Chapter 11 Top-Ranked MBA program

Chapter 11 talks a lot about group processes and I think the perfect example that they provided would have to be the one about how Queens University got ranked the top school for an MBA. The reason they are the best, is that they treat their students more like employees. They assign their students to small teams that are kept throughout the whole program, and they would make sure that each team member would have different backgrounds so conflict would arise. I believe this is a great strategy on preparing the students for the real world. In real world applications, people are forced to work with smaller groups and they don't get to choose them, unlike classroom exercises.

The pros of such a practice is that the students are simply more prepared for the real world through this system. They learn to deal with conflicts and problems that wouldn't normally deal with if they were in a conventional program. Because of this, students will have more experience in team environments.

The cons to such a system is that it might be too much of a job environment. Working long office-hours being assigned to a cubicle to work on assignments and projects could seem too much like an actual job. Except that the students are paying the school.

Although there are cons to this system, it is far outweighed by the pros. Queens University is differentiating themselves from other schools, and it's working. Why else would they be ranked as the top MBA program in the world.

Building Trust

The section I found most interesting in chapter 11 was on building trust. I found this interesting because trust is a key component in working well with others and if it does not exist, can negatively impact the group’s ability to function.

The first method mentioned is communication. It is important that team members be informed and able to share ideas. If communication is lacking, it is possible to de- value a teammate or slow down efficiency. Respect is absolutely necessary to protect communication so that all members of the group feel comfortable sharing their opinions.

Being supportive is another tactic in gaining trust. The chapter describes being supportive as being approachable, along with providing help, coaching, and encouragement. These actions build a strong foundation for communication and help to improve the dynamic of the team.

By relating these ideas mentioned in the chapter to previous experiences of working in a group, I came to the conclusion that they will in fact build trust amongst team members. In my experiences, communication has been both the success and downfall of the group. When the lines of communication are open, the entire team seems to work more efficiently, whereas when communication is failing, the quality of work deteriorates and motivation falls for those who feel they cannot get their point across.

Work Teams

Team building and creating teams are very important in the workplace and different teams can come to rise such as Advice Teams. As the name suggests Advice Teams are there to provide more information in order for managers to make a sound decision. Quality circles are a good example of such a group and they make suggestions toward quality improvement. However Advice Teams are known to have a low degree of technical specialization but they also make proposals and sometimes decisions. Then there is the Production Team which is assigned to perform to day to day operations. They also have a low degree of technical specialization but they have a high degree of communication and coordination with other work units. That is usually because the work they do is related to or affected by something else such as railroad maintenance crews requiring updated information about damage reports and the needed repairs from train crews, and in turn the train crews need to know where the maintenance crew is working at exactly. There is also Project Teams who's job is to solve problems and therefore require a lot of creativity, and specialized knowledge. Depending on the project this team can have a high degree of coordination or a low degree of coordination depending on whether or not it is a traditional unit, low, or a cross functional unit, which requires a high degree of coordination. Lastly, there are Action Teams and such teams are exemplified by sports team, airlines, and surgical teams because they combine high specialization with high coordination. Everyone on the teams bring their skill set and it varies within groups such as the coach, manager, players, trainer, etc.

