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Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
10-12
3. Coach Preczewski should conduct team interventions to make his team more effective. For
example, he might assess the threats to the team’s performance. Are they suffering from the
innocent bystander effect in which team members feel their personal responsibility is limited? If
4. Answers will vary.
Small Teams, No Titles: Life at W.L. Gore
1. This approach could be very problematic for a company that has not conducted the prior
2. Gore practices the disciplines of high performance teams. They try to keep teams small in
size – even the larger facilities are divided into subgroups so that people know each other and
3. Answers will vary.
"MANAGE WHAT" SCENARIOS
Teaching Note
The "Manage What" scenarios in this chapter are best answered using information from the Tool
Kits at the end of the chapter. It will be helpful to draw your students' attention to these Tool
Kits before they attempt to analyze the "Manage What" scenarios. Suggested discussions for
each scenario are shown below - in these discussions, the "you" refers to the student.
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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1. Helping the Highly Cohesive but Low-Performing Team
Debrief is found at the end of the chapter.
2. Getting a Team Started: Leading the First Meeting
Debrief is found at the end of the chapter.
3. Dealing with a Problem Team Member
Debrief is found at the end of the chapter.
4. Forming and Leading a Virtual Team
Virtual teams are different from face-to-face teams in some ways, but in many ways the same
rules of having a high-performance team are the same. In fact, the disciplines of high-performing
teams are even more important in virtual teams because the actions of each team member are
more isolated from each other and there are reduced opportunities for monitoring other team
members.
Studies of virtual teams show that the most effective teams share common characteristics. First,
they typically begin the interactions with social-oriented messages. So in forming your virtual
team, you should begin with introductions where you get to know a little about your fellow team
members. Second, successful virtual teams set clear goals and roles for each team member. You
should have clear goals for your project in improving employee wellness and reducing health
can be contagious, so if you lead by example in expressing enthusiasm, it is likely to form a
positive norm that other members will begin to engage in as well.
One common obstacle of virtual teams is process loss. You can overcome this problem by
conducting training sessions for the virtual team members about how to conduct online meetings,
engage in conflict management, and participate in virtual teams. Another common obstacle is the
experience of isolation and detachment because other group members are not physically present.
This problem can be avoided or reduced by selecting team members who want to work on the
virtual team. You can openly discuss the potential for feelings of isolation and address that issue
if members start to feel that way by increasing communication, or even meeting occasionally in
person.
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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MANAGEMENT LIVE
10.1 Warren Buffet on Working with Winners
Class Discussion Questions:
1. Do you agree with Warren Buffett that “to be a winner, work with winners”?
2. Do you think that Eddie’s moves were merely lucky coincidences or something else?
3. How might Eddie have known who the “winners” would be?
4. How might you find “winners” to work with on class projects? How would you find
“winners” to work with on job assignments?
5. If someone is a top-performer as an individual (i.e., a “winner”) does that mean that he or
she will be a good team member? Explain.
10.2 Cooperative Team Rewards in Action
Instructions:
10.3 When Team Members Raise the White Flag
Instructions to Students:
limiting behaviors.
Possible Solutions (for Instructor)
1. The presence of someone with obviously superior expertise.
The task might be assigned to the expert. Teams sometimes are not needed when one
too.
2. Presentation of a compelling argument.
Create subgroups so that people cannot “hide” in the larger group. Assign someone to the
role of devil’s advocate so that a contrary opinion is expressed.
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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Rotate turns so that everyone in the group has a turn discussing his or her opinion; ask all
members to share their opinion directly even if they agree with the group.
3. Lacking confidence in one’s ability to contribute.
Be sure to avoid “idea killers” and instead promote “idea growers.” Build self-confidence
through coaching and training.
4. An unimportant or meaningless decision.
Make sure the goal is compelling – build in personal relevance for team members.
5. A dysfunctional decision-making climate.
Decide on the goal and assign individual roles and tasks to ensure organization. Use
social-contracting to decide on consequences for members who don’t pull their weight.
