Groups vs. teams
A “team” usually means people share responsibility for results, not just their own tasks.
A) What is mutual accountability?
B) What is individual performance?
C) What is symbiotic supervision?
D) What is a Not My Problem shield?
A) What is mutual accountability?
Teams can improve work because multiple people spot mistakes and keep standards high.
A) What is good enough for government work?
B) What is quality improvement?
C) What is cost reduction?
D) What is worker involvement?
B) What is quality improvement?
A team made to fix one specific problem and then disband is usually called a ______.
A) What is a committee?
B) What is The Avengers?
C) What is a task force?
D) What is a project team?
C) What is a task force?
Early on, team members are polite, cautious, and figuring things out.
A) What is professional speed-dating?
B) What is the storming stage?
C) What is the forming stage?
D) What is the norming stage?
C) What is the forming stage?
When one person does the minimum and relies on others to carry them, that’s ______.
A) What is free-riding?
B) What is being the CEO's nephew?
C) What is groupthink?
D) What is boundary-spanning?
A) What is free-riding?
This is the key difference: in a team, people create ______ together (not just separate pieces).
A) What are collective products?
B) What are individual contributions?
C) What are sequential tasks?
D) What is a corporate fever dream?
A) What are shared/collective outputs?
Teams can help create new ideas, products, or better processes—this is ________.
A) What is professional daydreaming?
B) What is productivity?
C) What is innovation?
D) What is routine maintenance?
C) What is innovation?
A team made of people from different departments working on the same goal is ______.
A) What is cross-functional?
B) What is a functional group?
C) What is The Hunger Games: Department Edition?
D) What is a virtual team?
A) What is cross-functional
The stage where conflict and power struggles often show up is ______.
A) What is storming?
B) What is a professional wrestling match?
C) What is performing?
D) What is adjourning?
A) What is storming?
When people agree publicly even though they disagree privately, that’s “going along to get along,” also known as ______.
A) What is the Yes-Man routine?
B) What is the Abilene Paradox?
C) What is conformity?
D) What is devil’s advocacy?
C) What is conformity?
If everyone works separately and the manager just adds up individual results, that’s more like a ______ than a team.
A) What is a group?
B) What is a meeting that could have been an email?
C) What is a task force?
D) What is a self-directed team?
A) What is a group?
When teams help a company do more with fewer resources, that’s ______.
A) What is productivity and cost reduction?
B) What is mission clarity?
C) What is magic (the accounting kind)?
D) What is task design?
A) What is productivity/cost reduction?
A team where members manage a whole process and make decisions without constant manager approval is ______.
A) What is an unsupervised playground?
B) What is a self-directed team?
C) What is a task force?
D) What is a formal group?
B) What is a self-directed team?
The stage where the team finally establishes “how we do things here” is ______.
A) What is forming?
B) What is performing?
C) What is becoming a boring adult?
D) What is norming?
D) What is norming?
When a close team shuts down criticism to keep peace and makes a bad decision, that’s ______.
A) What is cohesiveness?
B) What is sharing the same brain cell?
C) What is groupthink?
D) What is collaboration?
C) What is groupthink?
A strong team usually has people with different strengths that fit together—this is called ______ skills.
A) What are skills that just say nice things to each other?
B) What are complementary skills?
C) What are identical skills?
D) What are parallel talents?
B) What are complementary skills?
A big benefit of teams is that workers feel their work matters and they have a voice—this is ______.
A) What is task specialization?
B) What is employee involvement?
C) What is functional grouping?
D) What is professional eavesdropping?
B) What is employee involvement/engagement?
The “sweet spot” size for many teams is around this number of members.
A) What is twenty?
B) What is two?
C) What is 142 people in a single Slack channel?
D) What is seven?
D) What is seven?
The stage where the team is fully locked in and executing at a high level is ______.
A) What is performing?
B) What is showing off?
C) What is forming?
D) What is storming?
A) What is performing?
A common fix to avoid bad group decisions is assigning someone to challenge ideas and point out risks.
A) What is a facilitator?
B) What is a task specialist?
C) What is a professional hater?
D) What is a devil’s advocate?
D) What is a devil’s advocate?
A team’s performance is often better when members rely on each other to finish work rather than working in silos.
A) What is independence?
B) What is emotional baggage?
C) What is vertical reporting?
D) What is interdependence?
D) What is interdependence?
Teams can boost motivation because people feel ownership, support, and pride in results—this is mainly an ______ reward.
A) What is a Pizza Party instead of a raise?
B) What is an external reward?
C) What is a performance bonus?
D) What is an intrinsic reward?
D) What is an intrinsic reward?
Big teams often get slower because communication paths explode—this common issue is best described as ______.
A) What is coordination/communication overhead?
B) What is too many cooks in the kitchen?
C) What is synergy?
D) What is socialization?
A) What is coordination/communication overhead?
New employees often learn “the real rules” by watching others and adjusting their behavior—this is ______.
A) What is specialization?
B) What is social learning?
C) What is standardization?
D) What is professional stalking?
B) What is social learning?
The best conflict approach when both sides care a lot and you want the strongest long-term solution is to ______ together instead of splitting the difference.
A) What is flip a coin?
B) What is compromise?
C) What is collaborate?
D) What is accommodate?
C) What is collaborate?