Making the Team: A Guide for Managers

by Thompson, Leigh L.

• ISBN13: 9780130143631
• ISBN10: 0130143634
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

For a graduate management OR undergraduate management course in Organization Behavior, Group Dynamics, or Teamwork. Making the Team unites cutting-edge research on groups with practical management principles. Making the Team organizes the art and science of teamwork in 3 primary tasks for the leader/manager: (1) Accurately assessing and improving team performance: (2) Managing the internal dynamics of teams (diversity, conflict, creativity within the team): and (3) Optimally leveraging the team within the larger organization. Making the Team is a great core book for a course or a supplement book for the course. The instructor's manual contains exercises for challenging in-class exercises and experimental learning. Managers-in-training as well as the seasoned executive will find the clear, step-by-step approaches offered in this book useful, provocative, and refreshing. This book is a perfect marriage of theory and practice.

Author Biography

Leigh L. Thompson is the J. Jay Gerber Distinguished Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is also the director of the AT&T Behavioral Research Laboratory at Kellogg and the Leading High Impact Teams Executive Program at Kellogg

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
PART I THE BASICS OF TEAMWORK	1	(58)
Teams in Organizations: Facts and Myths	1	(16)
What Is a Team?	2	(1)
Types of Teams in Organizations	3	(2)
Why Should Organizations Have Teams?	5	(2)
Some Observations about Teams and Teamwork	7	(4)
Companies that use teams are not more effective than those that do not	7	(1)
Managers fault the wrong causes for team failure	8	(1)
Managers fail to recognize their team-building responsibilities	8	(1)
Experimenting with failures leads to better teams	8	(2)
Conflict among team members is not always a bad thing	10	(1)
Strong leadership is not always necessary for strong teams	10	(1)
Good teams can still fail under the wrong circumstances	10	(1)
Retreats will not fix all the conflicts between team members	11	(1)
What Managers Tell Us about Their Teams	11	(4)
Most common type of team	11	(1)
Team size	11	(1)
Team autonomy versus manager control	12	(1)
Team longevity	12	(1)
The most frustrating aspect of teamwork	12	(1)
Skill assessment	13	(1)
Skill development	13	(2)
A Warning	15	(1)
Conclusions	16	(1)
Performance and Productivity: Team Performance Criteria and Threats to Productivity	17	(18)
An Integrated Model of Successful Team Performance	18	(1)
Team Context	18	(2)
Organizational context	19	(1)
Team design	19	(1)
Team culture	19	(1)
Essential Conditions for Successful Team Performance	20	(9)
Knowledge and skill	20	(3)
Effort and motivation	23	(4)
Coordination strategies	27	(2)
Performance Criteria	29	(4)
The Team Performance Equation	33	(1)
Conclusions	33	(2)
Rewarding Teamwork: Compensation and Performance Appraisals	35	(24)
Types of Team Pay	36	(7)
Incentive pay	38	(1)
Recognition	39	(3)
Profit sharing	42	(1)
Gainsharing	42	(1)
Team Performance Appraisal	43	(7)
What is measured?	44	(1)
Who does the measuring?	45	(2)
Developing a 360-degree program	47	(3)
Sources of Rater Bias	50	(2)
Homogeneity bias	51	(1)
Halo bias	51	(1)
Fundamental attribution error	51	(1)
Communication medium	52	(1)
Experience effect	52	(1)
Reciprocity bias	52	(1)
Bandwagon bias	52	(1)
Primacy and recency bias	52	(1)
Sources of Ratee Bias	52	(2)
Egocentric bias	52	(1)
Intrinsic interest	53	(1)
Social comparison	53	(1)
Fairness	53	(1)
Guiding Principles	54	(4)
Goals should cover areas that team members can directly affect	54	(1)
Balance the mix of individual and team-based pay	54	(1)
Consult with the team members who will be affected	55	(1)
Avoid organizational myopia	55	(1)
Determine eligibility (who qualifies for the plan)	55	(1)
Determine equity method	55	(1)
Quantify the criteria used to determine payout	55	(2)
Determine how target levels of performance are established and updated	57	(1)
