1. Team: a small group of people with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for common purposes, goals, and approaches.
 

•  Shared commitment to common purposes, goals, and approaches

• Mutual accountability
• Complementary skills
• Synergy: 1+1 > 2

Types of teams:

• Advice teams: President's team of economic advisers
• Production teams; day-to-day operation
• Project teams: Boeing 777 design team
• Action team: a basketball team

Discussion 1: the differences between work group and work teams?

 
2. Characteristics of high-performing teams:
 
(1). Small size
 

Discussion 2: why the best work teams tend to be small

(2). Superior and complementary capability of members

• Technical expertise
• Problem-solving and decision-making skills
• Inter-personal skills

(3). Properly matching people to various roles or functions

• Creator: initiates creative ideas
• Promoter: champions ideas after they're initiated
• Assessor: offer insightful analysis of options
• Organizer: provides structure
• Producer: provides direction and follow-through
• Controller: examines details and enforce rules
• Maintainer: fights external battles
• Adviser: encourages the search for more information
• Linker: coordinates and integrates

Discussion: Using Table 9.3 to discuss which functions have been realized and which have not in your group. Is there a fair distribution of roles?

(4). Shared commitment to common purpose

(5). Specific, measurable, and realistic goals: deadlines, quantity, quality, costs.

Question: deadlines for group projects.

(6). Shared leadership: other than form leader, people take turns to lead.

Discussion 4: how to share leadership, what is the potential problem of shared leadership.

(7). Decision by consensus: open discussion to anyone's ideals, avoidance of formal voting, or easy compromises

Discussion 5: what is comparative advantage and disadvantage of decision by consensus?

(8). Open and effective communication: informal, face to face, free to express ideas and feelings, effective listening.

(9). High degree of cooperation and low degree of social loafing and free riding.

Discussion 6: what are the constraints of cooperation in the U.S. cultural and institutional environment?

(10). High degree of mutual trust

Trust: reciprocal faith in other's intentions and behavior

Discusion 7: how to promote mutual trusts among group members?

• Integrity: honesty and trustfulness
• Loyalty: willingness to protect and save face for a person
• Competency: technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills
• Consistency: reliability, predictability, and good judgement in handling situations
• Openness: willingness to share ideas and information
• Fairness and equity:
• Mutual support
• Credible commitment

Group Exercise:

What is the strongest and weakest scores in your group, why, how to improve it?

3. Quality Circles: small groups of volunteers who strive to solve quality-related problems and to continuously improve products and processes.

10-12 shop-floor workers, 60-90 minutes each weak

Objective: continuous incremental improvement

• Continuous improvement of quality
• Continuous improvement of standards and procedures
• Continuous reduction of processing time, material use, and defects, and wastes

Philosophy:

• Shop-floor employees know best improvement opportunities: learning by doing and using
• Committed, and empowered employees have the incentive to contribute their knowledge about incremental improvement
• The best way of seeking knowledge of continuous improvement is by the knowledge synergy of shop-floor workers

Results: Japan -- very successful

US-- mixed

Questions: why the US efforts of quality circle are less successful?

4. Self-managed teams: groups of 10-15 peoples who take on responsibilities of their former superiors

• Planning and scheduling of work
• Making operating decisions
• Taking action on problems
• Selecting their own members
• Firing coworkers
• Rotating jobs

Example: Xerox, GE, Hewlett-Packard

Question: what are the good effects of self-managed teams, what are some possible bad effects?

5. Cross-functional teams: the synergy of knowledge, skills, and expertise

Discussion: argument for and against the use of teams

Argument

• Increased employee motivation and satisfaction
• Higher level of productivity
• Common commitment to goals
• Expanded job skills
• Organizational flexibility
• Improved communication

Counter-argument

• In-group fighting over leadership and assignment
• Member apathy and low participation rate
• Goal incongruity between team members and the organization
• Conflict of personality, and over reward.
• Lack of leadership and structure cause confusion
• Politics and power play within the team
• Teams are used to camouflage coercion under the pretense of maintaining cohesion