ABSTRACT
Small groups and teams are the cornerstones of organized behavior, operate at all levels of an organization, and play a major role in informal and formal activities. More than 70% of all U.S. companies of 100 or more employees have employees working in teams (Sweeney & McFarlin, 2002). “Teams are a favorite way to organize employees, to get work done, and to facilitate workplace learning” (“Industry Report,” 1995). Increasingly, organizations are using groups to fuel improvements, develop new ideas, and motivate employees. The key concepts in this chapter are:
Scope of groups and teams Definition and types of groups Groups as subcultures Group cohesiveness, norms, and roles Group development Advantages and disadvantages Employee involvement Teams and teamwork Limitations to team building Self-managing work teams
Examples of great groups are Walt Disney’s animators; Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, whose engineers produced the stealth fighter; and the Manhattan Project, makers of hot, iridescent oblivion-the atomic bomb (Bennis & Beiderman, 1997). Groups and teams shine in a variety of settings. At Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, teams are credited with “reducing errors, shortening the amount of time patients spend in its 12-bed ICU (intensive care unit), and improving communication between families and medical staff” (Appleby & Davis, 2001, p. B1). The speed of advances in modern medicine makes it difficult for individuals to keep up to date. Suburban Hospital uses teams to overcome this problem. Like the ICU, “in high-pressure workplaces, such as nuclear plants, aircraft cockpits, or the military, teamwork is essential to survival” (Appleby & Davis, 2001, p. B2). Whole Foods Market, based in Austin, Texas, with 183 locations in North America and the United Kingdom, recently ranked 15th on Fortune magazine’s annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” (Colvin, 2006). Their success is based on
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self-managing work teams that are responsible and accountable for their own performance. “The central idea is giving a group responsibility for a meaningful whole-a product, sub-assembly, or complete service-with ample autonomy and resources and collective responsibility for results” (Bolman & Deal, 2003, p. 149). The teams at Whole Foods Markets have the authority to hire, fire, determine pay rates, specify work methods, and manage inventory. At the University of California-Irvine, teams were able to make the purchasing of parking permits easier and faster saving students and staff time and the university more than $1 million (Woodyard, 1998). The president of Wes-Tex Printing in Brownville, Texas, “turned the task of speeding up production to his 130 employees. That led to the formation of interdisciplinary teams, the kind of cooperation on the plant floor that lead Wes-Tex to being named winner of the 2001 RIT/USA Today Quality Cup for small business” (Woodyard, 2001, p. 3B). The teams identified delays in the production process, readjusted work schedules and dramatically reduced delivery times resulting in an expected “5% increase in its more than $7 million in annual revenue” in 2001 similar to the increase it first realized after the team process in 2000 (Woodyard, 2001, p. 3B).
