This précis chronicles eight short takes on theories of small groups; key components of teams; trust in teams; facing conflict in teams; working with conflict in teams; team recognition and rewards; principles of virtual teams; and leading teams.
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Olivier Serrat 01/09/2022
• Composition. What facets of group composition (e.g., group size, members' abilities, values, traits, demographics) affect the group's interaction and performance?
• Projects. How do the group's projects (viz., what it is trying to do its tasks, goals, intentions) affect its interaction and performance?
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Usefully, Poole and Hollingshead (2005) differentiated functional, psychodynamic, social identity, conflict power status, symbolic interpretive, feminist, network, temporal, and evolutionary points of view in understanding small groups. Revealingly, Poole and Hollingshead (2005) also remarked that the functional perspective has produced infinitely more studies than the other perspectives, engendering such important theories and lines of research as the functional theory of group decision making, social combination models of group decision making, groupthink, collective information processing, group brainstorming, team conflict management, and group boundary spanning. Doubtless, continuing interest in scientific management aka Taylorism explains the predominance of the functional perspective even if Poole and Hollingshead (2005) did not make that explicit To provide consistency, the contributing authors to Poole and Hollingshead (2005) were asked to address seven key questions regarding findings across the nine perspectives, viz.:
• Structure. How is the group structured (e.g., norms, roles, networks), what tools and technologies does the group have access to, and how does structure and technology affect group interaction and performance?
• Actions/Outcomes. What are the results of group action (e.g., performance evaluation, impacts on group, impacts on members, assessment of consequences)?
• Change over Time. How does the group change over time (e.g., formation, development, dissolution)?
• Ecology. How does the group's ecology, including its physical, social, organizational, and technical environment, as well as intergroup relations, affect its interaction and actions/outcomes? (p. 11) From the aforementioned inputs, Poole and Hollingshead (2005) distilled in the concluding chapter what each perspective says about "(1) the entity itself (i.e., group), including its formation and composition; (2) the context or setting within which that entity is embedded (i.e., issues regarding its boundaries and external influences on it); (3) the processes that take place in the group, both interaction patterns among members (e.g., interdependence, regulation of action) and psychological processes of members (e.g., cognitive, emotional, intentional); (4) the emergent properties, patterns, and/or outcomes of group existence and action; and (5) causality" (p. 397). Poole and Hollingshead (2005)'s comparisons revealed similarities across some perspectives as well as marked contrasts among others (pp. 397 425). Unfortunately, Poole and Hollingshead's (2005) framework for comparing the premises of the nine
• Interaction. What kinds of group interaction processes does the group carry out (e.g., communication, information processing, conflict management, coordination of action), and how do these processes affect other factors and performance?
Theories of Small Groups: A Bird's-Eye View Groups that range from two persons to many but especially small groups of 3 to 20 individuals are a very big part of social life and, undeniably, of human experience. For that reason, it is pertinent that the back cover of Poole and Hollingshead (2005) should declare: "People live in groups, work in groups, and play in groups" It is also a boon that, having capitalized on theoretical advances made during the last 50 years and charted the main currents of the past 20 years of group research, Poole and Hollingshead (2005) should then for our benefit define and describe nine perspectives on the subject.
Key Components of Teams: Are We There Yet?
On the heels of that encouraging start, Smith (2017) clarified that, additionally [emphasis added], how well a team functions depends on a clear strategy, operational goals that flow from the strategy (and must be clearly understood), roles and responsibilities that must also be clear (and agreed upon), business relationships that must be transparent and honest, and protocols for decision-making. Why? Because empowerment, in the absence of such a conducive environment, would be intrinsically meaningless, likely to encourage each member to follow his or her pet initiatives, "apt to devolve (sic) into individualistic behavior of passing the buck and blame fixing", promote a culture that avoids conflict and buries disagreements, and ultimately fail because no conventions exist allowing decisions to be reached (p. 17). Predictably, the rest of Smith (2017) upheld the five elements required for high performance, none of which as luck would have it are easily achievable even if they were sufficient in themselves. Not for Smith (2017), then, matters of group composition, group structure, group projects, interaction, group actions/outcomes, change over time, and ecology, that Poole and Hollingshead (2005) deemed central to success (p. 11).
As like as chalk and cheese, Tröster et al.'s (2014) longitudinal study used data from 91 self managed teams to examine the interactive effects of a team's task network structure and cultural diversity (as indexed by nationality) on a team's "potency", viz., a team's confidence in its ability to perform and its performance (as rated by expert judges). Tröster et al. (2014) found
From a functional perspective, Smith (2017) averred in a one page article that all teams have one thing in common even if there are many kinds (e.g., top executive teams, project teams, six sigma teams, cross functional teams, improvement teams, self directed teams, ad hoc teams, etc.): "Teams are constructed entities designed to achieve some desired outcome" (p. 17). From that irrefutable contention, Smith (2017) then proposed that all it takes for teams to be successful is empowerment: A team that is empowered is nurtured by a supporting culture in which the organization's vision, mission, and corporate values are substantive and sustainable. An empowered team, therefore, has the necessary information, skills and authority to make decisions that ratchet up performance and drive results. (p. 17)
2 perspectives was not couched in table format for greater ease of reference All the same, given the continuing preponderance of the functionalist perspective across all walks of life, the key message that must be retained from Poole and Hollingshead (2005) is that "The resulting picture of nine complementary but overlapping perspectives presents a much richer and more extensive picture of groups than any one of them alone" (p. 397). In many organizations, the prevalence of the functional point of view invites an interesting parallel to the three perspectives on organizational culture that Martin (2002) distinguished, these being (a) integration which interprets culture as what people unambiguously share, viz., the social glue that keeps them together; (b) differentiation which perceives that culture only exists in islands of clarity, consensus, and consistency (aka subcultures) that may exist in harmony or more likely disagree with one another; and (c) fragmentation which asserts that culture cannot be described because consensus is both transient and issue specific and patterns shift all the time. Much as Poole and Hollingshead (2005) did regarding interdisciplinary perspectives on small groups, Martin (2002) considered that the integration, differentiation, and fragmentation perspectives are legitimate: however, she labored to say they are in irremediable conflict, something that Poole and Hollingshead (2005) did not comment on in their discussion of the nine perspectives