Typology of Work Teams

Chapter Eleven picks up a right after Chapter Ten left of with groups. Chapter 11 goes more in depth into groups and defines the difference between a group and a team. A team is a "small group of people with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for common purpose goals, and approach" (Mackin). A group is a little different. A group is, "two or more freely interacting people with shared norms and goals and a common identity. So, where a group acts together with individual purpose, a team is composed of individuals all working to reach the same goal together.
The section I found most interesting in Chapter 11 is where they list the "four general types of work teams and their outputs."
The first type of team is a an Advice Team. Advice teams consist of committees, review panels, and advisory councils. These teams have a low degree of technical specialization, and a low degree of coordination with other work units. Advice teams normally output decisions or proposals.
The second type of team is a Production team who's degree of technical specialization is low, but degree of coordination with other work units is high. Production teams often work in cycles that contribute to a continuous process. They wok more on a day-to-day basis. Example of production teams are anything from customer service, to retail sales.
Project Teams are the third type of team Chapter 11 discusses. Projects require creativity to solve problems. They have a high degree of technical specialization and can have both low and high degree of coordination with other work units. This depends on if this group is a traditional unit (low), or a cross-functional unit (high).
The last type of team is an action team. Action teams, consist of sport teams, surgery teams and even entertainment groups. Action teams, have both a high degree of technical specialization and degree of coordination with other work units.
It's very interesting to note the different qualities that different teams consist of.

Mackin, Deoborah. "The Difference Between a Group and a Team." The Sideroad. .

Gather round, children

I'm going to tell a little story about teamwork, and how I once had a job which operated in an environment that completely lacked it. Chapter eleven of our textbook is about teamwork and what makes an effective team. I had a job working for a company that had never heard the word before.

I probably shouldn't say the company's name, because I'm sure my employment there included some kind of nondisclosure agreement (because they knew the environment sucked), so I'll just call it Crappy & Slappy (no, it wasn't a law firm).

Crappy & Slappy made its money through a network of summer reading programs offered all over the country. Oddly enough, the programs usually approached five or six hundred dollars, and the areas that had the programs were often the poorest in the country (backwoods Louisiana, Tennessee, northeast Texas). My job was to answer the phone calls from people from all over the country, and con them into giving me their credit information.

Literally.

About 40 new hires and I all trained together doing role-playing phone calls and such. On a related note, there is something you should know: whenever you call a phone number to a corporate call center like this one, you WILL NEVER get a straight answer from anyone. It's actually their job. Literally, I sat in front of a phone and a binder filled with responses to any question a customer could ask. My job was to BS them long enough to get their information.

So, in this environment, once we all had our cubicles and binders, none of us interacted. Ever. In fact, my boss, a short tan douche named Nolan (douche) discouraged us from even being in the break room together. He said, "here we focus on sales. That's it." As it turns out, people started quitting and getting fired (myself among the latter), primarily due to the miserable soul-crushing atmosphere of a job that discouraged interaction with anyone but the telephone. In fact, part of the job was comparing yourself to everyone else in the office, using tracking software that logs each call and sale. At the end of every month, they would "respectfully let go" all people outside of the top 80% of salespeople. This system sucked, because most people who called would get agitated and defensive when we followed the script and immediately asked them for their information. You'd then get a visit from Nolan, who is somehow capable of hearing every single phone call as it happens. Constantly having that troll breathing down your neck is enough to make you insane.

Granted, it would be difficult to turn a call center into a team-oriented atmosphere, but I definitely agree with the book's assessment that teamwork is vital to any company. The environment wasn't even cooperative. They actively made a good portion of the employees feel enslaved and hopeless. It was such an ineffective atmosphere, I'm surprised Crappy & Slappy is still in business (and they are).

So this brings me to a few concepts in chapter 11 in the book that this job completely failed to understand. First, there is socio-emotional cohesiveness, which is essentially a sense of togetherness in a group that comes from emotional satisfaction. Okay, this place actively CRUSHED our emotions. I don't think I ever saw someone smile in that place. There was no sense of togetherness based on emotional satisfaction, because we weren't really allowed to interact. That led to a lot of frustration and marginalized a lot of people's work. Second, instrumental cohesiveness was nonexistent in this place. This type of cohesiveness is characterized by a sense of togetherness that comes from mutual dependency in the workplace. We could barely count on management to let us off on time. We certainly couldn't rely on anyone else. Whether or not you made the sale was often entirely beyond your control. Some people called thinking they would make a purchase, and others called to ask questions and yell at us when we went into the sales pitch.

