In a Nutshell
I heard a baseball analyst
say that the fight between Mike Piazza and Guillermo Mota last week provided
a chance for Piazza's team to improve its chemistry. His rationale
was pretty complex, but I think he's right. Team chemistry is a complicated
issue, but it's also the key to getting the most out of a team's talent.
Team chemistry is one of
the most complicated keys to the success of organizations. Effective
teams are more than just a collection of talented members. To be
effective, a team has to be able to combine the efforts and abilities of
members in the right way. Just as no two people are identical, no
two teams are identical. Consequently, what works well for one team
may not work well for others. However, research has identified several
factors that usually produce good team chemistry:
In This Issue
Mets Fight for Team Chemistry
I heard Tim Kurkjian explain
on an ESPN radio program last week that the incident of Mike Piazza charging
to the pitcher's mound to fight Guillermo Mota after Mota hit him with
a pitch on March 12 provided an opportunity for Piazza's team, the New
York Mets, to improve their chemistry. First, Piazza is a leader
on the team and his actions set the tone for the rest of the team.
Piazza has never retaliated against another pitcher, Roger Clemens, who
hit him with a pitch that knocked him out during a game in the 2000 season,
and Piazza has been faulted by many observers for not getting even Clemens.
In contrast, Piazza showed Mota in the strongest manner he could that he
would not tolerate such treatment. That helps foster a sense of toughness
and pride on the Mets team. Charging the mound also provided Piazza's
teammates an opportunity to show support for him. The Mets' dugout
cleared as all the players ran out onto the field ostensibly to defend
their teammate. The Mets pulled together to confront a common enemy,
and that tends to promote a sense of unity. I agree with Kurkjian
that the episode might have been good for team chemistry.
The Mets have a need for
improved chemistry. When evaluating their team on the basis of the
talent the players had individually demonstrated prior to the 2002 season,
one would expect the Mets to have contended for the National League pennant
and a World Series appearance in 2002. But the Mets were not in the
running. Why does a talented team fail to realize it's potential?
Often the problem is poor team chemistry.
What We Know About Team Chemistry
Team chemistry is the composition
of a team and the relationships among team members. Good team chemistry
helps a team achieve its goals, and it results when (a) a team has members
who possess the right competencies and (b) they work effectively together
to achieve synergies. We most often notice that a team has poor chemistry
when the members are talented but fail to work well together to make the
most of their abilities. For instance, team members failing to play
roles that their teams need someone to play or engaging in unproductive
conflict are examples of problems with team chemistry.
At the risk of taking the
"chemistry" metaphor too far, we can think of teams as having the following
properties: elements (members), interactions (roles and norms), catalysts
(leaders), energy (motivation), attraction (cohesiveness), and mass (size).
By examining these properties, we can identify a number of keys to good
team chemistry.
Elements.
People are the elements that make up a team, and the diversity among people
is probably the single greatest reason why teams are so complex.
Nevertheless, diversity of team members can also be the greatest strength
of teams. Diverse team members have diverse viewpoints, knowledge
bases and skills. That's why a team working properly tends to produce
better decisions than any single member of the team could produce working
alone. Certainly, the quality and diversity of the members of a team
affect its performance, but there's also much more to team chemistry than
putting together the best elements.
Interactions.
Team members have to interact constructively in order to perform effectively.
Roles and norms are an important aspect of team interactions. To
be effective, team members need to take the appropriate roles, and develop
and enforce appropriate norms.
A role
is a set of duties that a team member performs. The most prominent
role in a team is leadership. When there's no formal leadership role
on a team, different members may take responsibility for leadership at
different times. Nonetheless, teams tend to perform better when there's
a single direction for the team, and that's normally best achieved by having
a single leader.
Even though only one member
is typically identified as a team's leader, nonleaders often take roles
that assist the leadership of the team. Such nonleader roles augment
the efforts of the leader and may subtly influence the leader to redirect
the team, but they don't normally obstruct the efforts of the leader or
challenge the leader's authority. Struggles for power in teams are
necessary at times, but a team is unlikely to perform at a high level during
a power struggle.
As a team member, you're
engaging in what's known as role-making
behavior when you spontaneously take responsibility for certain tasks,
and role-taking behavior when
you accept responsibility for duties that others would like you to perform.
In effective teams, members are inclined to take initiative and accept
their roles.
Effective teams also develop
and enforce norms that promote the
efficient and effective operation of the team. Norms are informal
rules that all group members are expected to conform to. Examples
of constructive norms that many teams develop include responsiveness to
customers and a willingness to do things that aren't strictly in anyone's
job description. Not all norms are constructive. Examples of
dysfunctional norms that some teams develop include quitting work early
and censoring dissent within the group. Whether the norms are functional
or dysfunctional, team members tend to sanction those who violate their
norms through subtle but important actions such as cold treatment, a reluctance
to provide help, stopping any socializing, and even pushing the violator
off the team if he or she won't conform. However, there are occasions
when a team member who does not comply with a norm causes the team to give
up that norm. That kind of influence can be positive or negative.
It's positive when a team member takes a stand against a dysfunctional
norm and gets the team to change it.
Catalysts.
