Chapter 9: Teams and Groups
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
–Andrew Carnegie
We all have been a part of various teams and groups throughout our lives. Perhaps we have been a member of a sports team, a family, a school project, or a club or organization. As members of these groups, we learned what it meant to be an insider and what was important to that group. This socialization process either drew us closer or pushed us further away from the group. Organizational socialization as well as the lifecycle of working groups is the focus of this chapter. In addition, you will learn about various types of roles one might fill in a group and how the behaviors associated with that role can contribute to or detract from meeting shared goals.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Define groups and teams.
- Identify the phases of Tuckman’s group lifecycle.
- Classify types of group members and group member roles.
- Reflect on your group experiences.
- Understand the stages of organizational socialization.
- Identify organizational socialization activities.
- Practice group problem-solving steps.
This chapter was adapted from the following Open Education Resource:
Business Communication for Success by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Adaptations included editing tone, images, removing content to align the chapter with BCOM210 course learning objectives, and revising examples for an FHSU student population, and adding some original exercises to align with course objectives.
AI Insights in this chapter were written through a collaborative process between Dr. Rose Helens-Hart, a professor of business communication, and AI writing applications, specifically Gemini and ChatGPT. Her approach involved extensive, iterative, prompt-based conversations with these AI applications, during which she explored and refined various topics related to AI’s use in business communication. While the AI tools offered valuable suggestions and generated initial content, the final versions of AI Insights reflect a significant amount of human research, drafting, editing, and revision on her part to ensure accuracy, clarity, and relevance to the field.
