P: Teamwork in Business Flashcards
What is a team?
A group of people with complimentary skills who work together to achieve a specific goal.
What is a group?
Individuals who go about their jobs independently and meet primarily to work towards a shared objective.
Name 5 key characteristics of a team.
- Share accountability for achieving specific common goals.
- Function independently
- Require stability
- Hold authority and decision-making power.
- Operate in a social context.
What is a manager-led team?
A team in which the manager is the team leader and is in charge of setting team goals, assigning tasks, and monitoring the team’s performance.
What is a self-managing team?
A typically small team where the individual members control the activities needed to achieve a goal set by the team leader or manager.
What is a cross-functional team?
A team that is designed to take advantage of the special expertise of members drawn from different functional areas of the company (operations, marketing, etc.).
What is a virtual team?
A team in which members can participate from any location or at any time of day, and teams can “meet” for as long as it takes to achieve a goal or solve a problem - a few days, weeks, or months.
Define the key factors in effective teamwork.
- Member depend on each other
- Members trust one another
- Members work better together than individually
- Members become boosters
- Members enjoy being on the team
- Leadership rotates
What is group cohesiveness?
The attractiveness of a team to its members.
What 5 key factors make a team cohesive?
- Size. (The bigger the team, the less satisfied members tend to be).
- Similarity (People get along with people like themselves).
- Success (Success equals satisfied members).
- Exclusiveness (The harder the group is to get into, the happier the members).
- Competition (Membership is valued higher when there is motivation to achieve common goals and outperform other teams).
What is groupthink?
The tendency to conform to group pressure in making decisions, while failing to think critically or to consider outside influences.
What is the main cause of frustration among team members?
The inability of the team leader to maintain a high level of motivation.
What 3 factors erode team performance?
- Unwillingness to cooperate (The team doesn’t or won’t commit to a common goal or set of activities).
- Lack of managerial support (Management isn’t willing to commit the needed resources - funding or key personnel).
- Failure of managers to delegate authority (Not creating an environment in which success depends on building a consensus and letting people make their own decisions).
What 3 key skills are important for creating a team?
- Technical skills (Because teams must perform certain tasks, they need people with the skills to perform them).
- Decision-making and problem-solving skills.
- Interpersonal skills. (Every group benefits from members who know how to listen, provide feedback, and resolve conflict).
What are 2 non-leadership roles that can benefit a teams success?
- Accomplishing its assigned tasks.
2. Maintaining or improving group cohesiveness.