Teams are a ubiquitous feature of organizational life, which explains why they are the perennial subject of scholarly interest. Tröster et al. (2014) deserved credit for calling attention to the interplay between network density, network centralization, and diversity in relation to potency and performance. And yet, the explanatory power of such studies is often achieved on the back of a reduction in the number of variables they study: to wit, none of the variables leveraged in Tröster et al. (2014) are given expression in Smith (2017), and vice versa. What is more, as Poole and Hollingshead (2005) suggested, viewpoints other than the functional perspective can assuredly shine light on the key components of teams in organizations, and this for reasons other than performance. Helpfully, if also from a functional perspective, Lencioni (2002) circumvented Tröster et al.'s (2014) and Smith's (2017) reductionist focus to offer a more expansively human take on teams: Lencioni (2002) is a fable that isolated five dysfunctions in teams (e.g., absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results) and correspondingly intuited five key components (or elements) to establishing and managing teams. Specifically, Lencioni (2002) established in converse to the said dysfunctions that it is important for team members to "(1) […] trust one another, (2) […] engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas, (3) […] commit to decisions and plans of action, (4) […] hold one another accountable against those plans, and (5) […] focus on the achievement of collective results" (pp. 189 190). Lencioni's (2002) take on the key components of teams in organizations is as good as they come: except that, much as the highly-cited Tuckman (1965), Lencioni (2002) ignored that there must from the onset be a raison d'être, an existential rationale and purpose, behind any proposed team association On Trust in Teams Trust, Merriam Webster's (n.d.) dictionary instructs us, is assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Any discussion of teams be it about, say, key components of team, team formation, maintaining an effective team, avoiding dysfunctionality, facing conflict in teams, working with conflict, rewarding teams, principles of virtual teams, working in a virtual team, or leading a team is sure to bring up the issue of trust given the centrality of its role in social life. Lencioni (2002), for one, deemed the absence of trust the first dysfunction of a team In Gostic and Elton (2010), another bestseller on teamwork, trust was one of the "Basic 4" of teams (along with goal setting, communication, and accountability).
[Curiously, for a book that is imbued with social psychology, the word "trust" does not appear in the subject index of Poole and Hollingshead (2005).] That said, many texts gloss over why trust does or does not eventuate and prefer to list the self evident, antipodean outcomes of its presence or absence, which they generally connect to vulnerability (and rarely to joint ownership of SMART Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Assignable, Relevant/Realistic, Time Based objectives).
3 that, even if dense task networks did enhance team potency, team performance was facilitated in the main by (moderately) centralized task networks: in other words, the more culturally diverse a team, the more pronounced the positive effects of network density on team potency but the higher the level of network centralization required for optimal team performance. Therefore, Tröster et al. (2014) opined that the success of a team seems a function of the interplay between network structure and team composition: they concluded that the predictive accuracy of theories of small groups "can be enhanced by considering both the demographic makeup of teams and the structural characteristics of their networks" (p. 254). And so, Tröster et al. (2014) concluded, a social network based approach could be preferable to an exclusive focus on team demography in seeking to understand team outcomes.
4 Eschewing generalities, Costa et al. (2018) observed that "More than four decades of research has unequivocally shown that trust in teams is vital for the effective functioning of work relationships", this at interpersonal and team levels, building on cognitive and affective trust foundations (p. 169). Costa et al. (2018) interpreted trust as an emergent phenomenon involving a continuous social process of sense making, interpreting, signaling, and reciprocating: thus, trust can be envisioned from different perspectives including incremental approaches (e.g., social exchange theory, social information processing theory), non incremental approaches (e.g., social categorization, swift trust), and transformational approaches (e.g., calculus-based trust, knowledge-based trust, identification‐based trust). With a useful model, reproduced below, Costa et al. (2018) demonstrated that the team level factors impacting both team trust and interpersonal trust are team composition, relationship (tie) structure, leadership, climate, task interdependence, and degree of virtuality, and that the individual level factors impacting team level factors and interpersonal trust are trustor characteristics, trustee characteristics, and interpersonal relationships. Down the line, the level of trust in teams impacts attitude and performance at individual level outcomes and attitudes, information processing, innovation, and performance at team-level outcomes. Not to forget, important contextual factors are organizational structure, human resource management practices, and organizational culture and climate. For these reasons, Costa et al. (2018) noted that "Trust research is increasingly moving away from single level predictors either at the individual level or the team level and shifting towards multilevel approaches that afford considerations of dynamic influences on trust and performance outcomes" (p. 178). Hence, future research directions include integrating emergent trust theory and contextual factors. Costa et al. (2018) showed that the development of team trust takes place in a multilevel environment and is subject to individual, team, and contextual factors. Costa et al.'s (2018) multilevel framework provides an effective and timely integration from which research and practice can advance.
Figure: A Multilevel Model of Trust in Work Teams
Source: Costa A., Fulmer C., & Anderson, N. (2018). Trust in work teams: An integrative review, multilevel model, and future directions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 169 184. Even so, Ferazzi (2014) made the point that "[v]irtual teams ones made up of people in different physical locations are on the rise" (p. 120): this is because information and communication technology enables employees to manage their work and personal lives more
Facing Conflict in Teams
Partly thanks to Marx, the literature on organizational conflict is voluminous, varied, and booming, Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) noted upfront: after all, "conflicts between peoples are a constant of history" (p. 185).] And so, as one might expect, analyses of organizational conflict over the years have been conducted from numerous perspectives (e.g., interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational conflict; escalation and de escalation; interaction analysis, including bona fide group perspective and bounded emotionality; negotiation and third party processes; and individual, group, organization, and national culture). And yet, Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) asserted, discussions about the meaning of conflict and its epistemology are comparatively rare even though perspectives from the 1950s to the late 1970s shifted from dysfunctional to functional views. It cannot be that organizational conflict is simply "altogether bad", "a breakdown in standard mechanisms of decision making", or even "basically different from 'cooperation'" Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) recognized (p. 188), which from the 1990s begged examination of task and relationship conflict, process conflict, and status conflict. More recently still, past dysfunctional and functional interpretations, advocates began to represent conflict as not only functional for the organization but essential to its very existence: in that vein, conflict can be a productive force that paradoxically benefits organizations if the "right kind" of conflict occurs, which invites attention to the structural and cultural context in which organizational conflict occurs. From that perspective, to examine conflict as a thing in itself is meaningless: instead, it must be conceptualized as a socially constructed phenomenon.