Develop a budget for the plan	57	(1)
Determine timing of measurements and payments	57	(1)
Communicate with those involved	57	(1)
Plan for the future	57	(1)
Conclusions	58	(1)
PART II INTERNAL DYNAMICS	59	(110)
Building the Team: Tasks, People, and Relationships	59	(26)
Building the Team	59	(2)
The Task: What Work Needs to Be Done?	61	(6)
How much authority does the team have to manage its own work?	62	(1)
What is the focus of the work the team will do?	62	(1)
What is the degree of task interdependence among team members?	63	(2)
Is there a correct solution that can be readily demonstrated and communicated to members?	65	(1)
Are team members' interests perfectly aligned (cooperative), opposing (competitive), or mixed in nature?	65	(1)
How big should the team be?	65	(2)
The People: Who Is Ideally Suited to Do the Work?	67	(6)
Diversity: SWOT analysis	69	(3)
Creating diversity	72	(1)
Relationships: How Do Team Members Socialize Each Other?	73	(11)
Group socialization	74	(1)
Role negotiation	75	(2)
Team norms: Development and enforcement	77	(2)
Cohesion: Team bonding	79	(1)
Trust	80	(4)
Conclusions	84	(1)
Sharpening the Team Mind: Communication and Collective Intelligence	85	(24)
Team Communication	86	(2)
Message tuning	86	(1)
Message distortion	86	(1)
Biased interpretation	87	(1)
Perspective-taking failures	87	(1)
Transparency illusion	87	(1)
Indirect speech acts	87	(1)
The Information Dependence Problem	88	(8)
Common knowledge effect	88	(3)
Hidden profile	91	(2)
Practices to put in place	93	(1)
Things that don't work	93	(1)
Effective interventions	94	(2)
Collective Intelligence	96	(9)
Team mental models	96	(3)
The team mind: Transactive memory systems	99	(6)
Team Longevity: Routinization versus Innovation Trade-Offs	105	(3)
Conclusions	108	(1)
Team Decision Making: Conformity, Pitfalls, and Solutions	109	(22)
Decision Making in Teams	109	(1)
Conformity: Why It Occurs and How It Works in Teams	110	(2)
The need to be right	110	(1)
The need to be liked	111	(1)
Decision-Making Pitfall 1: Groupthink	112	(6)
Learning from history	114	(2)
How to avoid groupthink	116	(2)
Decision-Making Pitfall 2: Escalation of Commitment	118	(6)
Project determinants	120	(1)
Psychological determinants	120	(2)
Social determinants	122	(1)
Structural determinants	123	(1)
Avoiding the escalation of commitment problem	123	(1)
Decision-Making Pitfall 3: The Abilene Paradox	124	(4)
How to avoid the Abilene paradox	126	(2)
Decision-Making Pitfall 4: Group Polarization	128	(1)
Conclusions	129	(2)
Conflict in Teams: Leveraging Differences to Create Opportunity	131	(19)
Types of Conflict	132	(3)
Transforming A-type into C-type conflict	134	(1)
Team Dilemma: Group versus Individual Interests	135	(2)
Strategies to enhance cooperation and minimize competition	136	(1)
Perils and Pitfalls of Democracy	137	(2)
Voting rules	137	(1)
Drawbacks to voting	138	(1)
Group Negotiation	139	(7)
The BATNA principle	140	(1)
Avoid the fixed-pie fallacy	140	(1)
Build trust and share information	140	(1)
Ask questions	141	(1)
Provide information	141	(1)
Make multiple offers simultaneously	141	(1)
Avoid sequential discussion of issues	142	(1)
Construct contingency contracts and leverage differences	142	(1)
Be wary of intuition	143	(1)
Search for postsettlement settlements	143	(1)
Use team-on-team negotiation	144	(1)
Avoid majority rule	144	(1)
Beware of coalitions	144	(1)
Appeal to norms of justice	145	(1)
What to Do When Conflict Escalates?	146	(2)
Conclusions	148	(2)
Creativity: Mastering Strategies for High Performance	150	(19)
What Exactly Is Creativity?	151	(1)
Measuring creativity	151	(1)
Creativity through categorization of ideas and team diversity	151	(1)
Creativity through cognitive flexibility	152	(1)
Creativity and context dependence	152	(1)
Creative People or Creative Teams?	152	(2)
Team creativity	153	(1)
Analogical Reasoning	154	(3)
Expertise	156	(1)
Comparison and abstraction	156	(1)
Divergent versus Convergent Thinking	157	(1)
Group Brainstorming	158	(6)
Brainstorming on trial	158	(2)
What goes on during a typical group brainstorming session?	160	(1)
