HRM_L7

Question 1

What are the key features of a work team?

1. What do they do?
2. What do they have?
3. Together, they are …

Answer 1

Two or more individuals who:

1. • socially interact (face-to-face or virtually)
   • perform organizationally relevant tasks
2. • possess one or more common goals
   • exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goals, and outcomes
   • have different roles and responsibilities
3. • are together embedded in an encompassing organizational system, with boundaries and linkages to the broader system context and task environment.

Question 2

List major types of work teams.

List seven types.

Answer 2

• Production teams
• Service teams
• Management teams
• Project teams
• Action & performing teams
• Virtual teams
• Human‑robot/AI teams

Question 3

Differentiate taskwork and teamwork.

And name sub-points of teamwork.

Answer 3

• Taskwork ➔ What the team does
• Teamwork ➔ How they do it:
  
  • Coordination
  • Communication
  • Alignment of actions & goals

Question 4

Describe the Input‑Process‑Output (IPO) model of team effectiveness.

Describe the three points and what they are influenced by.

Answer 4

• Input: composition of team, resources (e.g. capability)
• Process: activities that team members engage in (communication, coordination, decision‑making)
• Output: performance judged by others, member satisfaction, viability
• -> Emergent states (goes into process): cohesion, trust, psychological safety, team mental models

Question 5

Define groupthink.

What does it lead to and why?

Answer 5

Mode of thinking where striving for unanimity in a cohesive group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives.

People in a tightly-knit group prioritize agreement over critical thinking. It leads to poor decisions because members suppress doubts to maintain unity.
The quote “stupidity certainly is not the explanation” emphasizes that intelligent people can still make bad decisions due to group dynamics.

“A quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive ingroup, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action”

Question 6

How to prevent groupthink?

Name four things that can be done.

Answer 6

• Appoint devil’s advocate 😈 to challenge ideas
• Ensure diverse team composition to bring in different perspectives
• Use anonymous voting to reduce public pressure
• Flatten hierarchy for open discussion

-> This helps ensure that minory opinions are considered.

Question 7

What is the false consensus effect?

Answer 7

Expectation that others share our view, fostering conformity when they seemingly do not.

Question 8

Explain group polarisation.

Why does it occur?

Answer 8

Discussion can shift group to more extreme position via:

• Reliance on consensus heuristic
• Majority arguments more numerous & persuasive ➔ minority converts

Sometimes, teams with differing opinions converge toward a middle ground.

Question 9

State Steiner’s formula for team productivity.

Explain how/what is affected with increasing group size.

Answer 9

Potential productivity – process loss = actual productivity

If size of group increases the process loss increases!

Question 10

Define social loafing and its cause.

Answer 10

Tendency to exert less effort in group when individual contributions unidentifiable.
Cause: illusion of group productivity.

Question 11

Why does poor coordination hurt brainstorming?

Answer 11

• Team brainstorming leads to coordination losses, reducing productivity by limiting the number and quality of novel ideas
• Recommendation: Ideas should first be generated individually and then discussed in teams!

Question 12

Strategies to reduce process losses.

Name three.

Answer 12

• Enable identifiability of individual contributions to prevent social loafing
• Foster team cohesion through a positive organizational climate
• Adapt communication networks to the complexity of the task

Question 13

What is a team debrief?

And how does one do it?
How does it affect performance?

Answer 13

Structured reflection where members analyse a performance episode:

• What happened?
• Identify problems & successes
• Plan future improvements

“…one of the most promising methods for accelerating learning from experience”

Teams that engage in regular debriefing demonstrate 20%–25% higher performance, despite the
typically short duration (18 minutes on average)

Question 14

Types of team debriefing.

Name two and describe them.

Answer 14

• After-action reviews (AARs): Typical team brief in which team members discuss teamwork-related issues following a performance episode
• Guided team self-correction: Led by a trained facilitator who directs discussion and fosters a positive learning environment.

Question 15

Best practices for team debriefing.

Name three and describe them.

Answer 15

• Team Climate
  – Team members should be trained in providing constructive feedback, focusing on task-related information rather than personal attributes
• Trained Facilitator
  – Facilitate participation from all team members
  – Use open-ended questions targeting both team and task-related knowledge, skills, and abilities
  – The facilitator should guide rather than dominate the discussion
• Structured Approach
  – Organize debriefs around performance- and teamwork-related categories
  – Discuss both positive and negative behaviors

Question 16

Teams have a consensualizing impact on individuals: Why?

What do we expect from us and from others?

Answer 16

• We expect others to see the world like ourselves (“false consensus effect”; Gilovich, 1990)
• We expect ourselves to see the world like others → we fulfill this expectation via conformity

Question 17

What is private conformity?

Why do individuals adopt the group consensus? Name three reasons.

Answer 17

Adopt group consensus…

• … because it seems correct
• …to show identification with the group
• …to feel positive about self and valued in-group

Question 18

Teams have a polarizing impact on individuals:
How do we process majority opinions?

And what does this processing lead to?

Answer 18

Teams can cause opinion polarization. When the majority takes a stance, individuals either:

• Superficially process it: they go along with the group using shortcuts like consensus.
• Systematically process it: they hear more majority arguments, which seem more convincing.

Both paths lead to minority views being overridden and the group’s average opinion shifting to a more extreme version of the majority view.

Question 19

Group productivity

And when is that the case?

Answer 19

Teamwork can boost productivity beyond individual efforts—if collaboration is effective.

The quote emphasizes synergy (“2 + 2 = 5”). But the meme humorously shows team dysfunction, where only one person works while others contribute little or nothing. The key question: when do teams actually outperform individuals?

Question 20

Motivation is in danger due to..

Name two. Explain why they endages motivation.

Answer 20

Social Loafing and Emotions (Individual emotions are contagious. Bad mood leads to more conflict, less cooperation, and less productivity)

Question 21

How does coordination relate to team productivity?

How can coordination be improved?

Answer 21

Coordination is crucial for team productivity.

• Clear communication about individual roles, available resources, and team members’ strengths and weaknesses
• Individual actions are optimally aligned with one another and the overall team goal