5 flexibly and to interact around the world Hence, Ferazzi (2014) concluded there are four must haves: the right team, the right leadership, the right touchpoints, and the right technology. Having the right team demands that composition should be the starting point: the team members must be suited to virtual teamwork and put into groups of the right size; and, the labor must be divided appropriately. The right leadership fosters trust, encourages open dialogue, and clarifies goals and guidelines; these are critical behaviors in face to face settings that must be amplified in virtual ones. The right touchpoints have to do with an efficient and effective kickoff, sensitive onboarding of new people, and continual motivation that sustains momentum toward milestones. The right technology means platforms that integrate all types of communication, especially conference calling, direct calling and text messaging, and discussion forums or virtual team rooms. Because virtual teams must compensate for lost context, Ferazzi's (2014) recommendations are both down to earth and succinct Nevertheless, Ferazzi (2014) might also have underscored intelligibility of purpose, first and foremost, next, an appropriate level of sponsorship and resources, and then mechanisms for quality control.
Summing up, Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) marked out functional, descriptive, and performative dimensions to conflict, with implications for its management.
In a world characterized by increasing complexity, dynamism, and unpredictability, Coleman (2018) likewise made the point that conflict resolution models and methods (e.g., conflict analysis, negotiation, mediation, dialogue, problem solving, and implementation of conflict management curricula and programming) are no longer sufficient. Instead, Coleman (2018) proposed, we must develop meta competencies based on "learning, adapting, anticipating, and creating change" (p. 10). [Oxford Reference (2022) characterized meta competencies as "'overarching' competencies that are relevant to a wide range of work settings and which facilitate adaptation and flexibility on the part of the organization" ] Noting that conflicts can differ on many dimensions, Coleman (2018) illustrated a range of possibilities along three conflict dimensions: (a) levels of complexity (viz., complex, complicated, or simple); (b) destructiveness (viz., high, medium, or low); and (c) endurance (viz., enduring, protracted, or episodic). Based on this, borrowing from complexity science, Coleman's (2018) approach to conflict "(a)
Coleman's (2018) recommendations for dealing with conflict were enriched by notions of systems theory. But, despite its considerable appeal, systems theory was neither intended as a business theory nor as a how-to guide to life: it is yet to demonstrate unalloyed success in the formulation of, say, policy, strategy, or investments because it encourages binary (or black and white) solutions, underrates the inestimable value of experiencing, may be more suited to circumstances of apparent complexity and may have limitations in instances of truly complex systems, and needs to be followed by "systems doing" with real people, not models. I, for one, find it impossible to see how Coleman's (2018) framework for addressing conflict might be practicably used in a world of increasing complexity, dynamism, and unpredictability, certainly not without reducing the dynamism Coleman (2018) summoned in support of its proposals for conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom. Be that as it may, Coleman (2018) stood in sharp contrast to Lencioni (2002): Coleman (2018) saw conflict as irremediably negative and what (spare) references are made to power only meant to underscore the need to "navigate" disparities (p. Notwithstanding29).their
relative merits, therefore, neither Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) nor Coleman (2018) nor Lencioni (2002) shed light on how power and status interface with group conflict and how one might encourage a team to handle it, this for the express reason that theirs was not that intention. At any rate, any examination of the power and status interface with
Inoffered.comparison,
Coleman (2018) was light-years away from Lencioni's (2002) take on conflict.
Practically, navigating conflict calls for what Coleman (2018) termed "conflict intelligence" and "systemic wisdom": the core competencies of the first are (a) self knowledge and regulation, (b) constructive conflict resolution, (c) conflict optimality, and (d) conflict adaptivity; and the core competencies of the second are (a) systems aptitudes, (b) complexity visualization, (c) systemic agency, and (d) sustainability and adaptive decision making. To develop conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom, Coleman (2018) concluded, actors must expand their orientation to conflict across four levels: "(a) self: individual needs, interests, beliefs, values, emotions, and moral scope; (b) social dynamics: interpersonal and intergroup conflict dynamics; (c) situated dynamics: conflict dynamics in fundamentally different contexts; and (d) broader systemic dynamics, which can determine and be determined by conflict" (p. 27).
6 emphasizes the longer term temporal patterns of conflict dynamics rather than episodic events or short term outcomes, (b) recognizes that these patterns are often affected by a complex constellation of factors (attitudes, beliefs, norms, policies, and so on) that interact over time, and (c) suggests that some conflict dynamic parameters are likely to have a stronger impact on changes to the system than others, an idea known as dynamical minimalism" (p. 11).
Against the functional, descriptive, and performative dimensions and complex dynamic of conflict that Mikkelsen and Clegg (2018) and Coleman (2018) presented, respectively, Lencioni's (2002) shortcut argument is that conflict is needed if teams are to be effective. To some extent, Mikkelsen and Clegg's (2018) articulation of functional, descriptive, and performative dimensions to conflict, specifically the third, accommodates Lencioni's (2002) comparatively narrow focus on productive ideological conflict: but, Lencioni's (2002) workmanlike suggestion is solely to mine conflict for nuggets, drain tension from productive but difficult interchanges by seeking real time permission, and leverage tools such as the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (which distinguishes competing, avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, and compromising approaches to conflict) (p. 204 206). Thus, Lencioni (2002) is both close and far from Mikkelsen and Clegg's (2018) interpretation of conflict as a socially constructed phenomenon, understanding of which, including the associated dimension of power and status, would presumably have helped Lencioni (2002) flesh out and add to the tools it
Working with Conflict in Teams
7 conflict, and naturally any action that might follow such an examination, will be conditioned by what dysfunctional or functional perspective one shines on it and of course the nature of the team's work products and the arrangements for its delivery. Power and status would have to be defined too because they do not mean the same thing to everyone.
