Question

What are team norms, and what role do they play in behavior and cohesiveness of the group? How does the diversity of a group affect its performance?

Answer 1

Team norms are a set of rules that shapes team members' interaction. It is concerned with how the team members communicate and conduct themselves as members of the team.

Team norms play a vital role in guiding the behavior of team members. These guidelines help the members of the team to know the dysfunctional or disruptive behaviors that hinder the team's success. Setting the norms of the team gives an opportunity to the team members to convey what's important to them and to know what is important to their teammates. This increases group cohesiveness. Team norms bring uniformity in the behavior of team members towards the same objective. This leads to an increase in the effectiveness of team. Thus team norms help to increase the cohesiveness of the group and improve the behavior of the team members towards achieving the goal. Moreover, it also helps in maintaining group identity.

Diversity has both positive and negative influence on team performance. Diversity in the team encourages the knowledge-sharing environment which increases the overall productivity of the team. It increases team success by facilitating team effectiveness, satisfaction, communication, and decision-making process. Diversity increases performance when it comes to creative and innovative tasks. It enhances innovation and creativity in the organization. But diversity also increases the conflicts in the team. If the team is not managed properly, it can lead to underperformance.