Chapter 5Working in Teams 153Insurance Company. A Conference Board of Canada report found that more than 80 per-
cent of its 109 respondents used teams in the workplace.^4 This finding is similar in the
United States, where 80 percent of Fortune500 companies have half or more of their
employees on teams. As well, 68 percent of small US manufacturers use teams in their
production areas.^5 Thus, it is not surprising that Glenforest Secondary also selected a team
to build a robot. The extensive use of teams creates the potentialfor an organization to
generate greater outputs with no increase in inputs. Notice, however, we said “potential.”
Creating a team does not lead magically to positive results. As well, merely calling a
group a teamwill not automatically increase its performance.
Do teams work? The evidence suggests that teams typically outperform individuals
when the tasks being done require multiple skills, judgment, and experience.^6 As organ-
izations have restructured to compete more effectively and efficiently, they have turned
to teams as a way to better usse employee talents. Management has found that teams are
more flexible and responsive to changing events than traditional departments or other
forms of permanent groupings. Teams can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband.
Teams also can be more motivational. Recall from the job characteristics model in
Chapter 4 that having greater task identity is one way of increasing motivation. Teams
allow for greater task identity, with team members working on tasks together.
As we show later in this chapter, successful, or high-performing, teams have certain
common characteristics. If management hopes to gain increases in organizational per-
formance through the use of teams, it must ensure that its teams possess these charac-
teristics.
STAGES OFGROUP ANDTEAMDEVELOPMENT
Consider when the Glenforest Secondary School students first started working together to
build the robot. If they were anything like most ordinary teams, they all might not have known
each other, or trusted each other. They might not have known who should be the leader or how
to form the plans for what they had to do. Besides building a successful robot, they had to raise
$16 000 to take part in the Canada FIRST Robotics Games. They also had several deadlines to
meet. To build a successful team that would achieve their goals, the students would have had
to go through several stages. So what stages do teams go through as they develop?While we make a distinction between groups and teams, some of the stages of devel-
opment they go through are similar. In this section, we discuss two models of group
development. The five-stage model describes the standardized sequence of stages groups
pass through. The recently discovered punctuated-equilibrium model describes the pat-
tern of development specific to temporary groups with deadlines. These models apply
as readily to teams.
The Five-Stage Model
From the mid-1960s, it was believed that groups passed through a standard sequence of
five stages.^7 As shown in Exhibit 5-1 on page 154, these five stages have been labelled
forming, storming, norming, performing,and adjourning.Although we now know that not
all groups pass through these stages in a linear fashion, the five-stage model of group
development can still help in addressing your anxieties about working in groups and
teams. The model shows how individuals move from being independent to working
interdependently with group members.
- Stage I: Forming. Think about the first time you met with a new group that had
been put together to accomplish a task. Do you remember how some people
seemed silent and others felt confused about the task you were to accomplish?
Those feelings arise during the first stage of group development, know as
3 Do groups and teams
go through stages
while they work?