TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
Besides the basic approach there is now a more applied focus on the impact that teams have on employee behavior, especially the contribution to satisfaction and performance, has also received attention. An overall summary of the way to use teams to enhance satisfaction and performance are as follows:
1. Organizing work around intact groups
2. Having groups charged with selection, training, and rewarding of members
3. Using groups to enforce strong norms for behavior, with group involvement in off the job as well as on the job behavior
4. Distributing resources on a group rather than an individual basis
5. Allowing and perhaps even promoting intergroup rivalry so as to build within-group solidarity
Three factors seem to play the major role in determining group effectiveness: Task interdependence (how closely group members work together), outcome interdependence (whether and how group performance is rewarded) and potency as how members belief that the group can be effective.
To assess team effectiveness first requires careful specification of criteria. Effective teams are characterized as being dependable, making reliable connections between the parts, and targeting the direction and goals of the organization. This is accomplished when members “buy in,” achieve coordination, have the desired impact, and exhibit the kind of vitality that sustains the organization over time as the environment shifts or changes. Factors that affect the success level of any given group include the type of task being performed and the composition of the group itself. Teams with self-leadership have been found to have varying levels of success, depending on whether the group’s task is primarily conceptual or primarily behavioral in nature. The composition of the group has been found to be optimal when there is a mix of member types.

NATURE OF A TEAM