s that perform one or more tasks within an organizational context" (Hackman, 1990, p. 479). To be effective, both team leaders and team members must remain aware of both what is being said--content--and how things are being said--process (Smith & Hukill, 1994). A psychosocial group is the interaction of two or more people wherein the existence of all those persons interacting is necessary for the needs satisfaction of each of the interacting individuals (Hersey & Blanchard, 1993).
An important variation in group type in the contemporary environment is the cross-functional team (Bettenhausen, 1991). Autonomous teams lead to increased levels of job satisfaction and job performance. Team-based organization is another form of structure "in which members of different functional departments work together in small, but more or less permanent, teams headed by the member from the most professional prestigious specialty" (Gortner, Mahler, & Nicholson, 1989, p. 111). Nurses, physicians, therapists, and other health care professionals increasingly are delivery patient care as members of cross-functional teams. Team members "maintain their ties to functional departments for personnel, training, promotion, and other such matters, but they work face to face principally with members of other departments to achieve the level of coordinated expertise demanded by their tasks" (p. 111). Team-development promotes the idea that individuals who have working relationships with one another within an organizational structure can be trained to work as a team (Larson & LaFasto, 1989). Participants in a team building process learn to build good relationships with other team members, to engage in joint problem-solving, and to reduce interpersonal friction. Successful implementation and execution of the team development technique leads to improved communication, enhanced creativity, more effective decision-making, and higher levels of organizational perfo...