Discussion: View Thread

On 17 Dec 97 at 15:36, Glenn Rowe wrote:

My concern is that
> although we call them teams they are really groups of students. Hambrick
> (1996) (sorry, I do not have full cite) wrote about the differences between
> a management team and a management group. I am thinking that we may have
> the same problem. We put a group of students together and then call them a
> team. I am interesting in whether the rest of you struggle with this
> distinction as I do and whether you have any ideas on how to enable groups
> to become teams in a short three months.

That was the point I was trying to make in an earlier post...that
teams in universities are artificial with respect to workplace
teams...the conditions of reward are different, the motivations are
different, etc.

Presumably the idea behind evaluating process in the classroom is
that it "reflects reality", and we should be preparing students for
reality. But there are profound limits on how real this can be, and a
key question is whether the behaviour illustrated in the university
setting has ANY relationship to that which will be shown in the
workplace.

As a hypothesis, is it possible that the behaviour exhibited in the
university is a function of the environment/university system, and
less an indicator of skill/ability/attitude that will transfer to the
workplace?

If that is true, what then are we evaluating?

Is it similar to the idea that tests actually test test taking skills
in addition to whatever else they test?


PS. How's the weather out there, Glenn..we are breaking all records
here on the unfrozen, balmy prairie.


Public Sector Manager Newsletter Online is available at
http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/psm.htm. Articles archive at:
http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/articles.htm .
Bacal & Associates rbacal@escape.ca

On 17 Dec 97 at 17:40, Bill Ferris wrote:

> I think we are protesting a little too much about the differences between teams
> in business classes and those in workplaces. Of course there are differences
> between "groups" and "teams," and there are many KINDS of teams as well. However,
> if students are placed in groups for semester-long classes, and if these groups
> are responsible for tasks and projects that are being graded on a team basis,
> there is little difference between them and project teams that are also together
> for finite times--from 2 weeks to a year or so--in a work setting.

I don't know..I'm certainly open to considering there might not be
major differences. I just wonder whether there is a difference in how
people behave in their groups/teams because the context IS
different..for example, one may never have to see or work with ones
university team members again, but in the workplace we might be
working with those same people for a very long time.

..or does the fact that one setting is being paid in money and the
other "in grades" make a difference?

..or the fact that the university team lacks the overall longer term
visioning and larger mission than one would find in high functioning
work-teams?

..or that simply, one is an exercise of no significance (usually)
while the other presumably is of significance to the lives and
livlihoods of real live people?

So, my feeling is that just on a couple of these, one cannot
extrapolate from university team behaviour to workplace behavior...

..it would be interesting if there was empirical evidence to suggest
that those that are graded high in university team activities
actually get similar types of assessments in the workplace. Anyone
know of such studies?

I don't think I am comfortable with presuming such a relationship.



. Yet there is still much we can teach them through experiential
> exercises, laboratory kinds of conditions, cases, and projects about effective
> teaming.

I agree but the question is the degree of validity of the estimates
of that learning (ie. evaluations).

I'm certainly comfortable with teaching group processes...I'm just
not so comfortable about the idea that our evaluations have validity.



Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
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*Site Last Updated On Oct. 28, 1997*

Something has been bothering me about the discussion on student teams and it
finally hit me what it is. I use "teams" in my strategic management courses
at both the undergraduate and MBA levels. In "teams" students analyze cases
and prepare oral and written analyses. I also use a peer evaluation form to
assess each student's contribution to the group effort. This evaluation
effects the grade of each individual in the "team." My concern is that
although we call them teams they are really groups of students. Hambrick
(1996) (sorry, I do not have full cite) wrote about the differences between
a management team and a management group. I am thinking that we may have
the same problem. We put a group of students together and then call them a
team. I am interesting in whether the rest of you struggle with this
distinction as I do and whether you have any ideas on how to enable groups
to become teams in a short three months.

Glenn

>

W. Glenn Rowe, Ph.D.
Director, Centre for Management Development
Faculty of Business Administration
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, NF, Canada, A1B 3X5
709 737 7977
709 737 7999 (Fax)

My students typically do not have the luxury of 3 months to form a team;
most of the courses are 6 or 7 weeks.

I too struggle with the team vs. group issues. While the students may
not have the time to really form a team, I do try to distinguish what I
perceive as a group project vs. a team project. For example, the
written work or presentation may have benefited from or reflect the
skills of one individual (one with technical expertise or whatever), but
the overall project has consistency in writing style, level of detail,
etc.

I also share what "teams" from former classes have shared as helpful:
things like getting together for dinner or strictly social, get-to-know
each other time as their first team meeting (focus on relationship
before task), journaling about how the team is handling relationship
vs. task issues; selecting a name for the team/establishing a team
identity, be-briefing each meeting, establishing team norms, taking
turns facilitating so the facilitator can reflect on the processes and
dynamics, etc.

