Chapter 3
TRUE-FALSE
T F 1. Members should express their personal goals early in the life of a group.
T F 2. It is essential that a group designate one person to be the leader.
T F 3. To be most effective, a team needs control over its approaches for accomplishing its
job.
T F 4. Even though the charge given to a group may not be too clear, it is usually not a good
idea to go back to the boss for clarification.
T F 5. The final goal a team seeks to achieve is the instrumental objective.
T F 6. It is important that all group members understand and are committed to achieving the
goals.
T F 7. Although group norms develop over time, it is a good idea for a team to make
decisions about issues such as time and responsibilities early in its life.
T F 8. An agenda should be simple and straightforward, not creative and artful.
T F 9. A good goal includes criteria for assessing its success.
T F 10. Agendas usually prevent open discussion of important issues.
T F 11. According to the authors, agenda items, once prepared, should not be changed.
T F 12. Agenda items should not be phrased as questions.
T F 13. Work teams are usually created by the workers to meet their needs in a specific
department or area.
T F 14. Teams within an organizational context usually need to consider the related teams,
departments, and parent organization in actions they take.
T F 15. Organizational teams have the best chance of success when the parent organization
allows them sufficient support and autonomy to define its tasks, control social and
task conditions, and select its processes for itself.
T F 16. Teams are responsible only to its own members and tasks.
T F 17. It is always important for a work team to have a strong leader from the start.
T F 18. Many work teams share leadership or distribute leading tasks across members
according to their interests and abilities.
T F 19. It is an individual’s communication that indicates whether she or he is prepared for
the task, credible, adaptable, ethical, and involved enough to lead well.
T F 20. An extremely informal agenda is never a good idea.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of the following IS a statement made by Gratton & Erickson about a key element a
team needs to be successful?
A. They define their tasks as the same as other groups.
E. None of the above.
2. Which of the following purposes involves the widest range of team responsibilities?
A. Information gathering
3. In creating an agenda, you should keep in mind:
A. The meeting’s purpose
B. Who will attend
4. In establishing team norms for working together, all of the following are important except:
A. Work deadlines
B. Arriving on time for meetings
5. If a team decides to designate a leader, the best method for the long run to select a person is:
D. Appointment by an authority
E. None of the above
6. Norms:
A. Develop over time
B. Include ways of interacting
7. An agenda is:
C. The group’s goals
D. The purposes and goals of the group
8. The authors recommend that any work team should set its goals early in the group’s
development; they recommend this for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
A. To clarify what the parent organization expects
9. The steps that must be taken on the way to reaching a final goal are termed:
A. Terminal objectives
10. A plan to guide a meeting or a list of the things that a group will deal with during its meeting
is called a(n):
A. Group decision making outline
ESSAYS
1. Identify the work a team should do in its first meetings before its gets down to setting specific
goals. Prepare an agenda for a meeting that seeks to accomplish these preliminary tasks.
2. A group’s organizational context (including its autonomy and its responsibilities to others in
the system) and the group’s purpose may affect whether it is necessary to designate a leader.
3. Identify the issues a group must consider in translating a “charge” to workable goals. Suggest
ways members might resolve problems that emerge in developing their team goals.