As I said before, it's understandably hard to imagine a call center having a solely team-oriented focus, but this environment made its employees feel constantly watched (which we were), and expendable (only 10% of salesmen are allowed to make it past one sales season). They motivated employees by working termination into the very fabric of employment, and forcing you to frantically focus on your own sales. This didn't make sense. We weren't allowed to help each other, and we became more demoralized as more employees were fired for their sales numbers and other nonsense. One person was fired because their average call length was a little longer than the target time of two minutes.

To be honest, after a while, none of us even trusted the company. We all felt that we were just a means to make sales and then get rid of. We all needed money, but this was demeaning, and a lot of people opted to quit rather than remain employed there. A number of people stormed out, claiming to report the company to various agencies. Having an environment where you don't trust your employer and can't interact with other employees is actually kind a scary idea.

Needless to say, this place doesn't want teams, they just want money.

Team Building and Cohesiveness

The most interesting aspect of Chapter 11 was the discussion regarding team building activities; I thought this was surprisingly related to team cohesiveness, which was discussed earlier in the chapter. If team building exercises are used effectively, they can create trust, loyalty, and even friendship among team members. All of these factors contribute to team cohesiveness and create a sense of ease and slightly enhance productivity among employees. The two types of team cohesiveness include "socio-emotional" and "instrumental." That is, togetherness which is derived from two different sources, that of satisfaction from group participation, and realization of the mutual dependence of team members, respectively. These two types of cohesion should be balanced to achieve a higher level of teamwork and productivity.

Being a political science major, I recently read about the president and how he organizes the Executive Office of the President, the White House, Bureaucracy, and his Cabinet. Depending on whether or not there is a hierarchical or collegiate structure to the president and his staff, the amount of information which reaches the president can be greatly affected. The teamwork the cabinet and other presidential offices can achieve is greatly hindered by the organizational structure the president sets up. If meetings are regularly held, the different presidential appointees will be updated on all of the issues, and they can find areas of overlap, which would allow problems to be solved more effectively. Teamwork with the president is essential.

Effective teams

In chapter 11, an effective team works by two criteria, performance and viability. Performance is considered if the team got the job done? Team viability is defined as the team member’s satisfaction and continued willingness to contribute. A work team also needs a friendly organization if they are to be effective. The book says that the team has a better chance of success if they are cared for by the organization with the right technological tools, reasonable schedules, and training. The book also says that teamwork also needs to be rewarded by the reward system. A website listed 5 characteristic of a winning team which are Shared Values, Mutual Trust, Inspiring Vision and Strategic Alignment, Harnessing the Power of Diversity and Building Synergies, Rewards.
http://www.1000advices.com/guru/teamwork_5characteristics_vk.html

Team Building

In the article “7 Steps to Successful Team Building”, it describes the characteristics to build a team. First you must have specific session and longer-term goals and know how the session goals lead to the longer term ones. Second, use an appealing and varied base activity that involves each participant in something that he or she enjoys doing. Third, use an activity that achieves that engagement while having true parallels to the workplace and has significance with the session goals. Fourth, select an activity that requires the same kind of skills and team approaches that are needed at work. Fifth, consider using an independent (internal or external) facilitator which allows all levels to join in as equals. Sixth, debrief using a predefined process that highlights the workplace parallels and allows the participants to extract their own learning rather than be preached to. Lastly, use a proven method to transfer the learning back to the workplace, ideally integrated within the debriefing process itself.

Team building is intended to improve the internal functioning of work groups. Team building can be introduced by company trainers or outsiders. The activities and workshops help improve the team’s cooperation, communication, and dysfunctional conflict. I learned that if you want to build a team rather than just bond the individuals closer, you need a structured process. You need to decide before you start what improvements you want and can realistically expect the team to achieve. Next you can decide how long it will take to achieve those results.

"7 Steps to Successful Team Building, Stuctured Team Building." Team Building Activities, Corporate Away Days, Team Building Exercises. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. .