10.4 How Teams Can Have a “Good” Fight
Class Discussion Questions
1. Do you believe it can be functional for teams to fight? Why or why not?
2. Describe a time when you were on a team that had a fight. Was the fight functional or
not? Explain how you could have used the tactics described in the Management Live 10.4
to help the team fight more productively.
10.5 Safe Return Doubtful
There are many fascinating videos, documentaries, and books written about Shackleton’s
voyage. The instructor might wish to show a short video clip in class and then lead a discussion.
Alternatively, the instructor could assign students to research the voyage outside of class and
write about the relevance of the voyage to the chapter’s focus on high performance teams.
10.6 The Golf Scramble: the Underlying Magic of Teams at Work
Class Discussion Questions:
1. What if the team members varied dramatically in their skill level?
2. If you were forming a golf scramble team would you pick the three best other golfers you
could find to be on your team? Why or why not?
TOOL KIT
10.1 How to Evaluate Peer Team Members
Instructions for Instructor:
1. Divide the class into groups of 4-5 students.
2. Review the “Lost on the Moon” class exercise found below. Make copies of the parts
required for the students (do NOT copy and distribute the answers!).
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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3. Assign groups to solve the class exercise to the best of their ability. The group should
either turn in a short report explaining the rationale behind their answers or should give a
short presentation in front of the rest of the class.
4. Ask students to evaluate their team members using the list from Tool Kit 10.1
5. NOTE: This activity can also be combined with Tool Kit 10.5 (Conducting a Team
Process Check).
**Class Exercise: Lost on the Moon
Background
The purpose of this exercise is to highlight how groups process information, and why groups
develop better solutions to problems than individuals. To conduct the exercise, you will need to
copy and distribute:
• A "Lost on the Moon" worksheet for each student.
• An additional "Lost on the Moon" worksheet for each team.
After the individuals and teams have completed their work, each student will need:
• A copy of the "Lost on the Moon" answer sheet.
Group norms to use for evaluating difference scores are shown below. Share these with students
prior to beginning the discussion session:
Error points are the absolute difference between your rankings
and NASA's (disregard plus or minus signs).
• 0-25 Excellent
• 26-32 Good
• 33-45 Fair
• 56-70 Poor
• 71-112 oh, well….
Discussion questions for the exercise include:
• Are there significant differences between your scores as an individual and the group's
scores? What do you think caused the discrepancy, if one exists?
• When looking at the difference scores between your answers and the expert answers, who
did better, you as an individual or the group as a whole?
• Which individual in your team had the lowest difference score, based on the expert
answers?
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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• How closely do the team answers reflect the answers of the most accurate individual
scores? What factors influenced whether or not the individual score was reflected in the
team score?
• Who emerged as the leader of your group during this exercise? What did that person do
or say that made you feel he/she was "leader material"?
• During the team discussion period, what did people do that helped the team move toward
the right answers? What did people do or say that inhibited team functioning?
• Using Tool Kit 8.8, determine whether or not your team functioned effectively during
this exercise. What could have been done differently to help the team achieve their goal?
Lost on the Moon Worksheet 1
from NASA
Your spaceship has just crashed on the moon. You were scheduled to rendezvous with a mother
ship 200 miles away on the lighted surface of the moon, but the rough landing has ruined your
ship and destroyed all the equipment on board except for the 15 items listed below.
Your crew's survival depends on reaching the mother ship, so you must choose the most critical
items available for the 200-mile trip. Your task is to rank the 15 items in terms of their
importance for survival. Place a number 1 by the most important item, number 2 by the second
most important, and so on, through number 15, the least important.
______ Box of matches
______ Food concentrate
______ 50 feet of nylon rope
______ Parachute silk
______ Solar-powered portable heating unit
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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______ Two .45caliber pistols
______ One case of dehydrated milk
LOST ON THE MOON TEST: THE ANSWERS
Following are the answers to the group problem-solving test, "Lost on the Moon". The difference
between your rank and NASA's (plus or minus) is to be listed in the "Difference for You"
column. The difference between your group's rank and NASA's is to be listed in the last column.
