Management 507

Organizational Behavior (OB)

Mini-Case on teams

• Tom is leading a sales project team on developing new clients. The group consists of 3 high performing sellers, one district manager and one regional manager. Tom is the regional manager. He begins the first meeting by saying, Our assignment is to develop new sales clients.

• We need to develop a process to help our agents do that. To speed up the process, I would like each of you to develop a list of requirements that would help us to guide the factors that you would consider most likely to yield new clients such as industry, firm size, current product user (How do we stack up against the competition) etc.. I think we can pretty much do this by email. One more meeting to discuss it all and then I will write a report that summarizes the issues we raise. I will then give all of you a chance to provide feedback on it. And Then Submit it. We should be able to wrap this up in one month. When should we have our next meeting to discuss the points raised in the emails?

• They set a common date in two weeks and then depart after a 20 minutes.

Discussion questions

• What were the good aspects of this meeting. What are the potential problems?

• What do you think was Tom’s motivations for acting as he did. Think about personal motivations or external pressures.

• On a scale of 1-10 estimate how useful will this report be? Why do you say that.

Goals Today

• Go through syllabus (central issue)

• Purpose of course and expectations.

• Introduction to Teams

Syllabus

• Contact information.

• Purpose of Course is two fold. Teams and Change.

• Outline of topics (lets be flexible).

.

Expectations

Questions

?????

Teams

• Are effective teams magical. Serendipity

Or

Can effective Teams be made through diligent effort (prefer working smartly)?

Think about personal relationships?

My job in part is to help you build functional teams

• I can’t do the work

• I can provide information, experiences that you can use. Its up to you to apply that information. Information tends to be broad.

• Not any different than any other class.

• My response. Magic is the ease in which team gels.

• Not clear if the best teams have easy gel or more difficult gel that is sucessfully resolved.

• Regardless either requires work.

What is the difference between a team and group?

Curious

• What are some of the “smarts” that you have learned over the years. What makes effective teams. Write them down on a sheet of paper.

• What do you most dislike about your previous team experiences?

Which do you aspire to have in your collectives in the MBA?

• Why? Discuss in teams. Need to be candid. There are plusses and minuses of each.

Types of Groups/Teams

• Manager led

• The supervisor sets the goals and monitors the collectives performance. Supervisor has a lot of control.

• Book uses team, but is this most appropriate noun? Group or other word more appropriate?

• Self-Managing teams. The Goals are set by supervisor. Members monitor own performance. Self-correct if performance problems.

• Self directing teams. Team does the goals, monitors, and works towards goals.

• Management provides context—such as a mission statement, the client, (parameters).

• Self-governing teams do it all. Not that common. Top management team usually is self-governing. Saving Private Ryan. Very broad parameter. Profound flexibility.

• Why is this one so uncommon.

Questions

• Your teams in here are what?

• Most common business one is Managerial lead.

• What problems does one experience as on moves to self-managed teams?

• Which is most common (report survey results).

Team Contracts

• Want you to form a team contract.

• Examples.

Contract sample• We will try to keep the focus on the issues not on personalities. • We will try to make scheduled meetings and will let the group know when

we cannot. • We will try to meet group deadlines and will let others know if we cannot. • We will try to actively listen to others and avoid interruptions, side

conversations, or the reading notes when someone is speaking. • We will try to use "I" statements and avoid "you" statements. • We will try to give everyone an opportunity to speak by not speaking again

until everyone has a chance to talk. • We will try to keep in mind that feeling statements are neither right nor

wrong. • Where possible, we will try to use personal examples rather than third

person accounts. • We will agree on a method of resolving disagreements and try to use if

necessary. • We will try to call a "time out" if the rules are not honored. • We will seek assistance if we cannot resolve a major conflict.

Second sample

• Confidentiality• Respect• Group sets own agenda• Welcome new members• Respect for other group members• One person speaks at a time• Chance for every -one to have a say• Manage time efficiently• Commitment to group/negotiate absence• No violence/no cell phones/no smoking!

• Who has the enforcement roles? Both positive and negative.

• Share them with cohort.

• This is only first draft. More on this next week. Take notes.

• The final version will be a part of the team dynamics report.

Why are self-managed teams so widely used?

• Read pages 5-7

• Teams as a source of competitive advantage. Decision making.

• Problems with teams p.11-15

• Why do we put you into self-managed teams?

What will you need to work on.

• Lots of things.

• We will talk about problems of teams in more detail. Accurate diagnosis of problems. Tendency to overreact to every problem. Superficial problems.

• Theory based intervention. Theory is useful. If not useful then lousy theory.

• We will be discussing numerous theories in this course. Up to you to apply them properly. Know the limits of each theory.

• Receptivity to feedback about work processes.

• Hard to criticize others constructively. Hard for people to accept constructive feedback.

• Expert learning is the process of continual experimentation and investigation. Attitude. Process, not outcome.

• I hope you approach this class with an open attitude. Everyone can get better.

• Avoid finger pointing which limits expert learning.

• Learning is about changing oneself. If you know it all, then why are you here?

• Goes beyond that. Learning at work is important too. Why?

• Hope you can develop a learning attitude.