Although 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies have half or more of their employees on teams, management scholar, Kim Cameron, has found that the majority of all teams are unsuccessful and many teams should never be formed. 1  An effective work team is a “group whose individual efforts result in a performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs” 2.  Research data suggest that teams outperform individuals when the tasks performed require multiple skills, judgment, and experience. 3  Managers in organizations are creating teams in an effort to create synergy, develop employee skills, achieve organizational goals, and improve accountability – yet many teams are poorly conceived, directed, and managed. 4

Research about trust in team settings indicates that two-member teams are most likely to honor interpersonal commitments, but that commitment to other team members and to the obtaining of shared benefits diminishes as teams grow larger and interpersonal relationships become less strong. 5  Team cohesion in the classroom setting has been found to improve when agendas are clearly defined, the number of issues addressed by the team is kept reasonable in number, and team roles are clearly articulated. 6 To help you to have a successful team experience, we will be experimenting in this class with the creation of two-member teams for your team assignments – with guidelines for team assignments clearly spelled out and detailed information provided to help you to stay on task as teams.  A “Guidance Team”  -- consisting of a group of students who will monitor course progress and team effectiveness 7 – will also be created to serve as a resource to individuals and teams and to help students to be able to address key course issues as those issues arise.  Guidance Team members will also serve as “Coaches” to monitor the progress of teams and to offer counsel and encouragement throughout the semester. 8

Dean Charles Bullock has provided the following website to assist students in learning more about teams, and in helping students to apply team concepts successfully:
http://www.css.edu/users/dswenson/web/6300-OBOD/Teambuildprinciples.html.  

There is much of value at this website, and we encourage you to access the website and to applies its ideas as you work with your team for this course.  You will also find a team evaluation form, a team feedback survey, information about team roles, and additional information about effective team management on the course website.  This information is provided to help you to not only help you to do well in this class, but to effectively work as a team member in job-related team activities.  Much of effective organizational development involves understanding teams and the team process.   Assigning team projects for this class will help you to apply key concepts about teams as part of this course – even though your team learning experience may include some failures as well as some successes.

Impediments to team effectiveness are important to understand.  The following is a brief description of some of those impediments:

Social Loafing – When individuals put forth a half-hearted effort and do not honor their obligation to other team members, team performance suffers and those who are committed to doing an excellent job invariably are burdened with extra work – or the team’s work product suffers substantially in quality.

Diffusion of Responsibility – Team members sometimes fail to act, thinking that it is the job of others to take responsibility for necessary team tasks.  Diffusion of responsibility is more likely to occur when team members are not explicit about roles, responsibilities, assignments, and ground rules.

Polarization – Groups sometimes come to conclusions or take positions that are more extreme than the positions that would otherwise be taken by any individual in the group.

Escalation of Commitment – Sometimes groups will extend a commitment to a path of action even when flagrant signals show that a bad decision  may result.

Premature Closure – When a group rushes to identify a problem or finds an attractive solution without considering other superior options, premature closure may result in sub-optimal group performance or may even result in potential disasters. 

Groupthink – When a group has illusions of invulnerability or superiority that may lead it to misperceive key facts or underestimate risks, groupthink may result. 9

Students are strongly encouraged to assess how their teams are dealing with these potential problems.

Throughout the course of the semester, please feel free to contact me if you have suggestions to improve the effectiveness of team assignments, or if you are having problems in maximizing the effectiveness of your team.  My strong desire is to help you to be successful this semester.