Effective Work Teams

In order for a work team to be effective, then it must follow 2 criteria, performance and viability. performance is simple. Either the team got the work they needed to do done or they didn't. Viability is team members satisfaction and continued willingness to contribute. A team is not truly effective it performs well but is slowly self destructing as well. In addition to performing and team viability, a team must have a team friendly organization. Work teams need some sort of support system. The chance of succeeding increase tremendously if they are nurtured and facilitated by the organization. The teams purpose and the organizations strategy need to run parallel.In order for this to be, the organizational culture needs to value team participation and autonomy. Linda Hunt, resident of St. Josephs Hospital and Medical Center, also said that team members need technological tools, reasonable schedules, training, and rewarded by the organizational rewards system. I went online and found a website that listed characteristics of an effective work team, they are the following

clear purpose
informality
participation
listening
civilized disagreements
group consensus
open communication
shared leadership

Sparks, Ricki. Characteristics of an Effective Team. http://www.missouribusiness.net/sbtdc/docs/characteristics_effective_team.asp

Chapter Eleven: Team Building Results in High Performance Teams

In Chapter eleven the common theme is developing teams for effective results. Toward the end of the chapter it mentions that the goal of team building is to develop high performance teams. The stronger the relationship is among the team, the more things they will be able to accomplish. They will be able to share with each other their strengths and weaknesses, as a result develop a plan that will allow them to put together their strengths and become a productive as well as a high performance team. The book mentions that “team building is more important than ever” (Kreitner and Kinicki 328).

When a survey was conducted by Wilson Learning Corporation, the respondents were asked to describe their peak experiences in work teams. When the results were analyzed, those teams that resulted with high performance had eight common attributes in common which are participating leadership, shared responsibility, aligned on purpose, high communication, future focused, focused on task, creative talents, and rapid response. Now these main attributes also make up progressive teams and ideas.

An article which I found relevant speaks about Business programs at colleges and universities presently facing wide-ranging challenges in delivering quality education. As more and more business programs find it necessary to conserve or redirect resources, successfully leading through change becomes paramount for departments and their faculty teams. This is due to the growing number of part-time faculty. The author examined the processes a school of business undertook while redesigning its program with a strong faculty team of part- and full-time members, which developed their team building. The author identifies and discusses components of leading change and achieving high performance through high communication among the faculty, leadership, shared responsibility, and future focus on the students’ educational success.

Source: Marsh, F. K. "High Performance Team: Building a Business Program With Part- and Full-Time Faculty." Journal of Education for Business 85.4 (2010): 187-194. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 22 Mar. 2010.

Teams

The ability to successfully work in a team is challenging but is an important skill to learn. In chapter 11 a typology of teams is addressed along with where each come into play in the workplace. Advice teams are created to broaden information base for managerial decisions. This type of team has a low degree of technical specialization and coordination with other workers. Decisions, selections, suggestions, proposals, and recommendations are the intended output or advice teams. Production teams are those who handle the everyday operations. There is a low degree of technical specialization and a high degree of work with others. The work given to these team members is repetitive and requires minimal training time. Tasks much be passed on from one group to another so knowing how to work with a variety of people is very important in productions teams. Third team type includes research groups, planning, architect, engineering and development teams that specialize in projects. Creativity and the discussion of new ideas is a major component to a project team. Finally is an action team which is pretty obvious and probably one of the hardest professional teams to join. Examples of this are athletic or performance teams which have both a high degree of technical specialization and coordination with others. Ensuring the right type of team for the job in an important component to a successful work environment and efficiency.

What will happen to personal accountability and ethics in a more flexible and global project-oriented workplace? P322

It is hard to figure out how work will be if you can work from a beach with your lap-top.

I think it is a new way of considering the teamwork, but from my point of view, it does not permit a good team atmosphere.

