UNIT 2 Groups and Teams in Organizations
What is a Group?
• A collection of two or more people
• People interact with one another to pursue some goals
• The group members share beliefs, principles, and
standards about areas of common interest.
• Discuss, decide, delegate Effective Group
- One that achieves high levels of task performance,
What is a Team? member satisfaction, and team viability.
• A team is a group that exists and interacts actively in - Effective groups achieve high levels of: Task performance
pursuit of a shared goal. - Members attain performance goals regarding quantity,
• It is more specific quality, and timeliness of work results
• Working on a specific cause Members satisfaction
• Working to achieve common goals - Members believe that their participation and experiences
• Shared responsibility are positive and meet important personal needs
• Discuss, decide, do Team viability
- Groups survival and success
Work team
▪ 3 or more individuals engaged in social interaction to Why study Groups and Teams Effectiveness?
achieve a goal In today’s organizations, it is rare for employees to work on
▪ A special type of work group responsible for achieving tasks or projects alone As work environments get complex,
goals. organizations depend more on teams.
A team of people happily committed to doing a task with
one another will always outperform a brilliant individual.
Work Teams:
■ Interaction – concentrated and continuous; includes
both task-oriented action and relationship- sustaining
■ Collective goals, sense of interdependence but all output
are tied to each other
■ Well-structured groups with clear roles and norms
■ The high degree of unity and cohesion
❖ All work teams are workgroups but not all workgroups
are work teams.
Teams work best in situations in which:
■ The job that requires high levels of employee interactions
■ A team approach will simplify the job
■ Do something an individual cannot
■ There is time to create the team and properly train team
members
, Work Teams: • When problem-solving can be handled by a division of
■ Identification: we, our, us labor and the sharing of information
■ Interdependence: the extent to which team members need • When creativity and innovation are needed
and rely on each other.
■ Power differentiation: level of power and respect Potential Benefits for Team Members
■ Social distance: treat each other in a friendly, informal - People learn from each other and share job skills and
manner knowledge
■ Conflict management tactics: collaborating, - Teams are important sources of need satisfaction for their
compromising, non-threatening members
■ Negotiation process: win-win style
Teams differ in the following: Social loafing
■ Permanency: remain together/ disband after - The tendency of people to work less hard in a group than
accomplishing the task. they would individually.
■ Proximity Ways of Preventing Social Loafing
*virtual teams • Define roles and tasks to maximize individual interests
• Raise accountability by making individuals ’
performance expectations clear and identifiable
• Tie individual rewards to performance contributions to
the group
Types of Teams:
Organizations use different types of teams in different
ways to accomplish their objectives. Some teams have
a very simple and specific focus, and others face
complex issues with organization-wide ramifications.
Why teams are good for organizations? We can look at teams and classify them in a variety of
• good for people ways. Let’s first take a look at them based on their task
• It can improve creativity complexity and team member fluidity.
• It can make better decisions Task complexity is the extent to which a task is
• It can increase commitments to action intricate and consists of different, interrelated parts.
• Control their members Membership fluidity is the extent to which members
• Groups help offset large organization size within a team is stable. Low membership fluidity
would mean that people are often entering into and
Types of Team: leaving the team, and high membership fluidity means
■ Work teams: produce goods, provide services, they are quite stable, not changing often at all.
increase quality, and cost- effectiveness.
* no supervisors Simple Work Teams
* cross-training Simple work teams have low task complexity and low
e.g. crew team fluidity. Their goal is simple problem solving,
■ Parallel /cross-functional teams: representatives from and often they are a group that supports day-to-day
various departments within an organization activities, dealing with issues that require input from
*can be successful if: more than one person or to generate commitment from
✓ Clear purpose employees. Usually, these are people from the same
✓ Support each other ✓ High level of trust team or department, so they generally have a similar
■ Project teams: produce one time outputs focus and tend to work together relatively easily.
■ Management teams: coordinate, advise, direct Administrative Teams
Situations in which teams are superior to individuals Five people fist-bumping over laptops on a desk
• When there is no clear expert in a particular problem or administrative team has high task complexity but low
task team membership fluidity, meaning that the problems
What is a Group?
