2. Career Activity: In groups of three to five, complete the following:

 Discuss the task and maintenance functions that are used by successful workplace teams and pick two from each category that if absent would cause serious group problems.

 Discuss the dysfunctional behaviors listed on pages 282–284 and pick two that you think would cause the most problems in the workplace. Which of the suggestions for handling dysfunctional behaviors given in your text would work best to handle the two dysfunctional behaviors you selected?

Why?

 Practice handling problem people in workplace teams by picking a topic or problem to discuss and assigning one of your team members to play a dysfunctional behavior such as distractor, withdrawer, or dominator. Also, assign a member to

“handle” the behavior. Limit the discussion to 5 minutes. Discuss how successful the intervention was and what could have been done differently.

 If time remains, switch roles and try again until each person has the opportunity to “handle” a problem person.