Organizational behavior 4th by MShean chap010

10

Developing
High-Performance Teams
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Self-Directed Teams at Chrysler
Chrysler CEO Tom La Sorda is
pushing the automaker into an
era of “smart manufacturing”
which relies more on selfdirected work teams (SDWTs).
This photo shows La Sorda
meeting employees at the
company’s plant in Saltillo,
Mexico, which has already
introduced SDWTs.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-2

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Self-Directed Teams Defined
Formal groups that
complete an entire piece of
work requiring several

interdependent tasks and
have substantial autonomy
over the execution of these
tasks.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-3

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Self-Directed Work Team Attributes
1. Complete an entire piece of
work requiring interdependent
tasks
• Clusters team members together
• Minimal interdependence with
other teams

2. Substantial autonomy over
execution of the team’s tasks
• Control most work inputs, flow,
and outputs
• Little or no supervision

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-4

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Sociotechnical Systems Elements
• Responsible for entire work process
– Make entire product, component, or provide service
– fairly independent from other work units

• Sufficient autonomy
– freedom to divide up and coordinate work
– empowers team members

• Control key variances
– team controls factors affecting work quality/quantity

• Joint optimization
– balancing social and technical systems

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-5

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


SDWTs at Standard Motor Products
Standard Motor Products
successfully introduced selfdirected work teams (SDWTs)
at its Kansas plant, but some
supervisors had difficulty

changing from a commandand-control to mentor/facilitator
management style.

Courtesy of Standard Motor Products

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-6

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Challenges to SDWTs
• Cross-cultural issues
– Difficult in some cultures

• Management resistance
– Concerned about losing power,
status, job security
– Shift from command/control to
mentor/facilitator

• Employee and labor union
resistance
– Employees uncomfortable with
new roles, skills
– Union concerns -- more stress,
lost work rules

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-7

Courtesy of Standard Motor Products

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


PricewaterhouseCooper’s Virtual Teams
Peter Nicolas (shown in photo)
and many employees at
PricewaterhouseCoopers spend
much of their time working in
virtual teams. “Virtual teaming is
the norm for us,” says Nicolas, a
Learning Solutions manager at
the accounting firm’s offices in
New Jersey.

Courtesy of PricewaterhouseCoopers

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-8

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Virtual Teams Defined
Teams whose members

operate across space, time,
and organizational
boundaries and are linked
through information
technologies to achieve
organizational tasks.

Courtesy of PricewaterhouseCoopers

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-9

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Why Virtual Teams?
• Increasingly possible because of:
– Information technologies
– Knowledge-based work

• Increasingly necessary because of:
– Knowledge management
– Globalization

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-10

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

High-Performance Virtual Teams
Virtual teams perform better with:
Team
Environment

• Creative combination of
communication channels

Team Tasks

• Structured tasks
• Moderate interdependence

Team Size

• Smaller size than traditional
team performing similar tasks
more

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-11

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


High-Performance Virtual Teams (con’t)
Virtual teams perform better with:

Team
Composition

• Good communication and crosscultural skills in team members

Team
Processes

• Some face-to-face meetings to
assist team development

Team Trust

• Important in all teams, but
especially virtual teams

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-12

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Trust Defined
A psychological state comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based
upon positive expectations of the intent
or behavior of another person

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-13

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Three Levels of Trust
High

Identity-based Trust

Knowledge-based Trust
Calculus-based Trust
Low

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-14

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Three Levels of Trust (con’t)
• Calculus-based trust
– Based on deterrence
– Fragile, limited, dependent on punishment

• Knowledge-based trust
– Based on predictability and competence
– Fairly robust, develops over time

• Identification-based trust
– Based on common mental models and values
– Increases with person’s social identity with team

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-15

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Propensity to Trust
• Some people are inherently more willing to
trust others
• Propensity to trust influenced by
personality, values, and socialization
experiences
• Also varies with emotions at the moment

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-16

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Swift Trust in Teams
• People typically join a virtual or conventional
team with a moderate or high level of trust

• Explanations for this swift trust:
– people usually believe their team-mates are
reasonably competent (knowledge-based trust)
– people tend to develop some degree of social identify
with the team

• But swift trust is fragile

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-17

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Team Decision Making Constraints
• Time constraints
– Time to organize/coordinate
– Production blocking

• Evaluation apprehension
– Belief that other team members are silently evaluating
you

• Conformity to peer pressure
– Suppressing opinions that oppose team norms

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-18

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Team Constraints: Groupthink
• Tendency in highly cohesive teams to value
consensus at the price of decision quality
• More common when the:
– Team is highly cohesive
– Team is isolated from outsiders
– Team leader is opinionated
– Team faces external threats
– Team has recent failures
– Team lacks clear guidance

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-19

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Team Constraints: Group Polarization
• Tendency for teams to make more extreme
decisions than individuals alone
• Riskier options usually taken because of
prospect theory effect fallacy -- dislike losing
more than they like winning

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-20

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Group Polarization Process
Team discussion
processes
High risk

High risk

Social support
Persuasive
arguments
Individual opinions
before meeting

Shifting
responsibility
Low risk

Low risk

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Individual opinions
after meeting

Slide 10-21

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


General Guidelines for Team Decisions
• Team norms should encourage critical thinking
• Sufficient team diversity
• Ensure neither leader nor any member
dominates
• Maintain optimal team size
• Introduce effective team structures

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-22

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


NASA Encourages Constructive Conflict

Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA

NASA replaced the assigned seating rectangular table at the
Johnson Space Center with a C-shaped arrangement where
people sit wherever they want (shown in photo). The table is
intended to avoid hierarchy so NASA managers can have
more constructive debate.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-23

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Constructive Conflict

Courtesy of Johnson Space Center/NASA

• Occurs when team members debate their different
perceptions about an issue in a way that keeps the
conflict focused on the task rather than people.
• Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into
personal attacks
McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-24

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Rules of Brainstorming
1. Speak freely
2. Don’t criticize
3. Provide as many ideas as possible
4. Build on others’ ideas

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e

Slide 10-25

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.