You never meet the people with whom you work, except on your chat. Where is the cohesion of the team? Work is made of relations between people. And I think that it is more difficult to perform at work if you do not know the whole team. 

Off course, many teamwork are well done by people from different workplaces. But I think that there must be a core who works in the same place. 

Moreover, it is thus easier to have your work done by another person, who is more qualified than you: nobody will be able to check. And this is unfair, because people will think that it is your own job.

For me, it is more motivating to work with other people, in a working atmosphere. I feel more implicated in my work, and I want to work as the other do. If nobody never works around me, i think it will be harder for me to do a good job.

So for me, worplace can be flexible and global project-oriented, but people must be aware of what it means; they also must be prepared to that.

Self-Managed Teams in a Digital Age

In Chapter 11, the topics virtual teams and self-managed teams are briefly discussed. The modern and technologically advanced age we live in has prompted virtual teams to emerge both nationally and globally. This new mindset in a more modern age may have also prompted new approaches toward self-managed teams.

The article, "Emergent Leadership in Self-Managed Virtual Teams," Carte et. al. discuss a study conducted to prove whether or not self-managed virtual teams are effective in coordinating and executing activities. Their results showed: "that high performing self-managed virtual teams displayed significantly more leadership behaviors over time compared to their low performing counterparts. Specifically, these teams displayed significantly more concentrated leadership behavior focused on performance" (Carte et. al.). Despite the evenly distributed roles among the team, hints of leadership still emerged within the most successful teams.

So what does this mean? Although teams may have roles in which they are held accountable for, a team cannot steer towards the direction they want to go in without some sort of leadership and guidance. When you think about it, leadership, itself, is also a team role to consider.

Source: Carte, Traci, Laku Chidambaram, and Aaron Becker. "Emergent Leadership in Self-Managed Virtual Teams." Group Decision & Negotiation 15.4 (2006): 323-343. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 22 Mar. 2010.

Chapter 11: Cooperation vs. Competition

Chapter 11 discussed the idea of cooperation versus competition. According to our textbook, cooperation was an important component of an effective team. While this was something true, the book also talked about how sometimes, cooperation was stifled by the idea of competition. There were teams who thought that competition was more effective than cooperation when it came to doing group work. In other words, they believed that competition was something that “gets the work done”, moreso than cooperation. This was something that I was interested in and wanted to find out more about, especially in a school setting.


A study was done by Leasher Dennis Madrid, Madeline Canas, and Mona Ortega-Medina on cooperation versus competition. They tested 16 children from 8 to 9 and half years old. They divided the children into different groups—groups that were tutored competitively and groups tutored cooperatively. Their findings showed that the children who were tutored cooperatively were more successful when it came to their tests and was able to improve their scores than those who were taught competitively by 92%. They concluded that when it came to schooling, it was better for students to learn in a more cooperative classroom than that of a competitive classroom.

Source:
Leasher Dennis Madrid, Madeline Canas, & Mona Ortega-Medina. (2007). Effects of Team Competition Versus Team Cooperation in Classwide Peer Tutoring. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(3), 155-160,192. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.

Chapter 11

Cooperation is defined as when individual efforts are ‘systematically integrated to achieve a collective objective.’ Most people think that competition brings out better results, but it may not necessarily be the case. If two teams are put against each other to be competitive and finish a project, it might hurt later ties to cooperate together on a big project. Cooperation also reminds me of the starfish analogy that Dr. Lucy used when I interviewed her. Each limb of a starfish has a specific role and strength which affects the rest of the limbs. If one of the limbs keeps moving ahead without cooperating with other limbs to get tasks done, the starfish’s movement will be slower and not as effective. When all the limbs of a starfish cooperate and work together, they are all moving forward simultaneously, making progress more smooth and effective.

