Practice Questions

Team Dynamics

$1.$ Constructive Conflict

Technique

$2.$

Virtual Teams $3.$

Team Building

$4.$ Evaluation

Apprehension

$5.$

Groupthink $6.$ Nominal Group

Technique

$7.$

Teams $8.$

Production Blocking $9.$

Team Cohesion

$10.$ Self$-$Directed Work

Teams

$11.$

Social Loafing $12.$

Brook$$s Law

Cases

Please read the following case and prepare to answer for following topics:

$1.$ two norms that Kurt established for the team?

$2.$ Identify what stage of the five stages of team development the team appears to be

experiencing in paragraph #$11$

$3.$ Identify what stage of team development the team appears to be experiencing in

paragraph #$12$ and provide evidence from the paragraph

$4.$ does the size of a team have anything to do with how well it will perform? Why?

Team Dynamics$$Case

$-1-$

Michelle$$s dream of owning her own pastry shop is getting closer to reality. One more

year of working at Cheesecake Central, a Western Canadian chain of pastry shops

headquartered in Vancouver, and she should have enough money for her start$-$up

costs. Michelle has been with the company for a little over two years. She took the job

as a sales$/$marketing representative to gain experience. She has just been asked by her

boss to join a team with five other members for a new start$-$up project.

$-2-$

Kurt, who has been with the company for $10$ years, is quite content being the salesman

for Alberta. He has no ambition to expand his territory or climb the corporate ladder.

Due to his lack of ambition, colleagues are quite often frustrated with Kurt. They often

complain that they have to light a fire under him to get him to do anything. Kurt has

been asked to be team leader for the new project. It is a common practice at

Cheesecake Central for the leadership role to be rotated.

$-3-$

Rita is also a sales$/$marketing representative who has been with the company for $7$

years. She is a good, solid worker, but constantly clashes with Kurt. They never seem to

agree on anything. She sees Kurt as very bright with lots of ideas but he never seems to

$2$

follow through on any of them.

$-4-$

Kim, a Grant MacEwan graduate, has been with the company for three years. Kim

majored in Asian Pacific Management and is often out of the country trying to open up

new markets in Asia. Kim is a typical Type $$A$$ personality $-$ has $3$ or $4$ projects on the

go$,$ impatient with details, but very creative. One of the CEOs thought Kim would be an

asset to the new project because she worked on the last one with these same

individuals.

$-5-$

Parminder, a marketing analyst, has just joined the team to assist in the new project.

They have borrowed Parminder from headquarters in Vancouver. She will be in the

Edmonton branch for the next three months working on the project. Parminder$$s

expertise in researching new markets is well respected in the $$cheesecake$$ field. She is

constantly being offered jobs in big$-$name cheesecake companies in Toronto and New

York.

$-6-$

Boris, who recently graduated from high school, has been with the company for less

than a year. He is the administrative assistant for the team. He has proven to be very

efficient and completes all the clerical work for the team.

$-7-$

The last project that Michelle worked on with this same group of individuals $($except

Parminder$)$ turned out to be highly successful. The team was instrumental in opening up

a new store in Red Deer. The new store$$s profits have been steadily increasing. The

advertising campaign that the team had come up with was very successful. The team

was eager to work together again and felt confident they could pull off another

successful project.

$-8-$

This time, the project would be a much bigger challenge and harder to accomplish. The

team has been asked to open up a store in Calgary. Results of Parminder$$s preliminary

research shows that Calgarians are not that big on cheesecake and other pastries. One

of the CEOs has a daughter who lives in Calgary and he wants her to eventually take

over operations once the new store is established.

$-9-$

Kurt called the first meeting. Going into the meeting, Kurt thought to himself, $$This will

be a piece of cake; I won$$t have to do any work. The rest of the team members can do

all the work and I can sit back and take all the credit. I paid my dues when I was new

here so why should I bust my chops any more than I have to$.$

$3$

$-10-$

Kurt started the meeting by making sure everyone was clear about the project they were

about to begin. He suggested they meet three days a week for the next month at $8$:$00$

a$.$m$.$ He asked them to be on time for the meetings so they could get down to business

and have the rest of the day to do their own work. He made sure that everyone was

made aware of who had the expertise in certain areas and who was capable of doing

what. Kurt suggested they throw ideas around on how they could proceed and Boris

could write them on the bo