In terms of the chemistry metaphor, leaders are catalysts because they
promote interaction among the elements. Leaders provide direction,
structure activities, share information, encourage participation, promote
positive relationships, and support and encourage members. Mike Piazza
has a chance to play a leadership role as a catcher, because he largely
decides which pitches should be thrown by the pitchers. Piazza is
also one of the most talented, experienced and famous members of the Mets.
Younger players will naturally tend to see him as a role model. More
than most players, Piazza can influence the team's norms.
Energy.
Human motivation is the energy in teams. Unfortunately, motivation
is not only directed toward teams' goals. A lot of energy can also
be devoted to conflict.
In a perfect world, all
of a team's energy might be directed toward doing the work required to
achieve the team's goals, but in reality it never is. Carrying the
chemistry metaphor a step further, some of the team's energy takes the
form of heat � due to friction � i.e., interpersonal
conflict. Because people are not omnipotent, differences
of opinion among group members are natural and necessary. Each of
us has a unique knowledge base and a unique way of perceiving and processing
information. Consequently, team members often disagree, and it would
be counterproductive for members to hide their disagreement. Hence,
effective teams experience disagreement, and it enhances the quality of
their decision making by challenging assumptions and expanding the number
of ideas considered. On the other hand, teams that hide their internal
disagreement, let interpersonal conflict become personal rather than business-related
or spend too much time debating, tend to be less effective.
To reach the highest levels
of performance, team leaders should ensure that members have goals
that motivate them. Furthermore, the highest performing teams are
driven by a vision of the future to
which the team aspires. Team leaders who can articulate a vision
for their teams can create passion and inspire exceptional performance.
While goals are normally specific and measurable (often expressed numerically),
a vision is a vivid picture of something exciting that a team can achieve.
For the Mets, their vision should be to win their division and contend
for the World Series. An example of a goal would be winning 35 games
by Memorial Day.
Attraction.
When team members appreciate being a member of the team and feel an attraction
to it, they're committed to working toward the team's goal. This
cohesiveness
facilitates collaboration, spontaneity and mutual support, and it reduces
counterproductive conflict. Effective teams tend to be cohesive.
Cohesiveness can be created
through many processes. Smaller groups are more likely to develop
cohesiveness than larger groups. When group members have many things
in common, they tend to develop higher levels of cohesiveness. Cohesiveness
also tends to develop as team members spend more and more time together.
Interestingly, one of the ways to build cohesiveness is by making members
go through a tough initiation before joining the team, and communicating
to them that they've been selected as team members because they're special
in some way. Success also engenders cohesiveness. It's difficult
to feel excited about being a member of a team that loses, and much easier
to feel an affinity for a team that succeeds. Ironically, while cohesiveness
increases the likelihood of a team being successful, success also tends
to increase cohesiveness. The cause-and-effect relationship between
cohesiveness and success is reciprocal. Finally, having a common
opponent can bring team members together. The realization that working
together and supporting each other is the best way to defeat an opponent
tends to promote a team's cohesiveness. Piazza's teammates took the
field to defend him, and that tends to create a sense of unity.
Mass.
While large teams have more resources (e.g., viewpoints and knowledge),
small teams tend to be more efficient and cohesive. In large teams,
individual members don't see their efforts affect the overall performance
of the team as clearly as members of small teams do. Members of large
teams are more likely to feel inconsequential. On average, members
of small teams put forth more effort than members of large teams for that
reason.
There are many variables
affecting team chemistry--members' competencies, roles, norms, leadership,
conflict, vision, goals, cohesiveness and size are some of the most important
factors. The challenge of fostering good team chemistry is sizable,
but chemistry can be managed.
Managing Team Chemistry
Since team chemistry is
so complicated, it helps to have many members committed to fostering good
team chemistry. Both leaders and nonleaders can help.
Leadership Roles
Develop
credibility. To effectively influence team members,
leaders should have credibility. Credibility is developed in the
following ways:
Nonleadership Roles
Task-facilitating
roles. Leaders are primarily responsible for providing
direction to their teams. However, nonleaders can take the initiative
to assist leaders' task-related efforts. Nonleaders can perform task-facilitating
roles by �
In Summary ...
Team chemistry is difficult--but
not impossible--to manage. Key variables to consider include members'
competencies, roles, norms, leadership, conflict, vision, goals, cohesiveness
and size. There are roles both leaders and nonleaders can play to
promote favorable team chemistry. It's well worth the effort.
Good team chemistry is essential to getting the most out of a team's talent.
About the Photo
New York Met's Mike Piazza
squares off against Montreal Expo's pitcher Guillermo Mota in this image
from television, Wednesday, March 12, 2003 in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Mike Piazza charged the mound and started a bench-clearing brawl Wednesday
night after he was hit by a pitch from Mota during the Los Angeles Dodgers'
13-6 win over the New York Mets in a split-squad game. (AP Photo/MSG: e-mailed
to me from Yahoo! News; news.yahoo.com)
Sources
George, J. M, & Jones,
G. R. (1999). Understanding and managing organizational
behavior, (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
Robbins, S. P. (2001).
Organizational
behavior, (9th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron,
K. S. (2002). Developing management skills, (5th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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LeaderLetter is written
by Dr. Scott Williams, Department of Management, Raj
Soin College of Business, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.
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