Team Dynamics - Dependence and Support of Others

A team is a group. Teams differ a bit from groups though. A team is any group of people that work together to accomplish a shared goal. Team members and team dynamics have to depend on and support each other to accomplish a shared goal.

Ways to create an Effective Team climate:

* Foster social support – mutual respect and support enhance team climates * Encourage Proximity – closer contacts promote team interaction * Create distinctiveness – the more distinct the group feels, the better the climate will be * Practice fairness

* Foster similarity – the greater the similarity felt by the group, the closer the climate will feel

Individuals and Team Performance:
The individual ability of each team member is important; however the ability of the individuals in a team is not a good predictor of how a team will perform. The more co-operation and interaction that is needed for a certain task, the more that the importance of individual ability decreases and the importance of group productivity increases. Therefore, teams made up of individuals with equal ability tend to play best.

Social Loafing:
Social loafing is a phenomenon that can cause a teams productivity to go down. It occurs when individuals within a group or team put forth less than 100% effort due to the fact that there are others who can pick up their slack. There are ways that one can eliminate social loafing in a team:

* Emphasize the importance of individual pride and unique contributions * Identify individual performances * Determine the specific situation where social loafing occurs * Conduct individual meetings to discuss social loafing * Look at times from a team mates point of view * Break the team down into smaller units