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CHAPTER 10: LEADING TEAMS 305
when team members felt supported by organizational leaders and less produc-
tive when they sensed hostility and negativism from leaders. Similarly, a study of
cross-division teams of managers set up to encourage learning and collaboration
between divisions at BP found that top management support was a key factor in
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determining team effectiveness. The support of top leaders contributes to the
development of high performance norms, whereas hostility or indifference leads
to team norms and goals of low performance. Consider the performance norms
and effectiveness of the team that created the Motorola RAZR.

IN THE LEAD Motorola’s ‘Thin Clam’ Team
The mood inside Motorola was bleak. Managers and engineers alike knew the com-
pany needed a hot new product to regain its reputation—and maybe even some
of its lost market share. In the concept phone unit, engineers started talking about
building an impossibly thin clamshell phone that would be as beautiful as a piece of
fi ne jewelry and just as desirable—and they wanted it done in a year.
Engineer Roger Jellicoe aggressively promoted himself to lead the team and
quickly put together a group of engineers, designers, and other specialists who

were fired up by the ambitious project. The “thin clam” team, as they came to
be known, rapidly became viewed almost as a rebellious cult within Motorola. The
team worked at a facility 50 miles from Motorola’s central research unit and kept
the details of the project top-secret, even from their colleagues within the company.
The need for secrecy and speed, as well as the relative isolation, contributed to the
quick, tight bond that developed among team members. Time and again, the thin
clam team flouted Motorola’s rules for developing new products and followed their

own instincts. Top management looked the other way. They wanted the team to
have the freedom to be creative and take chances. Because Motorola badly needed
a hit, money was not an object; top management gave the team whatever they
needed in terms of support and resources to accomplish their goal.
The result was the RAZR, named as such based on the team’s humorous refer-
ence to it as siliqua patula, Latin for razor clam. Unlike any other cellphone the world
had seen, the RAZR wowed the industry and consumers alike—and rejuvenated the
company in the process.
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At Motorola, a combination of team cohesiveness and management support
that created high performance norms led to amazing results. The phone wasn’t
originally conceived to be a blockbuster, but it proved to be just that. Between the
time the RAZR was launched in late 2004 and mid-2006, the stylish phone sold
almost as many units as the red-hot Apple iPod. 46

Meeting Task and Socioemotional Needs
Another important factor in team effectiveness is ensuring that the needs for both
task accomplishment and team members’ socioemotional well-being are met. Re-
call from Chapter 2 the discussion of task-oriented and people-oriented leadership
behaviors. Task-oriented behavior places primary concern on tasks and produc-
tion and is generally associated with higher productivity, whereas people-oriented
behavior emphasizes concern for followers and relationships and is associated
with higher employee satisfaction.
For a team to be successful over the long term, it must both maintain its mem-
bers’ satisfaction and accomplish its task. These requirements are met through
two types of team leadership roles, as illustrated in Exhibit 10.4. A role might
be thought of as a set of behaviors expected of a person occupying a certain