ITEM
Reasoning
NASA's
Rank
Your
Rank
Difference
for You
Group
Rank
Difference
for Group
Box of matches
No oxygen to sustain
flame, virtually
worthless
15
Food
concentrate
Efficient means of
supplying energy
requirements
4
Fifty feet of
nylon rope
Useful in scaling cliffs,
tying injured together
6
Parachute silk
Protection from sun's
rays
8
Solar-powered
portable
heating unit
Not needed unless on
dark side
13
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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Two .45 caliber pistols
Possible means of self-propulsion
11
One case of Pet milk
Bulkier duplication of food concentrate
12
Two 100 lb. tanks of O2
Most pressing survival need
1
Stellar map (of the moon's
constellations)
Primary means of navigation
3
Self-inflating life raft
CO2 bottle in military raft may be used for propulsion
9
Magnetic compass
Magnetic field on moon is not polarized; worthless for
navigation
14
5 gallons of water
Replacement for tremendous liquid loss on lighted side
2
Signal flares
Distress signal when mother ship is sighted
10
First-aid kit injection
needles
Needles for vitamins, medicines, etc., will fit special
aperture in NASA space suits
7
Solar-powered FM receiver-
transmitter
For communication with mother ship; but FM requires
line-of-sight transmission and short ranges
5
Total points difference:
10.2 How to Run an Effective Meeting
Instructions for Students:
10.3 How to be a Great Team Member
Instructions:
1. Make four copies of the “Lost on the Moon” activity from Tool Kit 10.1.
2. Ask for four volunteers from the class.
3. Tell the class and volunteers that you will be assigning each of them a “secret team
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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exercise. It is okay if the students have already completed the activity – the point is not to
solve the activity correctly but to role play different interpersonal styles in front of the
class.
4. Speak in private with the four volunteers so that no one else in the class (or the other
volunteers) can hear which interpersonal role they have been assigned. Assign one
5. Have the volunteers solve the class exercise in front of the class using their assigned
roles.
10.4 How to Build Team Cohesiveness
Class Discussion Questions:
1. Describe a time when you have been a part of a very cohesive team (sports, school
project, debate/speech, etc.). Did your team practice the steps described in Tool Kit 10.4?
Explain.
2. How do you know if you are part of a cohesive team? What does it feel like? What
happens within the team to suggest to you that it is cohesive?
3. How would you know if the team has become too cohesive? What are the signs?
4. What are the pros and cons of having a cohesive team?
10.5 Conducting a Team Process Check
See instructions for Tool Kit 10.1. If the activities are combined, the Team Process Check should
occur in the middle of the activity or following the team’s decision but prior to writing the final
report (or doing the presentation).
ADDITIONAL CLASS EXERCISES
Group Polarization Exercise
Background
This exercise is designed to demonstrate the “risky shift” phenomenon2 – in other words, to show
students that a group more likely to take risks than an individual. The exercise is quite simple –
hand the students one of the following scenarios, and ask them to answer the question posed in
the scenario. Next, ask them to work with a group to come to an
2 Myers, D. G., & Bishop, G. D. (1970) Discussion effects on racial attitudes. Science, 169, 778-779
Chapter 10 - Team Effectiveness
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agreement on the answer to the question. In most cases, the group will choose an answer that
involves more risk than the individual has chosen.
Scenario 1
Mr. A has a secure job with a modest, though adequate, salary. He is offered a job with a new
company which has a highly uncertain future. The new job would pay more to start and could
eventually lead to a share in the ownership – IF the firm survives.
Imagine that you are advising Mr. A. Please check the LOWEST probability that you would
__9 in 10 __10 in 10
Scenario 2
Henry is a writer who is said to have considerable creative talent but who so far has been earning
a comfortable living by writing cheap westerns. Recently he has come up with an idea for a
potentially significant novel. If it could be written and accepted it might have considerable
literary impact and give a big boost to his career. On the other hand, if he is not able to work out
his idea or if the novel is a flop, he will have expended considerable time and energy without
compensation.
Imagine that you are advising Henry. Please check the LOWEST probability that you would
consider acceptable for Henry to attempt to write the novel. Henry should attempt to write the
novel if the chances that the novel will be a success are at least:
__1 in 10 __2 in 10 __3 in 10 __4 in 10