• Assumption 1: Power is Static. To begin, Tarakci et al. (2016) refuted the functionalist theory of power's assumption that power does not change over time and that hierarchies are self sustaining: "In fact, that individuals' power can and does change is central to the conflict theory of power; this possibility of change is why people fight for power" (p. 417).
• Assumption 2: Power is Based on Competence. Next, Tarakci et al. (2016) took to task the functionalist perspective's assumption that, in a steep hierarchy, competence rhymes with powerful positions. But, "[…] groups are not always successful in identifying the most competent member and in furnishing that person with power" and "[…] people have been shown to rise to power for reasons other than competence, such as interpersonal dominance" (p. 417). Indeed, the seizing of power by a group member who is not in fact the most competent member is itself a source of destructive conflict within groups.
• Assumption 3: Power Equality Cannot Exist. Thirdly, Tarakci et al. (2016) disagreed that, as posited by functionalist power theorists, humans and their organizational groups are (much as primates) stratified by nature, without exception. Pointing to the emergence of networks, Tarakci et al. (2016) remarked that contemporary organizations are doing away with hierarchical layers, replacing the carrot and stick of reward and punishment with transformational relationships, and flattening what organizational structures remain with interconnected capabilities and processes (p. 417). The remainder of Tarakci et al. (2016) detailed an agent based simulation study of power disparity, an empirical analysis of power disparity and group performance, and field evidence that further explored the above mentioned assumptions of functionalism. The conclusions that Tarakci et al. (2016) drew are that "organizations should only have power disparity within teams when the teams are able to identify the most competent member and when all members are willing to shift power when task requirements (and, thereby, relative competence levels) change" (p. 426). The implications that Tarakci et al. (2016) discerned for how organizations should structure power within teams are that (a) "[i]f managers have teams with high coordination demands and wish to use power disparity (or hierarchy) within the teams to coordinate and order interactions, [it is critical that they should] mak[e] sure [ ] the members with the most competence are given the most power" (p. 426); (b) "managers should help team members understand the unique skills that all members bring to the team (via, e.g., cross training or job crafting interventions)" (p. 426); and (c) "managers should only choose to concentrate power in a team if the team is capable of successfully detecting the 'stars' and implementing a policy that flexibly assigns power to those stars" (p. 427).
Whether groups with higher or lower power disparity achieve better performance is a question that has received conflicting answers, Tarakci et al. (2016) noted Tarakci et al. (2016) discerned "a myopic focus on static hierarchies, an assumption that those at the top of hierarchies are competent at group tasks, and an assumption that equality is not possible" in functionalist claims that benefits from power disparity (and the conflicts they spawn) flow from structure, clarity, and coordination (p. 415).
Tarakci et al. (2016) recognized limitations: the authors did not cross examine the subject of acquiescence, meaning that an individual may comply with but not necessarily internalize (or relate to) a choice as a result of the influence of other members; neither did the authors
Greer et al. (2017) shared a common author with Tarakci et al. (2016) and continued to explore the same theme. Noting that conflicts seem less frequent in teams that are characterized by lower power levels or power dispersion, Greer et al. (2017) offered an emergent theory of how team outcomes can be severely impaired "when power emerges as a bone of contention in teams" (p. 104). Uncompromisingly, therefore, Greer et al. (2017) was a study of the dark side of power in teams, with no consideration of how power needs might serve as a resource for effective teams: "While power may make individuals feel empowered and lead them to pursue their goals, power within teams may actually make people more focused on their dependencies and vulnerabilities towards one another and may resultantly often be contested and unstable" (p. 104). [Citing meta analyses, Greer et al. (2017) dismissed what claims the functionalist approach makes in support of conflict, the supposed benefits of which have been attributed to unconscious preference for hierarchy; individual needs for power and achievement; greater role clarity from division of labor, smoother interpersonal interactions, and enhanced coordination; and the preference of lower ranked team members to comply with and defer to higher ranked team members so they might maximize their short and long term interests (pp. 108 109).] To begin, Greer et al. (2017) defined the basic construct of power as "control over valued resources", the rationale being that someone cannot be said to have power if he/she possesses a resource (e.g., job title, information access, materials, rewards, etc.) that is not seen as valuable by others (pp. 105 106). Therefrom, Greer et al. (2017) posited implications for what they term "power level" and "power dispersion", defined respectively as "a team's control of valued resources in an organization or broader social system", irrespective of power distribution within the team, and "vertical differentiation in the amounts of resources controlled by different members within the team" (p. 106). Greer et al. (2017) then defined power struggles as "the degree to which members compete over the relative levels of valuable resources controlled by members within the team" (p. 107). Power dispersion has been linked more closely to divergent outcomes and so has received the greater share of attention in research thus far, with Greer et al. (2017) citing evidence that "teams with a formal power hierarchy (as opposed to flat power structure) had more power struggles and lower joint outcomes during within-team negotiations, especially when team resources were threatened by conflicts in the broader organization" (p. 108), finding expression in "conflicts over the task (i.e., disagreements about the goals and outcomes of teamwork), relationship (i.e., personality or value clashes), and process (i.e., disagreements about team logistics, such as meeting time)" (p. 110) [emphasis added]. Greer et al. (2017) opined that (a) "power struggles are notoriously difficult to clearly identify and resolve, as they are often indirectly expressed via other behaviors", (b) "power struggles make members primarily concerned with their own power position, and as such distracts them from their task and team activities", (c) "power struggles are likely to sour personal relationships between members, which impacts other important pre requisites of team functioning and performance, including intra team trust and the willingness to share information and cooperate with one another", and (d) "power is often seen as zero sum [because] when one member seeks power, this can be threatening for other team members" (pp. 110 111). Greer et al. (2017) then identified team power structures that foster power sensitivity and specified when and why power sensitivity elicits power struggles. Greer et al. (2017) proposed that (a) "[t]eam power structures which have at least one high power member (i.e., high power teams, where all members have high power, or teams with high power dispersion, where the person at the top holds high power) will have increased intra team power sensitivity compared to teams without high power
8 investigate the different degrees to which individuals accept the inequalities of power disparity, which also happens to be an important cultural phenomenon; nor did the authors discuss the degree to which leaders can vary in their attitudes toward individuals with less power; and, Tarakci et al. (2016) focused on intellective and problem solving tasks, not different settings, tasks, and related actors (p. 427).