But then I also have issues with what seems to me as every
group/unit/division/committee/board/etc. now being called a "team." I
probably also frustrate my students because I will not let them use
"team-building" as an intervention; they have to be more specfic. I
assign Penson's editoral, What 'Team Building' Won't Cure (Training,
March 96). As instructors, do we also fall into the same trap as
organizations in our desire to turn stuent task groups into high
performing teams?
--
H. Susie Coddington, Ph.D., Coddington Learning Co.
410.992.9563 hsusie@erols.com
LEARNING NEVER ENDS . . .

Robert Bacal wrote:

> On 17 Dec 97 at 15:36, Glenn Rowe wrote:
>
> My concern is that
> > although we call them teams they are really groups of students. Hambrick
> > (1996) (sorry, I do not have full cite) wrote about the differences between
> > a management team and a management group. I am thinking that we may have
> > the same problem. We put a group of students together and then call them a
> > team. I am interesting in whether the rest of you struggle with this
> > distinction as I do and whether you have any ideas on how to enable groups
> > to become teams in a short three months.
>
> That was the point I was trying to make in an earlier post...that
> teams in universities are artificial with respect to workplace
> teams...the conditions of reward are different, the motivations are
> different, etc.
>
> Presumably the idea behind evaluating process in the classroom is
> that it "reflects reality", and we should be preparing students for
> reality. But there are profound limits on how real this can be, and a
> key question is whether the behaviour illustrated in the university
> setting has ANY relationship to that which will be shown in the
> workplace.
>
> As a hypothesis, is it possible that the behaviour exhibited in the
> university is a function of the environment/university system, and
> less an indicator of skill/ability/attitude that will transfer to the
> workplace?
>
> If that is true, what then are we evaluating?
>
> Is it similar to the idea that tests actually test test taking skills
> in addition to whatever else they test?
>
> PS. How's the weather out there, Glenn..we are breaking all records
> here on the unfrozen, balmy prairie.
>
> Public Sector Manager Newsletter Online is available at
> http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/psm.htm. Articles archive at:
> http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/articles.htm .
> Bacal & Associates rbacal@escape.ca

I think we are protesting a little too much about the differences between teams
in business classes and those in workplaces. Of course there are differences
between "groups" and "teams," and there are many KINDS of teams as well. However,
if students are placed in groups for semester-long classes, and if these groups
are responsible for tasks and projects that are being graded on a team basis,
there is little difference between them and project teams that are also together
for finite times--from 2 weeks to a year or so--in a work setting. Now there is a
difference between a typical team in a work setting and a DEPARTMENT, in which
people are grouped together for the duration of their work in an organization and
can expect to interact with each other on a daily, sometimes even an hourly,
basis. However, the "teams" that my evening and weekend students come from at
work are typically groups of employees from different functional areas placed
together by management for a specific purpose and to accomplish specific tasks
over a set time-frame. To the degree that they are together for longer than a
year, perhaps a meaningful difference is introduced from their B-school
bretheren. Yet there is still much we can teach them through experiential
exercises, laboratory kinds of conditions, cases, and projects about effective
teaming. In some programs (one of ours), students are together in teams for 2 or
even 3 semesters in a row, though I recognize that is rare. Nevertheless, I think
we should be celebrating the differences that do exist because the most
meaningful of them allow us to try pedagogical techniques that are difficult to
enact in work settings where process is usually studied little, if at all. Now
all that said, we are not talking about student groups together for a class or
two here, either, because there are quite significant differences between them
and work teams.

Regards to all,

Bill

--
Bill Ferris
Professor of Management
Western New England College
Springfield, MA 01119

Phone: (413) 782-1629
Fax: (413) 796-2068
E-Mail: bferris@wnec.edu

The College of Engineering has the same problem of putting a group of
students together as a "TEAM" and expecting them to be effective. Our
long term solution is to 1) Explicitly teach them how to work in teams
in a required freshman class, with additional instruction in the
sophomore and senior years 2) Require them to follow good team
practices in courses where there is a joint project - this includes
goals, written group norms, meeting agendas and minutes, meeting
facilitators and formal team assessment.

We should not expect individuals in a competitive environment to work
effectively on a team without a direct reward structure. Grades for the
team are one system. Straight scale grades also help where a student is
not penalized for assisting someone else.
--
Andrew Crawford, 2785 IOE Bldg, U of Michigan 313 764-9410
Ascott Corp. 1202 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, MI http://ascott.com

OK Andy

How exactly do you train them to work in teams? Our best efforts have been
mediocre!


