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Organizational Behavior: Solutions for Management

Paul D. Sweeney, University of Central Florida
Dean B. McFarlin, University of Dayton

Designing Motivating Jobs and High Performance Teams

Chapter Outline

Turning To Teams--Effective behavior management increasingly involves groups of employees.
1. Approximately 70% of Fortune 1000 companies use self-managed teams to handle the tasks of making a product or delivering a service.
2. Some experts consider the team, not the individual, to be the fundamental unit in today's modern corporation.
3. Teams present special challenges that put managers' behavior skills to the test.
Designing Jobs That Work For Employees
1. Timing the Work:
  - One type of job redesign involves modifying when the work is performed.
2. Enlarging and Rotating Jobs:
  - Job rotation: shifting workers to different jobs at periodic intervals.
  - Job enlargement: combining multiple tasks once performed by several people into one job.
  - Advantages of these techniques:
  - Decrease boredom
  - Increase variety
  - Can help to create a more skilled and flexible work force.
  - Disadvantage of these techniques:
  - The training costs imposed on the organization.
  - Initially, productivity may suffer as workers adjust.
  - Neither actually redesigns the work itself.
3. Job Enrichment: Changing the Way Work Gets Done:
  - Job enrichment involves making fundamental changes in the way work gets done.
  - The goal of job enrichment is to make work more interesting and motivating.
Designing Jobs Around Teams--Teams are a complex subject and it should be remembered that not all groups are teams.
1. Groups Versus Teams:
  - A work team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and set of goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
  - A team produces more than the sum of individual efforts.
2. Teams: More Popular than Ever: One estimate claims that over 70% of all U.S. firms have at least some employees working in teams. Experts predict this number will continue to rise.
Distinguishing Between TeamsEven though not all teams are the same, there are some commonalities between them.
1. Advisory Teams: Having Your Say:
  - Advisory teams: typically referred to as quality circles or quality teams; involve 10-20 people from the same department who meet a few hours per week to suggest solutions to problems.
  - Group is usually formed for the long run
  - Popular in early 1980s
  - Reasons for the proliferation of quality circles:
  - Accessibility
  - Minimal dispute
  - Image enhancement
  - Quality circles essentially became a fad at least in the U.S. but this fad faded rather quickly due to lack of actual effectiveness of the circles.
2. Self-Managed Work Teams: Running Your Own Show:
  - Self-managed work teams: small group of employees that is responsible for an entire work process.
  - About 30% of all U.S. firms use SMTs.
  1. How do SMTs operate in theory?
    - Typically composed of 5-20 people who work together on a daily basis.
    - Permanent groups
    - Team runs itself
    - Controls its own: schedule, assignment selection, performance goals, and allocation of necessary resources.
    - Different from traditional groups in that SMTs:
    - Are less hierarchical
    - Leader is more coach than cop
    - Reward systems tend to be skill based
    - Productivity data, sales figures, profit levels, and the like are shared with all team members.
    - Members are expected to learn many jobs not just perform an isolated piece of work.
  2. How do SMTs operate in practice?
    - Most common function is to set its own schedule followed by training, goal setting, and directly dealing with the customer.
  3. Opting for SMTs:
    - Decision for development of an SMT should be done with much thought.
    - SMTs can work particularly well in manufacturing or service companies provided the starting point is a set of sequentially linked tasks.
    - The more complex the work, the better suited for SMTs.
  4. Implementation challenges with SMTs:
    - Converting to SMTs can take from 18 months to several years.
    - Managers can have a difficult time letting go of authority over the teams and allowing them to manage themselves.
    - Inefficient training cited as the most common challenge for SMTs.
    - Second most common implementation problem is supervisor resistance.
    - Lack of management and union support.
  5. Are SMTs effective?
    - Studies have shown that employees who are in SMTs have higher job satisfaction.
    - These employees also have higher absenteeism and turnover rates than traditionally organized employees.
    - Managerial behaviors to help ensure the success of SMTs:
    - Share information
    - Share knowledge
    - Share power
    - Share rewards
3. Cross-Functional Teams:
  - Cross-functional teams: composed of employees from different areas of the organization who are brought together to work on the same project.
  - Ford motor company
    AT&T
    Boeing
  1. CFTs are a step beyond advisory teams.
  2. Task forces are a temporary form of CFTs.
  3. CFTs can be hard to start and manage.
  4. CFTs seem to be better suited for industries with rapidly changing markets where the need to move quickly is vital
    - Technology can "follow" employees everywhere, which results in employee stress.
    - Technology can produce waste and inefficiencies.
4. Virtual Teams:
  - Virtual teams: consists of people who are physically dispersed but function as a team through the use of videoconferencing, e-mail, or other electronic media.
  - Predicted to grow in the future due to:
  - Rapid growth in technology
  - Increase in international mergers
Explaining Team Success and Failure
When responsibility is unclear, a threat to team effectiveness may emerge.
1. Social loafing: tendency for team members to put out less effort in the team than they would if they were working alone. Ways to prevent social loafing: Make individual performance prominent More prevalent in the U.S.
2. Other problems include: Members have problems letting go of previous authority roles. Burden falls on those with more knowledge. Management-related problems: Lack of commitment Appraisals and rewards that do not match the team concept
  1. Designing and Building Teams:

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