Because the higher education sector in the United Kingdom was going through a period of significant upheaval and change, some of it linked to continuing government efforts to control and influence the sector (including measures and strategies to place the student at the center of the education process), Johnston (2016) purported to investigate the key drivers of motivation among a small team of academics in a relatively small university in the United Kingdom. Toward this, using a mixed methods approach, Johnston (2016) combined interpretivism and ethnography in a purposive sampling strategy. Johnston (2016) identified that academics are fundamentally driven by a desire for expertise and a search for meaning, while material rewards and a need for power are of low significance. Johnston (2016) also detected that increased managerialism has led to reductions in motivation. Upfront, Johnston (2016) owned up to a limited focus because it was a small-scale study [survey (n = 15) using semi-structured interviews (n = 5)]. For its sample population, Johnston (2016) identified the two key drivers of motivation as expertise and the search for meaning. Johnston (2016) took expertise to mean "a high level of accomplishment in a specialized field" from which academics rarely stray, "preferring to put their energies into maintaining and developing capacity to perform in unusual, difficult, and specialized activities" (p. 773). Johnston (2016) asserted further that search for meaning is the concern of people "who want to make the world a better place [and] only feel fulfilled if they believe that what they are doing is valuable for its own sake" (p. 773). "Actions and choices are closely related to personal beliefs and values and often they will make considerable sacrifices in pursuit of their aims. Their key concern is to make a contribution to something bigger, finer, greater, and lasting" (p. 773). There is a sense that these are intrinsic drivers and Johnston (2016) concluded that extrinsic drivers (i.e., material rewards and power) have less impact on academics, with the intriguing (and rather restrictive) proposition that "[t]hose seeking material rewards tend to be people who are prepared to take on challenging, difficult, or unfulfilling roles which others may reject". Further, in a strangely worded statement, "[t]hose seeking power tend to be people who are high in self confidence, exuding presence and with great clarity of vision these people are determined to make things happen. " (Johnston, 2016, p. 773). Lastly, Johnston (2016) reported that the rise of managerialism had negatively impacted the motivation of the study's entire sample of lecturers.
I read Tarakci et al. (2016) and Greer et al. (2017) with interest. I agree that power is far from static, rarely (if ever) based on competence, but that power equality can exist (hence the emergence of networks and the practice of distributed leadership). The three managerial implications that Tarakci et al. (2016) identified are pertinent too, but I have reservations about their practicability in the hurly burly of most organizations. Greer et al. (2017) was likewise informative, notably concerning the definitions of power and power struggles, the concepts of power levels and power dispersion, the consequences of power struggles, and the identification of power structures that foster power sensitivity.
9 members (i.e., egalitarian and/or low power teams)"; (b) "[w]hen members in teams perceive personal resource threats within the team, such as from perceiving positions in the team as inequitable, illegitimate, mutable, or factionalized, power sensitivity will increase intra team power struggles"; (c) "[w]hen teams face external resource threats, such as from intergroup conflict, environmental uncertainty, or organizational changes, power sensitivity will increase intra team power struggles"; and (d) "[i]ntra team power struggles detract from team outcomes, such as team performance and viability" (pp. 114 117).
On Team Recognition and Rewards
At a glance, Johnston (2016) made instinctive sense: however, the paper's findings were generated from a tiny population, arbitrarily described as a team without supporting evidence of it being a group of people who are interdependent with respect to information, resources, and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal. The findings in Johnston (2016) may also have been colored by the research questions: the first was sweeping, the second was not clearly formulated, and the third was leading. In any event, should variations across countries, higher education institutions, disciplines, stages in an academic's lifespan, age cohorts, gender, etc. not be expected? Munyengabe et al. (2017), to name but one similar study, advertised quite different conclusions, with promotions and incentives, salary, classroom environment, codes of conduct, sheer love of career, and social factors being revealed as major factors associated with motivation and satisfaction, in descending order, from likewise leading Onquestions.theirpart, Ng and Tung (2018) detected that a "new normal" in the global business environment was the establishment of virtual teams to accomplish specific tasks: this is a trend that makes leading a challenge. Because there is insufficient research on the effect of rewards and recognition systems on virtual team effectiveness in the financial services sector, Ng and Tung (2018) presented qualitative research on the preferred types of reward and their effect on virtual project team effectiveness from the perspective of project team leaders in the financial services sector. The research aimed to shed light on how to design and implement reward systems to enhance team effectiveness. Based on separate interviews of five project team leaders in Hong Kong's financial services industry, Ng and Tung's (2018) first finding was that "giving out rewards and recognitions at different stages of [a] virtual project team['s] life cycle could serve different purposes such as encouragement, reinforcement, confirmation, and satisfaction" (p. 210). From their second findings, Ng and Tung (2018) concluded that "[ ] employees prefer individual financial rewards as employment in [the] financial sector is not purely project based and [the employees] basically look for stable earnings. In addition, [an] informal recognition system [would be] perceived as having symbolic meaning to enhance team cohesion and an appreciation [of] efforts and contribution." (p. 210). From their third findings, Ng and Tung (2018) rather incongruously duplicated the conclusions from the first two questions (which raises questions about what dedicated purpose the third question served).
Looking for ways to recognize employees who work on teams, I am inclined to consider that if the corporate message is "team" then team level recognition and reward programs must in relation to such concerns as purpose, commitment, rules of operation, and interdependence be designed in full consideration of (a) the types of formal teams (e.g., command teams, committees, task forces); (b) the types of informal teams (e.g., ad hoc groups); (c) the types of self managed teams; (d) the types of virtual teams; and (e) the real possibility that individual
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From the foregoing, Johnston (2016) concluded that "[the] managers of academics need to embrace the nature of the academic, the self regulating and self focusing element of their nature, and attempt to mold and shape how they fit into the organization and how that meets organizational goals" (p. 774). Because academics are predominantly individualistic in nature, which is in part what pushes them into the role and drives their being, "[m]anagers should therefore ensure they take the time and the opportunity to develop a relationship with their staff" (p. 774). "Too often[,] managerialism pushes managers to treat staff holistically and this creates some of the issues which academics resist and as such affects motivation. Managers, HR and the university system needs to develop so as to allow [ ] individualism to flourish while honing it for the benefit of the institution, and the students" (p. 774).
