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300 PART 4: THE LEADER AS A RELATIONSHIP BUILDER
Understanding Team Characteristics
One of a leader’s most important jobs is to get the team designed right by con-
sidering such characteristics as size, diversity, and interdependence. The quality of
team design has a signifi cant impact on the success of teams. 17
Size More than 30 years ago, psychologist Ivan Steiner examined what happened
each time the size of a team increased, and he proposed that team performance

and productivity peaked at about five—a quite small number. He found that add-

ing additional members beyond five caused a decrease in motivation, an increase
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in coordination problems, and a general decline in performance. Since then,
numerous studies have found that smaller teams perform better, though most re-
searchers say it’s impossible to specify an optimal team size. One recent investiga-
tion of team size based on data from 58 software development teams found that

the five best-performing teams ranged in size from three to six members. Results
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of a recent Gallup poll in the United States show that 82 percent of employees
agree that small teams are more productive. 20
Teams should be large enough to take advantage of diverse skills, yet small
enough to permit members to feel an intimate part of a community. In general, as
a team increases in size it becomes harder for each member to interact with and
influence the others. A summary of research on size suggests that small teams show

more agreement, ask more questions, and exchange more opinions. Members want
to get along with one another. Small teams report more satisfaction and enter
into more personal discussions, and members feel a greater sense of cohesiveness

and belonging. Large teams (generally defined as 12 or more members) tend to
have more disagreements and differences of opinion. Subgroups often form and

conflicts among them may occur. Demands on leaders are greater in large teams,
because there is less member participation. Large teams also tend to be less friendly
and members do not feel that they are part of a cohesive community. As a general
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rule, it is more difficult to satisfy members’ needs in large teams, forcing leaders to

work harder to keep members focused and committed to team goals.
Diversity Because teams require a variety of skills, knowledge, and experience,
it seems likely that heterogeneous teams would be more effective because mem-
bers bring diverse abilities and information to bear on a project or problem. In
general, research supports this idea, showing that heterogeneous teams produce
more innovative solutions to problems than do homogeneous teams. Diversity
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within a team can be a source of creativity. One international business consultant
uses the 1960s rock sensation The Beatles to illustrate the importance of diversity
to creative teamwork, pointing out how personality differences, distinct abilities,
and collegial competition among the four band members contributed to their
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phenomenal success. Within organizations, too, diversity can contribute to a

healthy level of conflict that leads to better decision making. Some confl ict helps
to prevent “groupthink,” in which people are so committed to a cohesive team
that they are reluctant to express contrary opinions. Among top management
teams, for example, low levels of confl ict are associated with poor decision mak-

ing. Furthermore, many of these low-conflict teams reflect little diversity among

members. Consider the example of Mark IV Transportation & Logistics.
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Jerry Giampaglia, Mark IV Transportation & Logistics
IN THE LEAD Members of the top management team of Mark IV Transportation and Logistics

don’t have much interest in socializing together on weekends. They are so differ-
ent in their lifestyles and interests that they can’t seem to fi nd much to talk about