Trained facilitators	161	(1)
High benchmarks	161	(1)
Two-step approach: Solitary and group ideation	162	(1)
Nominal group technique	162	(1)
Stepladder technique	162	(1)
Delphi technique	163	(1)
Electronic Brainstorming	164	(4)
Advantages of electronic brainstorming	164	(2)
Disadvantages of electronic brainstorming	166	(1)
Capstone on brainstorming	167	(1)
Conclusions	168	(1)
PART III EXTERNAL DYNAMICS	169	(86)
Managing the External Environment	169	(19)
Team Boundaries	170	(3)
Insulating teams	171	(1)
Broadcasting teams	171	(1)
Marketing teams	172	(1)
Surveying teams	172	(1)
Team Identity	173	(1)
External Roles of Team Members	173	(1)
Networking: A Key to Successful Teamwork	173	(11)
Perfect and imperfect markets	175	(1)
Human capital and social capital	175	(2)
Boundary spanning and structural holes	177	(1)
Types of networks	178	(1)
Advice for the manager	179	(1)
Structural positioning	180	(4)
Distance	184	(2)
Time	186	(1)
Conclusions	186	(2)
Leadership: Managing the Paradox	188	(25)
The Team Paradox	188	(1)
Leaders and the Nature-Nurture Debate: Great Person versus Great Opportunity	189	(1)
Great Opportunity: Some Evidence	190	(7)
Obedience to authority	190	(1)
Blind faith	191	(2)
Good Samaritans	193	(1)
Self-fulfilling prophecy	193	(2)
The power of labels	195	(1)
Head of the table effect	195	(1)
Random selection of leaders	196	(1)
Leadership Behavior: Routes to Influence	197	(3)
Vivid information	197	(3)
Leadership and Teamwork: Addressing the Paradox	200	(2)
Decision Analysis Model: How Participative Do You Want to Be?	202	(2)
Decision styles	202	(1)
Problem identification	202	(2)
Decision tree model	204	(1)
Strategies for Encouraging Participative Management	204	(3)
Task delegation	204	(2)
Parallel suggestion involvement	206	(1)
Job involvement	206	(1)
Organizational involvement	206	(1)
Freeing the Caged Bird: Effects of Empowerment	207	(1)
Team Empowerment	208	(2)
Red Flags on the Way to Greater Involvement	210	(1)
Conclusions	211	(2)
Interteam Relations: Competition and Stereotyping	213	(18)
Overview	213	(2)
Group Membership: The Locus of Human Identity	215	(10)
Need for categorization	216	(1)
How categorization affects behavior	216	(1)
``Us'' versus ``them'': The psychology of in-groups and out-groups	217	(1)
``We're better than they are'': In-group supremacy and entitlement	218	(1)
``They all look alike'': The out-group homogeneity effect	219	(1)
Minority groups	220	(2)
Performance evaluation	222	(1)
Extremism	222	(1)
Overt and covert racism	223	(1)
Unconscious discrimination at work	224	(1)
Strategies for Reducing Prejudice	225	(5)
Blinding	225	(1)
Consciousness-raising (``don't be prejudiced'')	226	(1)
Contact	227	(1)
GRIT and bear it	228	(1)
Stress and fatigue reduction	229	(1)
Affirmative action	229	(1)
Conclusions	230	(1)
Teamwork via Information Technology: Challenges and Opportunities	231	(24)
Place-Time Model of Social Interaction	233	(7)
Face-to-face communication	233	(2)
Same time, different place	235	(2)
Different time, same place	237	(1)
Different place, different time	238	(2)
Information Technology and Social Behavior	240	(4)
Status and power: The ``weak get strong'' effect	240	(1)
The impact of technology on social networks	241	(2)
Risk taking	243	(1)
Social norms	243	(1)
Task performance	243	(1)
Enhancing Local Teamwork: Redesigning the Workplace	244	(3)
Virtual or flexible space	244	(1)
Flexible furniture	245	(1)
Hoteling	246	(1)
Virtual Teams	247	(1)
Strategies for Enhancing the Virtual Team	248	(2)
Collaboratory	248	(1)
Initial face-to-face experience	249	(1)
Temporary engagement	249	(1)
One-day videoconference	249	(1)
Touching base	249	(1)
Schmoozing	250	(1)
Transnational Teams	250	(3)
Conclusions	253	(2)
Appendix 1 Managing Meetings: A Toolkit	255	(8)
Appendix 2 Special Tips for Consultants and Facilitators	263	(4)
Appendix 3 A Guide for Creating Effective Study Groups	267	(4)
Appendix 4 Example Items from Peer Evaluations and 360-Degree Performance Evaluations	271	(6)
References	277	(30)
Author Index	307	(6)
Subject Index	313