconduct, even misconduct they (should) know about.

If you agree this is a problem that needs to be addressed, then despite its intentions and efforts, the NCAA is only part of the solution. Perhaps the ultimate solution lies in the quality of university-level leadership by boards of trustees, presidents, and athletic directors. 81  The NCAA gives college presidents wide latitude to govern sports programs. They have official authority, and they typically report to boards of trustees who are in effect their bosses and thus responsible for their conduct. 

The Current and Prevailing View

There are at least two views on misconduct in college sports programs. One perspective, the prevailing view today, is that infractions are just part of doing business in college sports, and that sanctions are an unfortunate but nonetheless expected “business expense.” Economically this makes sense. Neither coaches, athletic directors, presidents, nor trustees want unethical activity to jeopardize the sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue generated by sports programs. For perspective, the top five revenue-generating college football teams netted over $300 million in profits in 2015.82 (That’s just five schools, and just profits.) Nor do leaders want to risk long-term damage to the reputation of the particular sports program or the larger university. For example, when Southern Methodist University football was found to be paying players, among other offenses, the NCAA imposed the “death penalty” by canceling the team’s 1987 season. The school was unable to field a team the following year and missed that season as well. Many argue it has never recovered. 83  Such consequences, the death penalty, have never been used by the NCAA since.

An Alternative View

But what if sanctions did extend to university leaders? For instance, what if the board of trustees at a given university said that if a player is suspended, so are the coach and athletic director, without pay. If the player is dismissed, so are the coach and athletic director, and perhaps even the college president. Business executives and managers are fired every day when their conduct jeopardizes far less money than is at stake in major college sports programs. 

While this solution may seem extreme and even unrealistic, it would certainly motivate presidents, athletic directors, and trustees to take greater responsibility for and oversight of the ethical conduct of their sports teams and programs. These leaders often bask in the rewards when their teams win championships, but they are able to contain or even avoid the costs of their misconduct. If both the rewards and the punishments extended beyond individual players, however, that behavior would likely change. It also is more likely that leaders such as university presidents and trustees would be more proactive.

For instance, if these practices had been in place, perhaps Southern Methodist would not have hired men’s basketball coach Larry Brown in 2012. Yes, Brown had legendary success at both the college and professional levels. But his UCLA championship team had also been stripped of its title because of NCAA violations, and when he later coached the University of Kansas it was banned from the postseason play for a year and placed on probation for three.

If one of those universities’ presidents had been fired, along with the athletic directors and coaches, perhaps SMU might have more carefully considered hiring coach Brown. 84  Now that Brown and SMU have both been slammed with sanctions by the NCAA, for Brown’s third set of violations, should others be held accountable—the president, the board of trustees, the athletic director? After all, they knowingly took the chance that it wouldn’t happen again, and it did. Making matters worse, SMU President R. Page 333Gerald Turner is co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics whose stated mission is “to ensure that intercollegiate athletics programs operate within the educational mission of their colleges and universities.”85 It thus seems that they should have been especially tuned in to potential misconduct in athletic programs.

Does this offer guidance for Syracuse and Jim Boeheim, Louisville and Rick Pitino, or other college basketball or sports programs more generally, when dealing with their own scandals and long patterns of unethical conduct? In the current system, if anybody pays penalties in a meaningful way it is the players who lose postseason opportunities and scholarships, compared to a token few game suspensions for coaches who are already wealthy. But what about the other leaders—athletic directors, presidents, trustees?86

What Should Be Done About the Unethical Conduct in College Sports?

1. Don’t change anything. The current means for dealing with misconduct, including NCAA sanctions, are sufficient. Justify.

2. Modify the NCAA authority and sanctions, but keep the system more or less as it is. Explain.

3. Hold university leadership accountable—some combination of coaches, their bosses the athletic directors, their bosses the presidents, and their bosses the boards of trustees. Explain.

4. Invent another alternative and explain.

The text is dimmed because right now it is less relevant for you to study. You can always reveal the text by clicking it.

x