On the subject of learning in teams, Dixon's (2017) review of the literature made out that an agreed upon goal, the independence to experiment with actions, and trust are essential ingredients. Trust may hold the key because "[M]embers must act in ways that make what each member knows available to the whole team" (Dixon, 2017, p. 140). Citing Edmondson (1999), "The kind of actions that [team] members need to take for full knowledge to be available [are] (1) seeking feedback; (2) sharing information, in particular, the unique information each member holds; (3) asking for help; (4) testing assumptions; (5) discussing differences of opinion openly rather than privately or outside the group; (6) talking about errors; (8) experimenting; and (9) reflecting together on results" (Dixon, 2017, p. 140). Not surprisingly, in the case of virtual teams, there is growing evidence that meeting face-to-face, periodically, can offer the psychological safety needed to support learning behavior and increase connectivity and belongingness. As might be expected, "The frequency of face to face meetings is related to the level of interdependence required by the task, the degree of shared view, and the strength of the relationship among members" (Dixon, 2017, p. 141).
11 recognition and rewards can undermine teamwork. Concluding, irrespective of whether we consider teams or individuals, the field of motivation remains open: I foresee more attractive menus of recognition and rewards from which employees will, one day, be able to choose. Principles of Virtual Teams Irrespective of whether their common purpose is to run things, recommend things, or make or do things, a subtle but important requirement of teams is to learn together: because "Teams are a unit of learning in organizations" (Dixon, 2017, p. 138), shortcomings in this area probably explain underperformance elsewhere. And, if learning in teams can be difficult enough, it ought somehow follow that learning in virtual teams must be all the harder. That said, because research suggests that teaming routines facilitate learning in teams, Dixon (2017) held that identifying and detailing specific teaming routines for implementation in a virtual team can support continual learning there. Dixon's (2017) focus was to generate authentic and descriptive accounts of experiences with virtual teaming routines. The case study gathered concrete, practical, and context dependent knowledge about virtual teaming routines in a specific environment, the main source of data being narrative expert interviews with working members of a team. Specifically, Dixon (2017) illustrated how a mix of face to face and virtual routines can ensure organizational learning in virtual teams. Recognizing that the case study was limited to one virtual team in the information industry, Dixon (2017) expressed the hope that future research could build on the research to study virtual teams in other industries. The practical and social implications would be profound: given that the use of virtual teams is a growing phenomenon, understanding how to help those teams learn effectively is a critical issue.
• Routines that support agreed goals [emphasis added] include receiving broad goals from leaders and time provided for the teams to jointly make sense of the received goal as well as input in to agendas for both co located and virtual meetings. [Examples include plentiful opportunities for joint planning of regular 3 day summits as well as retrospects.]
To gather concrete, practical, and context dependent knowledge about virtual team routines in a specific environment, Dixon (2017) conducted 12 hour long Skype interviews with individual team members of the 30 person Research Solutions Division in ProQuest, an information company that connects people with vetted, reliable information, ranging from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news. The study analyzed ProQuest's virtual teaming routines for developing agreed upon goals, experimenting, and building trust and substantiated the three conditions identified in the literature. The study noted that routines occur at regularly scheduled times instead of being ad hoc events:
• Routines that develop trust and psychological safety [emphasis added] include first hand experience with other team members that occurs over time; opportunities for team members to learning about each other's experience, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses; the use of sophisticated virtual technology, particularly the use of video discussions and open chat; and robust social routines enacted during co location that then support teams through subsequent periods of virtual work where trust and a sense of mission wane. [Examples include Lightning Talks, evening beer and karaoke, and daily standup meetings.] (Dixon, 2017, pp. 147 148) Based on the study, Dixon (2017) theorized that is "[I]t is the responsibility of the team leader to establish routines for learning, to observe teams' work over time to determine if those routines are sufficient, and to establish new routines when needed by the teams. [However,] [r]outines are specific to the environment and to the task of team members; therefore, the specific routines of one organization may not be transferable to another organization.
Maes and Weldy (2018) shared insights on the right mix and the right size for virtual teams. In virtual teams, however difficult it may be to ensure, members must have "good communication skills, a high level of emotional intelligence, resiliency, self motivation, and a sensitivity to culture" (p. 86). Also, while companies report using teams of 100 individuals or more, likely due to the ease of technology, the tendency to collaborate decreases as team sizes increase beyond 20. Interestingly, collaboration also becomes more challenging as the educational levels of team members increases. Put differently, "The greater the number of experts on [a] team, the more likely the team [is] to experience conflict or impasse" (Maes & Weldy, 2018, p. 86). That
The answer to the preceding question is yes: based on the research, Maes and Weldy (2018) reported, it seems that the components needed to produce a successful virtual team include "[T]he right team make up, the right size, the right clearly defined roles, the right leadership, the right technology, and the right organizational culture" (p. 85). Knowledge sharing, collaboration, and trust underly these necessities for success, with trust being paramount as the glue holding team members together (p. 86).
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Maes and Weldy (2018) was a broad-brush literature review: it chronicled the movement from traditional teams to virtual teams; isolated the necessities for successful virtual teams with a focus on the right mix and the right size as well as the importance of organizational culture; and suggested how organizational development scholars and consultants can help. Maes and Weldy (2018) remarked that since they appeared in the 1990s "[V]irtual teams [have become] the vehicles by which organizations conduct business today" but that "[T]eam members receive little to no instruction on how to establish beneficial relationships with their teammates many often from other cultures or how to create effective, productive virtual teams" (p. 83).
Accepting that traditional and virtual teams share innate shortcomings, such as the time it take them to pass through the forming, storming, norming, and performing stages and to reach decisions (compared to individuals), the key question according to Maes and Weldy (2018) is whether the very nature of a virtual team makes a difference in the way its members become cohesive and productive.
• Routines for Independence to experiment [emphasis added] include removing hierarchy from team task interactions, while still supporting those interactions with facilitation; enabling team members to visualize their ideas to facilitate joint thinking and experimentation; time set aside for teams to reflect together on what they are learning and what they might do differently; and opportunities to continually interact with customers to meet customer requirements. [Examples include whiteboarding sessions on the agreed goals, retrospects, and review meetings with customers.]
