{"id":32,"date":"2020-11-02T13:34:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T18:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/fundamentalsbusiness\/chapter\/teamwork\/"},"modified":"2024-12-07T00:45:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T05:45:12","slug":"teamwork","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/fundamentalsbusiness\/chapter\/teamwork\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 2 - Teamwork in Business","rendered":"Chapter 2 – Teamwork in Business"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/h1>\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n\r\nBy the end of this chapter, you should be able to:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. define different types of teams and describe key characteristics;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. explain why organizations use teams;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  3. identify factors that contribute to team cohesion or division;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  4. describe the importance of learning to participate in team-based activities;<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. identify the skills needed by team members and the roles that members of a team might play;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  6. explain the skills and behaviours that foster effective team leadership; and<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  7. explain [pb_glossary id=\"456\"]key terms[\/pb_glossary] in the chapter.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\"\"\r\n

    Show What You Know<\/h2>\r\n

    [h5p id=\"1\"]<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    <\/div>\r\n

    What Is a Team? <\/span><\/h1>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_948\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"402\"]\"A Figure 2.1 \"International Year of the World's Indigenous People, 1993\" by United Nations Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPeople working together is a concept that has long been part of our history. Humans and their ancestors began working together in hunter-gatherer societies over two million years ago. Only fairly recently in human history, 12,000 years ago,[footnote]National Geographic. (2021). Hunter gather culture<\/em>.\u00a0https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.org\/encyclopedia\/hunter-gatherer-culture\/[\/footnote] many societies shifted to an agrarian focus. In hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies people needed to work together towards a shared goal. As we look at teams and teamwork today, we often look to the fields of business, sociology, or psychology to explain what to do and how to do it, but working together is woven into our history and our survival as a species.\r\n\r\nWith that in mind, we want to recognize that each person also has an innate understanding of how to work together. That individual understanding of the concept of shared work stems from many influences, including our personal culture, the culture, experience, and history of our caregivers, and the places and people we have lived among. Now, in a global society, we face new challenges of how those influences are sometimes at odds with one another. In a team of ten people, we likely to find ten different views of how to work together.\r\n\r\nHistorically, powerful nations or peoples often chose to face these challenges with force and domination, resulting in the devastation of long, meaningful human ways of being. Today, we have the opportunity to make better choices. We can look at each person's uniqueness and the perspectives that their culture, identity, history and experiences give them. We can thus choose ways of working together that empower equitable contributions towards mutually developed goals, for the benefit of our team, our groups, and our species.\r\n

    Characteristics of Teams in Business Today\r\n<\/span><\/h1>\r\nIn business today, we often define a team<\/span> (or a work team) as a group of people with complementary skills who work together to achieve a specific goal. Every [pb_glossary id=\"627\"]team[\/pb_glossary] is organized around a shared objective \u2014 <\/span>something to accomplish.<\/span>\r\n

    \u201cTeamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.\u201d \u2014 <\/span>Andrew Carnegie<\/em><\/span><\/p>\r\n

    A group is different. A [pb_glossary id=\"637\"]group[\/pb_glossary] of department store managers, for example, might meet monthly to discuss their progress in cutting plant costs. However, each manager is focused on the goals of their department because each is held accountable for meeting those goals. <\/span>To put teams in perspective, let us identify five key characteristics.<\/p>\r\n

    Teams:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

      \r\n \t
    1. share accountability for achieving specific common goals;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    2. function interdependently;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    3. require stability;<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    4. hold authority and decision-making power; and<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    5. operate in a social context.[footnote]Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

      The Team and the Organization<\/h1>\r\nWhy do major organizations now rely so heavily on teams to improve operations? Executives at Xerox have reported that team-based operations are 30 percent more productive than conventional operations. General Mills says that factories organized around team activities are 40 percent more productive than traditionally organized factories. FedEx says that teams reduced service errors (lost packages, incorrect bills) by 13 percent in the first year.[footnote]Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, pp. 4-5. See also Alderfer, C.P. (1977). Group and Intergroup Relations. In J. R. Hackman & J. L. Suttle (Eds.), Improving Life at Work<\/em> (pp. 277\u201396). Palisades, CA: Goodyear.[\/footnote]\r\n

