Team Behavior

Team Behavior

The organizational structure is compromised of groups and teams. Organizational behavior theory examines individual and group behavior types in relation to performance, organizational structure, ethics, and conflict resolution. Extensive research has been done in the field of development and application of team behavior and the positive or negative impact it has on accomplishing organizational objectives. Tuckman’s team development theory, Mintzberg’s study of organizational politics, and The Ringelmann effect will be examined. These theories provide insight into the complexities inherent in group structure and the mechanisms organizations need to minimize dysfunctional activities.

The term group and team are used interchangeably for this discussion although they do not have the same meaning. A team consists of a number of people committed to common goals. Teams help organizations enhance performance, reduce costs, and provide employees with a sense of dignity and self-fulfillment. A team’s composition is formal or informal, its effectiveness is predicated, in part, on an organizations’ culture and the personalities and roles of the team members. .

Group Development

1. There are critics of the five‐stage group development model. Their main point is that this presentation of a group’s development is too static. Do you agree with this criticism? Why?

The Tuckman stages of team development focuses on building and developing teams by analyzing team behavior. The first stage is forming. Group members get to know each other. Tuckman calls this the “ice breaking” stage. The second stage is storming. In this stage conflicts and power struggles occur as individuals compare views. The third stage is nor...

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...for their outputs.

Conflict among teams exists in organizations. Conflict aligned with business objectives and fosters positive employee performance (functional conflict), should be encouraged by management. However, conflict between groups that impede business objectives (dysfunctional conflict), must be confronted immediately and eliminated by management.

Another form of conflict in organizations is resistance to authority. Mintzberg (1983) describes these tendencies as political games. The whistleblower game attempts to bring about organizational change by exposing practices or behaviors an individual perceives as unethical and in violation of the law. Organizations with sound ethical standards embrace valid whistle-blowing, however, most organizations view whistle-blowing negatively and impose various methods of retaliation against the individual.