"(1) it communicates a sense of identity for its members; (2) it infuses a sense of purpose and value; (3) it provides a sense of stability; and, (4) it serves as a basis for organizational sensemaking (p. 86). In co evolutionary fashion, organizational culture is both determined by and defined by two large factors: how an organization responds to its external environment and how individual organizational members interact to complete their work. Thus, "To understand the impact of organizational culture on virtual teams, two overarching factors to consider are (1) how the organization responds to change and, (2) whether it views its people as individuals or groups" (Maes & Weldy, 2018, p. 86). Top management's role is to be deliberate in creating a culture in which collaboration becomes a norm for virtual teams: toward this, it must:
• Instruct team members on how to build relationships, how to communicate appropriately, and how to resolve conflict in a creative way.
• Support a strong sense of community.
• Try to assign at least a few people to the team who know one another.
• Encourage face to face team virtual communication when possible. (Maes & Weldy, 2018, p. 87) To help virtual teams, Maes and Weldy (2018) suggested that scholars and consultants might initially focus on relationship and trust building: once relationships are forged, organizations can deliver technology and resources in support, for example by establishing processes and practices for interaction and extending training on how to use technology. Moving forward, there is a need for best practices in development of the soft skills needed to ensure productive team member relationships; new techniques and team building interventions for various sized teams; adaptive delivery methods for successful cross cultural competency training, with evidence of which methods provide the quickest and most cost effective results; and new techniques to ensure that organizational cultures support productive virtual teams (Maes & Weldy, 2018, p. Virtual87).
• Define clear roles for team members.
teams are team based structures composed of members who are located in different buildings, different cities, or even different continents. Thus, distance being paradoxically of the essence and of no consequence, what local, regional, and international perspectives impact face to face interactions are may well be irrelevant in the case of virtual teams, if only because the latter can be instituted with such ease that team membership is known to change on a regular basis (and some team members may actually never "meet"). And so, no general case can be made for local, regional, and international perspectives on what one might term "a moving target". In any case, the prime mover of the geographical extent of virtual teaming should be the main activity (or sector) of an organization, such that a company engaged in, say, software support would lean on synchronous national and international teaming at interorganizational level, while another engaged in, say, home-based market research would need intra-organizational teaming at local level. Instead, the more pertinent principles of virtual teaming are likely to be those articulated by Dixon (2017), that is, developing agreed-upon
• Build self awareness into teams, training members in cross cultural competency.
13 said, a company that has taken time to establish a collaborative culture can accomplish much more, regardless of team size.
• Assign team leaders who have a balance of task and relationship skills.
• Practice mentoring and coaching throughout the organization.
Organizational culture, Maes and Weldy (2018) explained, fulfils at least four specific functions:
• Model collaborative behavior.
• Be mindful of culture in making critical leadership decisions.
• Reactive Team. According to Donovan (2015), "The team has ineffective management, lacks organization and/or coordination, and does not work toward common goals. [The team] is likely transactional in its interactions with the organization [ ] [and] since the team has no common goals and little autonomy [ ] team members are not motivated to do anything more than simply complete the task at hand. In this case, the team manager exists in name only. He or she does little to formally or informally influence the team, and, as a result, the team's performance is poor" (pp. 19 20).
14 goals, experimenting, and building trust as well as those identified by Maes and Weldy (2018) relating to cultures of collaboration. Structure, process, language, identity, and technology can all be sources of social distance, to be addressed by what Maes and Weldy (2018) called relationship and trust building, with language where teaming is international (but not local or regional) being the most likely fly in the ointment. In such cases, according to Neeley (2015), the team members who can communicate best in the organization's lingua franca will exert the most influence and those who are less fluent may become inhibited and withdraw; in such instances, Neely (2015) recommended, all team members should respect three rules for communicating in meetings: (a) dial down dominance, (b) dial up engagement, and (c) balance participation to ensure inclusion.
• Dependent Team. Donovan (2015) recognizes that "In this case, the manager provides clear and prescriptive instructions to the team, and the team members carry them out. In specifying both the 'what' and the 'how' the manager ensures that there's no misunderstanding and that the tasks are carried out [ ] [But] this stage of 'teamwork' misses opportunities for understanding and effectiveness because it does not leverage the knowledge and expertise of the individual team members. [ ] [T]here is still very little autonomy or purpose given to the team [ ], [which] ultimately results in a poorly motivated team" (p. 20).
Leading Teams: The Enduring Conundrum According to Donovan (2015), two of a manager's most important responsibilities are to motivate and to provide direction for his or her team: without these two qualities, Donovan (2015) contended, the manager or the team will not be very successful. According to Donovan (2015), a manager's responsibility is to ensure that his or her team works toward achieving the company's objectives, goals, mission statement, and so on. But, motivating a team is more difficult, Donovan (2015) recognized: while at a fundamental level individuals can motivate themselves from within, management is responsible for building a work environment that keeps personnel motivated and pushes it to excel, which can happen by means of incentives, formal or informal recognition, and management style. Per Donovan (2015), there are four stages that a team can go through, progressing from the stage of being a low performing, reactive team toward that of a high performing, interdependent team. By ensuring that a team has embraced a clear purpose and by encouraging team members to work together and challenge one another, Donovan (2015) foresaw that a team leader and his or her team can deliver organizational value more Praisingeffectively.Pink(2009), that Donovan (2015) considered a modern exposition of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Donovan (2015) agreed that once individuals have acquired enough to live comfortably, they graduate to higher-level needs for expect autonomy, purpose, and the ability to gain mastery so they might keep themselves motivated at work. Donovan (2015) applied this thinking to posit how a manager might develop a high-performing team, taken to mean a team that is motivated and delivers exceptional results. Maslow-like, Donovan (2015) then identified four stages that a team can go through in terms of effectiveness, moving upward or downward from any stage or needing perhaps to progress step by step:
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• Independent Team. At this stage, "[M]anagement specifies the 'what' and the team members independently develop the 'how'. This acknowledges the team members' important role to not only execute but also to improve processes and solve problems, better leveraging the expertise and experience of the full team rather than just the manager. In this team setting, functions are balanced, and the team trusts each individual's area of expertise and responsibility. [Because] an independent team operates with higher levels of autonomy and purpose, [this] leads to a motivated team and creates a virtuous circle of performance and motivation. [But] [ ] while the team members work toward a common purpose, they also work in silos and compete with each other for recognition and advancement. There is limited cross fertilization of ideas, approaches, and methods, which holds back performance from its optimal level." (Donovan, 2015, p. 20).