      Today it seems obvious that teams can address a variety of challenges in the world of corporate activity. Before we go any further, however, we should remind ourselves that the data we\u2019ve just cited aren\u2019t necessarily definitive. For one thing, they may not be objective; companies are more likely to report successes than failures. Teams don\u2019t always work; according to one study, team-based projects fail 50 to 70 percent of the time.[footnote]Fisher, K. (1999). Leading Self-Directed Work Teams: A Guide to Developing New Team Leadership Skills<\/em> (rev. ed). New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. See also Greenberg, J., & Baron R. A. (2008). Behavior in Organizations (9th ed.)<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n

      The Effect of Teams on Performance<\/span><\/h1>\r\n

      Research shows that companies build and support teams because of their effect on overall workplace performance, both organizational and individual. If we examine the impact of team-based operations according to a wide range of relevant criteria, we find that overall organizational performance generally improves. The following figure lists several areas in which we can analyze workplace performance and indicates the percentage of companies that have reported improvements in each area.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      Table 2.1<\/strong> Effects of Team-Based Operations on Performance[footnote](Adapted from Lawler, E. E., Mohaman, S. A., & Ledford, G. E. (1992). \u00a0Creating high performance organizations: Practices and results of employee involvement and total quality in Fortune 1000 Companies<\/em>. San Francisco: Wiley.)[\/footnote]<\/caption>\r\n
      Area of Performance<\/th>\r\nFirms Reporting Improvement<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Product and service quality<\/td>\r\n70%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Customer service<\/td>\r\n67%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Worker satisfaction<\/td>\r\n66%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Quality of work life<\/td>\r\n63%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Productivity<\/td>\r\n61%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Competitiveness<\/td>\r\n50%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Profitability<\/td>\r\n45%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Absenteeism | turnover<\/td>\r\n23%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n<\/table>\r\n

      Types of Teams<\/span><\/h1>\r\n

      Teams, then, can improve company and individual performance in a number of areas. Not all teams, however, are formed to achieve the same goals or charged with the same responsibilities. Nor are they organized in the same way. Some, for instance, are more autonomous than others, i.e., less accountable to those higher up in the organization. Some depend on a team leader who is responsible for defining the team\u2019s goals and making sure that its activities are performed effectively. Others are more or less self-governing; a leader lays out overall goals and strategies but the team itself chooses and manages the methods by which it pursues its goals and implements its strategies.[footnote]Greenberg, J., & Baron R. A. (2008). Behavior in Organizations (9th ed)<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. See also Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote] Teams also vary according to their membership. Let us look at several categories of teams.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

      Manager-Led Teams<\/span><\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_29\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"]\"A Figure 2.2 Coaching by Rob can Hiten licensed CC BY | flickr[\/caption]\r\n

      As its name implies, in the [pb_glossary id=\"636\"]manager-led team<\/span>[\/pb_glossary] the manager is the team leader and is in charge of setting team goals, assigning tasks, and monitoring the team\u2019s performance. The individual team members have relatively little autonomy. For example, the key employees of a professional football team (a manager-led team) are highly trained (and highly paid) athletes, but their activities on the field are tightly controlled by a head coach. As team manager, the coach is responsible for developing and choosing the strategies by which the team pursues its goal of winning games, and for the outcome of each game and season. The coach is also solely responsible for interacting with managers above them in the organization. The players are responsible mainly for executing plays.[footnote]Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n

      Self-Managing Teams<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

      [pb_glossary id=\"639\"]Self-managing teams[\/pb_glossary]<\/span>\u00a0(also known as self-directed teams) have considerable autonomy. They are usually small and often absorb activities that were once performed by traditional supervisors. A manager or team leader may determine overall goals, but the members of the self-managing team control the activities needed to achieve those goals.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

