Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 1
Effective Management 7th Edition
Chapter 9: Managing Teams
Pedagogy Map
This chapter begins with the learning outcome summaries and terms covered in the chapter, followed by a
set of lesson plans for you to use to deliver the content in Chapter 9.
Lesson Plan for Lecture (for large sections)
Lesson Plan for Group Work (for smaller sections)
Assignments with Teaching Tips and Solutions
Highlighted Assignments Key Points
What Would You Do? The airplane manufacturer Cessna faces several challenges as
it tries to implement teams at its new production facility.
Management Team Decision The management team must decide how to improve
relationships in a dysfunctional team.
Additional Assignments Key Points
Develop Your Career Potential Students use an inventory to check their team skills.
Learning Outcomes
9-1 Explain the good and bad of using teams.
In many industries, teams are growing in importance because they help organizations respond to specific
problems and challenges. Teams have been shown to increase customer satisfaction (specific customer
teams), product and service quality (direct responsibility), speed and efficiency in product development
9-2 Recognize and understand the different kinds of teams.
Companies use different kinds of teams to make themselves more competitive. Autonomy is the key
dimension that makes teams different. Traditional work groups (which execute tasks) and employee
involvement groups (which make suggestions) have the lowest levels of autonomy. Semiautonomous
9-3 Describe the general characteristics of work teams.
The most important characteristics of work teams are team norms, cohesiveness, size, conflict, and
development. Norms let team members know what is expected of them and can influence team behavior
in positive and negative ways. Positive team norms are associated with organizational commitment, trust,
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 3
9-4 Explain how to enhance work team effectiveness.
Companies can make teams more effective by setting team goals and managing how team members are
selected, trained, and compensated. Team goals provide a clear focus and purpose, reduce the incidence
of social loafing, and lead to higher team performance 93 percent of the time. Extremely difficult stretch
Terms
bureaucratic immunity
cohesiveness
cross-functional team
cross-training
employee involvement team
de-forming
de-norming
de-storming
performing
project team
self-designing team
self-managing team
semiautonomous work group
skill-based pay
social loafing
storming
Lesson Plan for Lecture
Pre-Class Prep for You: Pre-Class Prep for Your Students:
Review chapter and determine what points to
cover.
Bring PPT slides.
Read Chapter 9, bring book.
Warm Up Begin Chapter 9 by asking your students how well they work in teams. Ask them to
identify some of the positive aspects of teamwork and some of the drawbacks.
Segue into lecture by asking, Given the pros and cons youve listed, why do you think
companies are so interested in organizing employees into teams? Are teams always an
appropriate structure?
Topics PowerPoint Slides Activities
9-1 The Good and Bad of
Using Teams
9-1a The Advantages of
9-1c When to Use Teams
1: Managing Teams
2 What Would You Do?
3: The Advantages of
5: Factors that Encourage
People to Withhold Effort
Who can tell me a
disadvantage to using
teams? When a student
slacker? Who has ever been
the slacker?
9-2 Kinds of Teams
9-2b Special Kinds of
7: Autonomy
9: Special Kinds of
9-3 Work Team
Characteristics
9-3b Team Cohesiveness
9-3d Team Conflict
9-3e Stages of Team
Development
11: Work Team
Characteristics
13: Team Cohesiveness
Cohesiveness
15: What Really Works
16: Team Size
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 5
9-4a Setting Team Goals
and Priorities
and Recognition
20: Stretch Goals
21: Selecting People
Reported by Team
Leaders
25: Team Compensation
Describe to students the
Adjust lecture to include the activities in the right column. Some activities should be
done before introducing the concept, some after.
Conclusion
Possible assignments:
2. Assign students to review Chapter 9 and read the next chapter on your syllabus.
Remind students about any upcoming events.
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 6
Lesson Plan for Group Work
Pre-Class Prep for You: Pre-Class Prep for Students:
Review material to cover and modify the lesson plan to meet
your needs.
Bring enough 2‘ × 2’ squares of fabric to have one for every
6 8 students in the class, or hula hoops, or masking tape to
mark areas on the classroom floor.
Photocopy and cut into strips several recipes, one recipe per
group.
Bring enough oranges, balls, or other small spheres to have
one for every group of 810 students.
Optional: Bring several stopwatches.
Read Chapter 9, bring book.
Warm Up The group activities in this chapter take a bit longer to do because they involve several
repetitions to allow for comparing the results stemming from different conditionals
placed on the exercise. They are also very physically oriented, and it takes a bit extra
time to get students moved into positions to start.
Begin Chapter 9 by asking your students the following question:
Why do you think companies use teams?
