Management, 11th Edition

Chapter 16. Teams and Teamwork

Chapter 16 Study Questions

1. How do teams contribute to organizations?

2. What are current trends in the use of teams?

3. How do teams work?

4. How do teams make decisions?

Learning From Others: The Beauty Is in the Teamwork

What distinguishes a group of people from a high-performance team? For one, it's the way members work with one another to achieve common goals. A vivid example is a NASCAR pit crew. When a driver pulls in for a pit stop, the team must jump in to perform multiple tasks flawlessly and in perfect order and unison. A second gained or lost can be crucial to a NASCAR driver. Team members must be well trained and rehearsed to perform efficiently on race day

The Daytona 500 is a premier race. And the difference between winning and losing often comes down to just seconds. Valuable time is easily lost—not just on the track but in the pits. "You can't win a race with a 12-second stop but you can lose it with an 18-second stop," says Trent Cherry, the coach of Ryan Newman's pit crew.

Composed of former college and professional athletes, members of a pit crew are conditioned and trained to execute intricate maneuvers while taking care of tire changes, car adjustments, fueling, and related matters on a crowded pit lane. Each crew member is an expert at one task. But each is also fully aware of how that job fits into every other task that must be performed in a few-second pit-stop interval. The duties are carefully scripted for each individual's performance and ...