      Self-managing teams are the organizational hallmark of Whole Foods Market, the largest natural-foods grocer in the United States. Each store is run by ten departmental teams, and virtually every store employee is a member of a team. Each team has a designated leader and its own performance targets. (Team leaders also belong to a store team, and store-team leaders belong to a regional team.) To do its job, every team has access to the kind of information, including sales and even salary figures, that most companies reserve for traditional managers.[footnote]Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n

      Not every self-managed team enjoys the same degree of autonomy. Companies vary widely in choosing which tasks teams are allowed to manage and which ones are best left to upper-level management only. As you can see, self-managing teams are often allowed to schedule assignments, but they are rarely allowed to fire coworkers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_24\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"595\"]\"Horizontal Chart 2.1 A graph shows various tasks that teams manage themselves; schedule work assignments (70%), work with outside customers (70%), conduct training (60%), set production goals (55%), work with vendors (45%), purchase equipment (42%), develop budgets (37%), do performance appraisals (33%), hire coworkers (30%), and fire coworkers (15%).[\/caption]\r\n

      Cross-Functional Teams<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

      Many companies use [pb_glossary id=\"647\"]cross-functional team[\/pb_glossary]s<\/span>\u2014teams that, as the name suggests, cut across an organization\u2019s functional areas (operations, marketing, finance, and so on). A cross-functional team is designed to take advantage of the special expertise of members drawn from different functional areas of the company. When the Internal Revenue Service, for example, wanted to study the effects on employees of a major change in information systems, it created a cross-functional team composed of people from a wide range of departments. The final study reflected expertise in such areas as job analysis, training, change management, industrial psychology, and ergonomics.[footnote]Fishman, C. (2008). Whole Foods Is All Teams<\/em>. http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/26671\/whole-foods-all-teams[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n

      Cross-functional teams figure prominently in the product development process at Nike, where they take advantage of expertise from both inside and outside the company.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

      Typically, team members include not only product designers, marketing specialists, and accountants but also sports research experts, coaches, athletes, and even consumers. Nike's team was a cross-functional team; responsibility for developing the new product wasn\u2019t passed along from the design team to the engineering team but rather was entrusted to a special team composed of both designers and engineers.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

      Committees and task forces, both of which are dedicated to specific issues or tasks, are often cross-functional teams. Problem-solving teams, which are created to study such issues as improving quality or reducing waste, may be either intradepartmental or cross-functional.[footnote]Human Resources Development Council. (n.d). Organizational Learning Strategies: Cross-Functional Teams<\/em>. http:\/\/www.humtech.com\/ForestService\/sites\/GRTL\/ols\/ols3.htm[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\n\r\n

      Virtual Teams<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

      The speed of transformation from traditional teams to [pb_glossary id=\"630\"]virtual teams[\/pb_glossary] reached its peak and became a trend in the workplace due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. This crisis forced some companies to create virtual teams for the first time in their history. Technology now makes it possible for teams to function not only across organizational boundaries like functional areas but also across time and space. Technologies such as videoconferencing allow people to interact simultaneously and in real time, offering a number of advantages in conducting the business of a virtual team<\/span>.[footnote]Robbins, S. P., & Timothy A. J. (2009). Organizational Behavior (13th ed.)<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote] Members can participate from any location or at any time of day, and teams can \u201cmeet\u201d for as long as it takes to achieve a goal or solve a problem \u2014 a few days, weeks, or months.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

      Team size does not seem to be an obstacle when it comes to virtual team meetings; in building the F-35 Strike Fighter, U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin staked the $225 billion project on a virtual product team of unprecedented global dimension, drawing on designers and engineers from the ranks of eight international partners from Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Turkey.[footnote]George, J. M., & Jones G. R. (2008). Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior (5th ed.)<\/em>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\nTopaloglu, M,. & Anac S. A., (2021),[footnote]Adept Scientific. (2009). Lockheed Martin Chooses Mathcad as a Standard Design Package for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Project<\/em>. Adept Science<\/em>, September 23, 2003[\/footnote] in their research, explored major factors affecting virtual team performance which include: Leadership, Communication, Collaboration, Cohesion, Commitment, Conflict, Interpersonal Relations, Knowledge Sharing, Feedback, Recognition, Trust, Diversity and Empowerment.\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"46\"]\r\n