On the website, ‘WORLDSHAPERS!: Social Entreprenuers “Rebalancing” Society,’ cooperation’s definition also includes that the success of one team is dependent on the success of another. Although competition is the opposite of cooperation, competition is sometimes the motivation for teams to cooperate in order to become a more effective unit. However, there are some forms of cooperations that are illegal in certain areas, such as, cartels and price-fixing. In the Prinsoner’s Dilemma, it showed that we humans act more cooperatively because we are naturally socially cooperative and can’t survive without it. There are four conditions that are necessary for cooperation: common goals, opportunity to cooperate with same individuals again, memories of past cooperations with same individuals, and a value associated with future outcomes. This website points out important details that cooperation has, such as, competition is a motivation for cooperation. Reading this article helped to gain a better understanding of cooperation.

Works Cited
Cooperation vs. Competition. 20 March 2010 .

"Cooperate and Graduate"

One of the topics discussed in Chapter 11 was how cooperation is encouraged within teams, but members still feel pressured to compete for higher positions or recognition within companies. Combating such competition between employees is certainly a predicament. From a young age, students learn to compete with others. Tests are designed sometimes so that the person with the highest grade automatically gets bumped up to 100% and then everyone else's grades revolve around that one. This means that students help eachother study for exams so that they all get around the same grade and all do well... or at least relatively well since those helping others in their study group understand the concepts risk their own grades because they spend unneccessary time helping their competition while they could be focusing on their own understanding and spending time perfecting their knowledge of the subject matter. If one students does well, while all the others perform poorly, then the majority's grades are not altered enough for them to pass. This is somewhat unfair, as it would indicated that the majority did not understand the concepts being taught and the teacher needs to focus on their needs, instead of categorizing them as 'failing'.

In the article I read, a former Kellogg student (monetarily supported by Kellog Corporation and then employeed by Kellogg) discussed how the students in the program worked. All were encouraged to be supportive of one another and cooperate well with eachother (in other words, follow the kellogg way of business so that they would be able to successfully integrate into the company upon graduation). However, there were only a few really good jobs available for them and so only a couple of students would be placed in their first choice job upon graduation. This led to competitiveness between them despite all the 'cooperation' talk. Competition is natural it seems and can not be avoided. However, there are ways around it. The author goes onto explain, "One of my close friends came to Kellogg with a mantra that he learned at West Point: Cooperate and graduate. It certainly shows. We spent literally dozens of hours helping each other prepare for our tests this quarter. Even though we were "aiding the competition," together I believe we were stronger students than we would've been as individuals." Even though it could damage one's chances of success, helping others in one's team makes everyone better people and leaves one feeling fulfilled.

Source:
Cornuke, Brandon. "Competition and Cooperation." BusinessWeek Online (2009): 5. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.

Work Teams ch 11

Different tasks require different types of teams to accomplish them. You wouldn’t want a board of office CEO’s pouring the cement foundation for a skyscraper, in the same sense you wouldn’t want making a team of ground workers making executive business decisions. Eric Sundstorm developed a typology of work teams which consists of 4 groups; advice, production, project and action. Each type of team is used for a basic purpose. The advice teams are created in order to broaden the information base for the managerial decisions; they also tend to have a low degree in technical specialization. The production teams are normally in charge of coordination and day-to-day operations. The third teams, project teams, are required to have creative problem solving skills and often specialized knowledge. Our final team is the action team, the workers who get their hands dirty and actually get the job done. This requires a high level of skill in a certain trade and an extreme level of competence. I like to think of these teams like a professional sports program. Where the advice, production and project teams consist off the head coach, assistant coaches and managers where the actual players take on the action role and win games.
I did some research on team effectiveness and found a lot of comparisons to how a sports team is run. One of the essential keys to team success is that everyone accepts their roles, no matter how big or small. Everyone must do their job to the best of their ability and do it with enthusiasm. Also trust and communication is an enormous part of a team’s success. This applies to any type of team, whether is be a group of executives, a soccer team, or a successful marriage.

http://www.time-management-guide.com/team-building.html