Content
Delivery
Review Why Use Work Teams and Different Kinds of Teams (Sections 9-1 and 9-2).
Break for the following activity:
“All Aboard”
Divide students into teams of 6 8 students and lay a piece of fabric measuring 2′ × 2′
on the floor by each group. Tell students that the object is to get their whole group to
fit on the piece of fabric entirely (no heels hanging over). They will most likely want
to remove hats, jewelry, and such because they will be in close physical proximity to
one another (squashed, really). Once they get everyone in the space, they need to hold
fast for 10 seconds.
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Break for the following activity:
“Too Many Cooks”
Divide students into groups of 6 8. Give each member of each group one part of one
recipe (an ingredient, instruction, etc.). Each group will try to assemble their own
recipe. Students must put themselves in order as quickly as possible, and the recipe
must make sense. The group that finishes first should loudly announce bon appétit
to signal the end of the exercise.
Tell students that consultants use this activity and activities like it to promote
cohesiveness. Ask students if they think the simulated Too Many Cooks exercise built
cohesiveness. Why or why not?
Segue into the section on Stages of Team Development (Section 9-3e) and lecture on
Enhancing Work Team Effectiveness (Section 9-4).
Break for the following group activity:
“Steve Kerr’s Orange”
This exercise is derived from a description of an exercise by Steve Kerr in a Fortune
article some years back. Divide the class into groups of 810 students. Give each
group an orange or a ball and tell them that each person must handle the orange
before giving it back to the person who had it first. The team can throw the orange,
pass it, whatever. It just has to end where it started. Tell each group to begin, and time
them. Write the times on the board (if you have multiple groups, you may need to
Conclude with a debriefing on stretch goals.
2. If you have finished covering Chapter 9, assign students to review Chapter 9 and
read the next chapter on your syllabus.
Remind students about any upcoming events.
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 8
Assignments with Teaching Tips and Solutions
What Would You Do Case Assignment
What Really Happened? Solution
CESSNA
In the case, you learned that as the new vice president of Cessnas new single-engine business you have
the chance to rebuild the business from scratch by building a new production facility from the ground up,
hiring new workers, and finding new suppliers. But instead of using a standard production line where
each worker does just one task, you are thinking about using teams to assemble Skyhawks and other
single-engine planes. Despite all of their promise, teams and teamwork are also prone to significant
disadvantages. Theyre expensive to implement. They require significant training. And, they only work
about a third of the time theyre used. So, despite their promise, you cant ignore the reality that using
teams would be quite risky for Cessna. Lets find out what happened at Cessna and see what steps were
taken to implement teams in its new single-engine production facility.
University of Southern California professor Edward Lawler said, People are very naive about how easy
it is to create a team. Teams are the Ferraris of work design. Theyre high performance but high
maintenance and expensive. Its almost impossible to make effective work teams without carefully
In selecting workers for its team-based approach to manufacturing single-engine planes like the Skyhawk,
Cessna focused exclusively on team skills. If tests indicated that you werent a team player with an
aptitude and willingness to take on responsibility and work with others, Cessna didnt hire you. However,
because it located the new plant in Independence, Kansas, Cessna had trouble finding experienced
manufacturing workers. In fact, most of the people Cessna hired to work in the plant had never worked in
a manufacturing setting before. In terms of team level, the average ability on a team, Cessnas production
teams was extraordinarily good in terms of being strong team players, but extraordinarily bad in terms of
So Cessna dealt with the problem by increasing team diversity, the variances or differences in ability,
experience, personality, or any other factor on a team. For example, teams with strong team diversity on
job experience would have a mix of team members, ranging from seasoned veterans to people with three
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 9
as long as planned to build each single-engine plane, it will be some time before the plant is profitable and
before it hits its long-term goal of producing 1,500 planes per year. Clearly, teams can produce
phenomenal results, but it takes time, training, and patience to achieve them. Moreover, good team skills
arent enough. It takes good team skills and experienced, capable workers for teams to produce their best.
If you decide to take the plunge and use teams, just how much authority and responsibility should you
give them?
Autonomy is the key dimension that makes teams different. Traditional work groups (that execute tasks)
and employee involvement groups (that make suggestions) have the lowest levels of autonomy.
Semiautonomous work groups (that control major, direct tasks) have more autonomy, followed by self-
So when Cessna chose a team approach at its Independence, Kansas single-engine plane factory, its goal
was to change from a people-blaming culture to a process-oriented culture, in which teams would
have much more authority, and would own and control their work. It did that by creating semiautonomous
work teams that had the authority to execute tasks, give advice and make suggestions, and make decisions
and solve problems on their own. So now, rather than engineers deciding the standard time that it takes
to complete a task, teams decide the standard. And, more importantly, they dont just determine the time
standards; they determine how the work gets done to best improve quality and lower costs.