• A collection of two or more people
• People interact with one another to pursue some goals
• The group members share beliefs, principles, and
standards about areas of common interest.
• Discuss, decide, delegate Effective Group
- One that achieves high levels of task performance,
What is a Team? member satisfaction, and team viability.
• A team is a group that exists and interacts actively in - Effective groups achieve high levels of: Task performance
pursuit of a shared goal. - Members attain performance goals regarding quantity,
• It is more specific quality, and timeliness of work results
• Working on a specific cause Members satisfaction
• Working to achieve common goals - Members believe that their participation and experiences
• Shared responsibility are positive and meet important personal needs
• Discuss, decide, do Team viability
- Groups survival and success
Work team
▪ 3 or more individuals engaged in social interaction to Why study Groups and Teams Effectiveness?
achieve a goal In today’s organizations, it is rare for employees to work on
▪ A special type of work group responsible for achieving tasks or projects alone As work environments get complex,
goals. organizations depend more on teams.
A team of people happily committed to doing a task with
one another will always outperform a brilliant individual.
Work Teams:
■ Interaction – concentrated and continuous; includes
both task-oriented action and relationship- sustaining
■ Collective goals, sense of interdependence but all output
are tied to each other
■ Well-structured groups with clear roles and norms
■ The high degree of unity and cohesion
❖ All work teams are workgroups but not all workgroups
are work teams.
Teams work best in situations in which:
■ The job that requires high levels of employee interactions
■ A team approach will simplify the job
■ Do something an individual cannot
■ There is time to create the team and properly train team
members
, Work Teams: • When problem-solving can be handled by a division of
■ Identification: we, our, us labor and the sharing of information
■ Interdependence: the extent to which team members need • When creativity and innovation are needed
and rely on each other.
■ Power differentiation: level of power and respect Potential Benefits for Team Members
■ Social distance: treat each other in a friendly, informal - People learn from each other and share job skills and
manner knowledge
■ Conflict management tactics: collaborating, - Teams are important sources of need satisfaction for their
compromising, non-threatening members
■ Negotiation process: win-win style
Teams differ in the following: Social loafing
■ Permanency: remain together/ disband after - The tendency of people to work less hard in a group than
accomplishing the task. they would individually.
■ Proximity Ways of Preventing Social Loafing
*virtual teams • Define roles and tasks to maximize individual interests
• Raise accountability by making individuals ’
performance expectations clear and identifiable
• Tie individual rewards to performance contributions to
the group
Types of Teams:
Organizations use different types of teams in different
ways to accomplish their objectives. Some teams have
a very simple and specific focus, and others face
complex issues with organization-wide ramifications.
Why teams are good for organizations? We can look at teams and classify them in a variety of
• good for people ways. Let’s first take a look at them based on their task
• It can improve creativity complexity and team member fluidity.
• It can make better decisions Task complexity is the extent to which a task is
• It can increase commitments to action intricate and consists of different, interrelated parts.
• Control their members Membership fluidity is the extent to which members
• Groups help offset large organization size within a team is stable. Low membership fluidity
would mean that people are often entering into and
Types of Team: leaving the team, and high membership fluidity means
■ Work teams: produce goods, provide services, they are quite stable, not changing often at all.
increase quality, and cost- effectiveness.
* no supervisors Simple Work Teams
* cross-training Simple work teams have low task complexity and low
e.g. crew team fluidity. Their goal is simple problem solving,
■ Parallel /cross-functional teams: representatives from and often they are a group that supports day-to-day
various departments within an organization activities, dealing with issues that require input from
*can be successful if: more than one person or to generate commitment from
✓ Clear purpose employees. Usually, these are people from the same
✓ Support each other ✓ High level of trust team or department, so they generally have a similar
■ Project teams: produce one time outputs focus and tend to work together relatively easily.
■ Management teams: coordinate, advise, direct Administrative Teams
Situations in which teams are superior to individuals Five people fist-bumping over laptops on a desk
• When there is no clear expert in a particular problem or administrative team has high task complexity but low
task team membership fluidity, meaning that the problems