John

At 07:47 PM 12/17/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The College of Engineering has the same problem of putting a group of
>students together as a "TEAM" and expecting them to be effective. Our
>long term solution is to 1) Explicitly teach them how to work in teams
>in a required freshman class, with additional instruction in the
>sophomore and senior years 2) Require them to follow good team
>practices in courses where there is a joint project - this includes
>goals, written group norms, meeting agendas and minutes, meeting
>facilitators and formal team assessment.
>
>We should not expect individuals in a competitive environment to work
>effectively on a team without a direct reward structure. Grades for the
>team are one system. Straight scale grades also help where a student is
>not penalized for assisting someone else.
>--
>Andrew Crawford, 2785 IOE Bldg, U of Michigan 313 764-9410
>Ascott Corp. 1202 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, MI http://ascott.com
>
>



John Sullivan
San Francisco State University

Professor and HR Program Coordinator

At 07:47 PM 12/17/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The College of Engineering has the same problem of putting a group of
>students together as a "TEAM" and expecting them to be effective. Our
>long term solution is to 1) Explicitly teach them how to work in teams
>in a required freshman class, with additional instruction in the
>sophomore and senior years 2) Require them to follow good team
>practices in courses where there is a joint project - this includes
>goals, written group norms, meeting agendas and minutes, meeting
>facilitators and formal team assessment.

Our experience in business and play matches Katzenback and Smith's (_The
Wisdom of Teams_) that certain elements must be in place for a group of
people to work together well. They define the group as a team when these
elements exist. We can talk about teams, but few people measurably define
team. Katzenbach and Smith do. Those elements are:
1. common purpose
2. common goal(s)
3. common approach
4. mutual accountability
5. complementary skills
6. manageable size.

Perhaps all examples we have heard of good and bad teams may be tested
against these elements.

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Kicab Castaneda-Mendez
aejes, LLC
84 Old South Salem Road
Ridgefield, CT 06877-4841
Tel 800-291-2974
Fax 203-894-9020
E-mail kicab@aejes.com
Web Site http://www.aejes.com

Author of:
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2. _The Baldrige Assessor's Workbook: How to Perform the Examiner's Role
for Internal and External Assessment_ (Both books available from Quality
Resource, New York, 800-247-8519: http://www.qualityresources.com)

aejes, LLC offers services in three areas:
- Strategic Planning, using the balanced scorecard
- Improving Performance, using value-based cost
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*********************************************************

Glenn,
You are not alone in putting together groups and calling them teams, even
though they don't function like teams, aren't rewarded like teams, and
don't have tasks to perform that require teamwork. It is also done in
business.

For anybody looking at how to structure real teams in a classroom, I
suggest looking at research done by Larry K. Michaelsen, much of which has
been published in the Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal and the
Journal of Management Education.

Emily Schultheiss
Why settle for surviving...when you could be thriving?

At 03:36 PM 12/17/97 -0330, you wrote:
>Something has been bothering me about the discussion on student teams and it
>finally hit me what it is. I use "teams" in my strategic management courses
>at both the undergraduate and MBA levels. In "teams" students analyze cases
>and prepare oral and written analyses.

IMO, to the extent that the group of students has a common goal--a project
to work on--they can become a team. If they are able to accomplish the
goal while working together productively, resolving issues internal to the
group and all that other forming storming etc. stuff, I think you can
safely say they have become a team, at least for the duration of the project.

A group does not have to stay together indefinitely to be considered a work
team and, in fact, it's common to see people grouped for short and
intermediate lengths of time to accomplish a task and, in accomplishing the
task, to show all the elements of effective team task behavior.

Frank Bell Internet:
Project Leader fbell@nonamebbs.com
Amtrak
National Training and
Conference Center
110 S. French St.--Ste 200
Wilmington, Del. 19801

http://members.aol.com/frankwbell

I notice that the message I'm responding to now as well as several
others, increasingly in recent weeks, have included announcements of
books and services being offered by the communicator, often referring
the members of the list to a website. Some have used a request for
information regarding some teaching or managerial problem to volunteer to
help the inquirer, implied being that it would be for the usual
consulting fee.
I believe this is a misuse of the list and should be curtailed by the
"owner"; I hope other members will join me in urging deletion of such
add-ons so that Charles Wankel will recognize the validity of this
observation. The intent is also to discourage those who use responses as
thinly disguised vehicles for advertising their wares and result in fewer
superficialities and platitudes.
CW: Please note.

In a message dated 12/18/97 11:57:12 AM, you wrote:

<<he intent is also to discourage those who use responses as
thinly disguised vehicles for advertising their wares and result in fewer
superficialities and platitudes.>>

I might be in the minority, but I like to hear what books, products, and
services are out there, especially by the participants that share wisdom.
Maybe there is another more appropriate vehicle. I would feel a loss at not
hearing about people's work. I don't call that advertising in the negative
sense of the word. If the whole list were always advertising, I might change
my opinion, but for the most part, people are sharing. The rest can easily be
deleated. What I "hear" you suggesting is guidelines for postings. Maybe that
is a good idea. First, what is the definition of advertising that is allowed,
if any?

I suggest that participants be encouraged to inform each other of products and
services that would benefit people in the business of HR, OD, Training,
Teaching, etc. , whether they be our own products and services or someone
else's.
Barbara Golden