Finally, while you’re considering using teams on the assembly line, are there other places in which you
might use teams?
Besides traditional, employee involvement, semiautonomous, self-managing, and self-designing teams,
which vary in degrees of autonomy, companies also use cross-functional teams (which combine
employees from different functional areas to help teams attack problems from multiple perspectives and
generate more ideas and solutions), virtual teams (which use telecommunication and information
technologies to bring coworkers together regardless of physical location or time zone), and project teams
(which are used for specific, one-time projects or tasks that must be completed within a limited time). So,
in addition to production teams, where else might Cessna use teams?
Other than manufacturing, Cessna has used more teams in purchasing than any place else. In particular, it
commodities teams examined make versus buy decisions, they worked for a year to determine what
Cessnas core competencies were. In other words, what did Cessna build or do best? The committees
looked at every major category of parts, from engines, to wings, to electronics, and took a hard look at
Management Team Decision
GETTING ALONG
Purpose
The purpose of this exercise is for students to think about the challenges facing organizations as they try
to implement teams in the workplace.
Setting It Up
Ask students What would it take to work with someone that you dont get along with?
Scenario
Nine months ago, the executives running your design firm decided to start using teams. Before that, all of
the work was done on an individual basis. Ron the marketing guy would run some consumer surveys to
try to identify new fads. He would pass this information on to Susie in the art department, who would
come up with some sketches of new products based on the surveys. She would then pass this on to
production, where Maury would look at the sketches and see what kind of materials would have to be
ordered so that Sharon could have a chance to work up some prototypes. Finally, about five months later,
Marcus in sales would have some samples that he could take around to potential customers. But after
switching to one team, where all these people could work together and share their ideas at each step of the
process, that time was cut down just six weeks.
The executives of your company were thrilled with these results, and no doubt they patted themselves
on the back for coming up with the brilliant idea of using teams. There is, though, just one thing that they
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 11
Questions
1. In your opinion, do the interpersonal conflicts in this group make it impossible for team members to
work together?
1. What are some ways that this group can decrease their interpersonal conflicts and increase its
cohesiveness?
To create cohesion in a team, for example, managers can make sure that all team members are present
at all meetings. They can also create additional opportunities for teammates to work together by
rearranging work schedules and creating common workspaces. Team cohesion can also increase when
team member engage in nonwork activities. There are also a number of ways to decrease a-type
conflict and increase c-type conflict. First, it is important that the team work with more, not less
Practice Being a Manager
CAMPUS IMPROVEMENT
Exercise Overview and Objective
This exercise uses the familiar campus context as the basis for an exercise on teams. The aim is for
students to gain experience at chartering, or launching, a successful team. The discussion questions in this
exercise guide students through some of the basic steps of the team chartering process.
Preparation
No student preparation is required for this exercise. You may want to decide in advance on assignment to
the work groups. Although existing teams might seem the obvious choice for this exercise, you may find
some advantages in using new groupings. First of all, this fresh experience is more likely to foster
productive and open discussion. Some members of an existing project team may be reluctant, for
Chapter 9: Managing Teams P a g e | 12
In-Class Use
Once groups are organized, they should begin work by reading Step 2 and then beginning work on Step 3.
In chartering these new teams, students may benefit from some reflection on their prior team experiences.
These might include sports teams, musical groups/bands, project teams within student organizations, as
well as any experiences with teams at work. You may want to prompt this reflection in either the session
prior to conducting the exercise, or just before these new teams begin their chartering process. Some
possible prompts for reflection on past team experiences include:
Have you ever been a member of an outstanding team? This might include a sports team, musical
group, or a project team within a student organization. Whether or not this team won the
championship, they were a close and high-performing team. What made this team great? What
After allowing time for these new teams to complete Step 4, allow each team to briefly report on its
charter and initial plans. Then move directly to the class discussion of the questions found in Step 4:
Is this the sort of project that is well suited to using a work team? Why, or why not?
How might work team characteristics such as norms, cohesiveness, and team size play a role in
this team effort?
What conflicts might be likely down the road, and at what stage of the process are these conflicts
most likely to occur?
Students should recognize that this complex task is well suited to a work team. No individual is likely
to possess the information necessary, and the task is one that calls for multiple perspectives (not to
mention the representation of multiple constituencies. Student discussion of norms, cohesiveness, and