Creativity & Teamwork

Question 1

What are the immediate benefits of teamwork?

Answer 1

• wider appreciation of learning
• cognitive flexibility: Learning to deal with conflicts, better integrate diverse ideas and problems to solutions

-increased perceived self confidence: To be an effective team member we need to expose self through ideas
Safe environment when ideas are taken on board self-confidence is reinforced

Question 2

What are the 4C’s of high performance teams

Answer 2

Context composition competencies and change

Question 3

What is change

Answer 3

The ability to monitor their own performance and make changes as needed

Question 4

What is context for the team?

Answer 4

The need for teamwork type of team needed and the culture structure and systems that support teamwork. Essentially the organisational environment of the team.

Question 5

What is composition of teams

Answer 5

Members with diverse skills can be complimentary skills to one another

Members clearly understand their roles and assignments and carry them out with commitment

If the team is too large members my lose motivation due to lack of involvement but if there isn’t enough members there is too much stress placed on each member

Need to make sure you get the right people because the wrong people make it more likely to fail

Question 6

What are competencies

Answer 6

The teams ability to solve problems communicate make decisions manage conflict and so on

Question 7

What is included in effective context management

Answer 7

Measurable clear goals

Team understanding that effective teamwork is critical in reaching goals

Reward systems so rewarding team performance and not individual performance

Teamwork culture make sure they establish a culture that supports teamwork processes and behaviour

Question 8

Is job knowledge or being a team player more important for career development

Answer 8

Being a team player is more important

Question 9

What are process losses

Answer 9

They occur when people do not work as hard in a group as they would alone

Question 10

What are conversational bottlenecks?

Answer 10

Waiting to speak increased the chances of forgetting ideas

Question 11

How is a fear of rejection a barrier to team creativity?

Answer 11

People only express conservative and non controversial ideas to avoid criticism

Question 12

How can barriers to team creativity be avoided

Answer 12

The adoption of formal rules to guide the group and avoid problematic behaviours

Question 13

What are the already existing rules

Answer 13

• Go for quantity: more ideas produced the higher chance you’ll come up with creative solutions and innovations
• withhold criticism: allows people to deal with the fear of rejection
• welcome wild ideas
• combine and improve ideas

Question 14

What are the 5 behaviours that underpin team creativity within the norms perspective? (PIECE)

Answer 14

Participation 
Independence 
Elaboration 
Communication 
Exploration

Question 15

Participation?

Answer 15

Is key to the creative process but might be affected by social loafing = lazy, rely on others

Question 16

How can participation be boosted by different norms?

Answer 16

Norm for accountability: Shared expectations of team members that they will be asked to justify their beliefs and actions to others

Norm for equity: groups of norms that manage the distribution of rewards on the basis of contribution

Question 17

Independence?

Answer 17

Teams that are formed to carry out creative work expect that individuals contribute with unique perspectives however they tend to be lost

Question 18

Elaboration?

Answer 18

A process of systematic evaluation:
The potential of an idea define in developing an idea or expanding on existing ideas

The norm for elaboration is key to promoting this behaviour

Question 19

Communication?

Answer 19

In addition to full participation, independent perspectives and elaboration, communication norms also help team creativity

Particularly relevant in culturally diverse groups

Question 20

Exploration?

Answer 20

Exploration can help implementing innovation in groups

It is a rather difficult process among teams but one way to overcome exploration issues is through norms of risk-taking only by accepting that some failures will occur will groups be able to sustain creative output

Question 21

How does being a part of a team increase personal satisfaction?

Answer 21

Teams provide a sense of security that allows individuals to take risks and make decisions that they wouldn’t if working alone.

Question 22

How does teamwork make being at work enjoyable?

Answer 22

Can lead to developing personal relationships

Question 23

What is the biggest disadvantage to working in a team?

Answer 23

It requires more time. Especially when the team is new as will require more meetings

Question 24

Conflict in teams?

Answer 24

Personality conflicts are magnified in teams which will lead to disagreements

Question 25

What is group think?

Answer 25

Limits innovation

When a group has been successful it begins to believe it will never fail.

Question 26

What are the benefits of establishing roles up front in a team?

Answer 26

Prevents the same task from being done twice

Keeps things organised

Question 27

Why should teams clarify their goals?

Answer 27

Prevents having to rework
Prevents non-goal outcomes
Prevents insufficient uses of time

Question 28

Why is teamwork considered not natural for most individuals?

Answer 28

Most of us were bought up to do the best we can individually

Question 29

What are the four basic categories of divergent thinking?

Answer 29

Fluency - large number of ideas
Flexibility- generate a wide variety of ideas
Originality - production of unusual ideas
Elaboration - developing or building on other ideas

Question 30

What do people think of brainstorming techniques

Answer 30

Majority of people believe they would generate more ideas in a group than if they were alone

Question 31

What is the funnel process and what does it relate to?

Answer 31

Funnel process: wider funnel of ideas, the more ideas that will be considered which will increase chances of effective solutions

Relates to needing everyone to participate

Question 32

Why is the difference between a group and a team?

Answer 32

A group is a collection of individuals who coordinate their individual efforts.

A team is a group of people who share a common team purpose and a number of challenging goals. Members of the team are mutually committed to the goals and to each other. Without purpose and goals you cannot build a team.