      Factors and Processes Affecting Teamwork<\/span><\/h1>\r\n

      Now that we know a little bit about how teams work, we need to ask ourselves why they work. Not surprisingly, this is a fairly complex issue. In this section, we will explore why teams are often effective and when they are ineffective. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

      Stages of Team Development<\/h2>\r\nIn the 1960s, Bruce W. Tuckman described the processes that teams generally go through as they develop. He proposed that the stages of team development are linked to the effectiveness and performance of teams. The stages of team development are described below:\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1518\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"300\"]\"A Chart 2.2 Tuckman's Team & Group Development Model. From forming, effectiveness falls to storming, where performance and effectiveness rise steadily through the norming and performing stages.[\/caption]\r\n

      Forming<\/h3>\r\nIn Tuckman's first stage of team development, team members are excited to work together, but they may face challenges in playing a role from lack of role clarity or lack of personal confidence. To deal with these challenges, team members should ask questions, clarify roles, and identify their goals. This takes time away from being productive, but it is important for setting up the team for later success.\r\n

      Storming<\/h3>\r\nInevitably, team members will face challenges as they start to work towards their goals, which is the hallmark of the storming stage. Essentially, as team members focus on achieving their goals, conflict can arise, including mistakenly overstepping on someone else's role\/work, missing the assignment of an important task, seeing the task, goal, and\/or process differently, or just rubbing each other the wrong way personality-wise. Regardless of the cause, the storming stage is a natural part of the team process.\r\n\r\nIf team members can focus on identifying the cause of the challenges, using positive communication to find solutions, and then creating plans for improvement, they will get through the storming phase stronger than they started. However, many teams have members who do not want to talk about these issues and choose to ignore them, causing their team to get stuck in the storming phase indefinitely.\r\n

      Norming<\/h3>\r\nIf the team members in the storming phase work on identifying problems, using positive communication, and creating solutions, they often find good practices or \"norms\" for their team. In the norming phase, teams begin to find rhythms that work for them in terms of how they work, who does different types of tasks, and how they communicate with one another. They also often start to develop camaraderie.\r\n\r\nOverall, the team is generally effective at planned activities. However, to progress to the next stage, the team needs to be willing to focus on continually improving and developing more than one way to work together. If teams get too comfortable with the way they structure the work and the specific roles that certain members play they will not have the flexibility to address unplanned tasks that come their way. Consequently, they will not progress to the performing stage of development. Many teams get too comfortable in the norming stage and never show the creativity and adaptability of the performing stage.\r\n

      Performing<\/h3>\r\nIn the performing stage, teams are able to work well together on planned and unplanned tasks. They demonstrate efficiency (doing things right), effectiveness (doing the right things), and creativity as they accomplish their goals. In their work, they are not stuck in one structure or process for tasks, but instead they are able to adapt how they work and vary who does the work based on the task at hand.\r\n\r\nTo sustain the performing stage of development, teams continually need to ensure that they are communicating well, evaluating their processes, sharing leadership and responsibilities, and improving their flexibility overall. In doing so, they will be able to adapt nimbly to almost anything they face.\r\n

      Adjourning<\/h3>\r\nIn the adjourning stage the team will be finishing and wrapping up the task and, as a result, breaking up. This will be difficult for some team members, especially those who enjoyed working on the task or developed good friendships. A leader can help by working with team members to plan their futures.\r\n

      Takeaways from Stages of Team Development<\/h3>\r\nTuckman's stages of team development describe the common ways teams progress as they work together. As discussed in each stage, members need to focus on specific behaviours in order for their team to progress and not get stuck in one stage. Tuckman's 5 Stages of Team Development has since formed the basis of many team and group models, and is used extensively by management consultants, and in team-building exercises and activities. Tuckman's model helps managers, leaders and team members to:\r\n