recognized that stepping back to take charge seems risky and definitely goes against the grain of the predominant "get out in front as fast as you can" business culture: after all, managing quality decision making might seem like a wise choice compared to the risky move of entrusting others with leadership; further, allowing others to control the helm might seem dangerous because mistakes could translate to a new, uncharted direction. But, Roop
Although it was peer reviewed, Donovan (2015) was boldly an opinion piece aiming to reflect the author's opinion about a subject: there is no literature review there, even less a research question or a hypothesis. In short, Donovan (2015) postulated (and trusted) that by ensuring a team has embraced a clear purpose and encouraging its members to both work together and challenge one another, the team will deliver organizational value more effectively. There is much pious hope in Donovan (2015) but its recipe for success is arrived at through reductionism, that is, by negating the myriad key components of teams that, well beyond the "what" and the "how", are widely acknowledged to impact team performance. Crucially, Donovan (2015) assumed to begin that the compelling "why" can be easily arrived at. Next, he glanced over, say, how a team might be assembled (before it is actually at hand) and what competencies (not forgetting attitudes and behaviors) its members might need to bring; how aligned with the rest of an organization the team might need to be (specifying also authority and duration); how, exactly, the team is to operate as a team (e.g., majority rule, consensus, etc.); how dysfunctionality might be avoided; how conflict (or tension) might be faced or harnessed in support of the work product; how team members might be rewarded formally and informally; how virtual teams differ from face to face teams; what sundry helpful mechanisms an organization must offer in support of teamwork; and how the team's performance will be ongoingly and ultimately evaluated. What is more, since Donovan (2015) was allegedly about leading a successful team, the article might have explained, for example, how we can apply ourselves to being (or becoming) effective leaders (e.g., by being initiators, models to others, good coaches, facilitators of communication and collaboration, and mediators or managers of Roopconflict).(2014)
• Interdependent Team. At this most advanced stage, "[M]anagement specifies the 'what' and the team members take the initiative to interdependently develop the 'how'. [T]he team recognizes that working together creates more value for the organization than working in silos, and collaborating with each other is better than challenging each other. The team has bonded, and individuals trust each other to deliver a high quality product. They exhibit a positive attitude toward each other and approach challenges as opportunities. The feedback loop provided by team members who challenge one another can also be applied to the interaction between team members and management. In truly high performing teams, team members can openly challenge management about the team's purpose and anything else. A healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo ensures that the team constantly works to bring the most value to the organization" (p. 20).
• Seeing Beyond the Surface. Roop (2014) enjoined us to "Never underestimate the 'unqualified'" (p. 18). Because we all have imperfections, personnel that is guided to use its imperfections will serve the greater good of a company and those "flaws" will become assets. Indeed, ambitious personnel with charm, charisma, and all the right connections and so, often deemed most qualified for leadership development frequently ends up to be the wrong choice for long-term sustainability (Roop, 2014).
a philosophy (and practice) much advanced by Greenleaf (2002), postulates that the main goal of a leader is to serve. Servant leadership appeals for (at least) two important reasons: (a) some real world leaders hope for a more caring, relational, empathetic style of leadership, in contrast with top down, directive styles of leadership; and (b) the philosophy (and practice) can as Roop (2014) made clear engender worthy outcomes. That said, Roop (2014) might also have explained that (a) (true) servant leaders for some masquerade as such require excellent listening and empathetic skills, which can drain them psychologically; (b) servant leadership focuses heavily (and almost exclusively) on the relational aspect of leadership (in organizations and teams) to the detriment of other aspects (e.g., establishing goals, directing, organizing, sparking action, coordinating, motivating, link management and personnel, etc.); and (c) not all organizations (and circumstances) can benefit from servant leadership, for instance if an organization is experiencing conflict or requires transformational change or a team has clear but tight deliverables and the idea is not necessarily to groom the individuals within it, which requires a long term perspective. In terms of decision making and team effectiveness, for instance, how can we reconcile or synergize if at all possible servant leadership with Schumpeter's gale of creative destruction and the organizational cultures,
16 (2014) argued, such thinking is where the misconception lies when the model is to lead from behind. Leading from behind does not mean relinquishing control, Roop (2014) asserted; instead, it unites younger, less experienced leaders around a common vision to equip them to effectively produce the best possible outcome. Under the servant leadership model that Roop (2014) proposed, everyone shares ownership and accountability for effectiveness as a result of:
• Collective Vision. Building a collective vision is the best way to align a leadership team with a company's goals, which also lays the foundation for collective effort toward innovation and creativity (Roop, 2014).
• Successful Leaders. Trust underpins much (if not all) and begins with the belief that a leader places the best interest of others at the core of a company's agenda. "Leading from behind forms the foundation of this trust through its basic principles of shepherding, humility, collective vision, and seeing beyond the surface of an individual's potential" (Roop. 2014, p. 18). Managers who abstain from joining the elitist culture that characterizes many companies are best positioned to build deep, loyal teams for long term success (Roop, Servant2014).leadership,
• Small Businesses. Small businesses begin as lean start-ups but as they grow must quickly identify next generation leaders: by empowering a team to take on responsibilities, natural leaders will emerge and the process of shepherding can be activated (Roop, 2014).
• Shepherding. In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela (1995) explained that a shepherd "stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind" (p. 334): this affords everyone the opportunity to both lead and make mistakes, recognizing that human imperfection is a fact of life and that missteps are opportunities for growth (Roop, 2014).
• Humility. Humble people admit mistakes, are open to other people's ideas, give credit where it is due, and celebrate the success of others. But, there is more: because humility and transparency go hand in hand, managers who approach lead from behind with humility also build trust, which fosters authentic and open teams (Roop, 2014).
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