Explain what is meant by the terms production blocking and motivational loss.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Production blocking occurs when members have to wait on one another before they can do their part of the team task. If you have ever worked in a team in which you felt like you could not get any of your own work done because of all the time spent in meetings, following up requests for information from other team members, and waiting on team members to do their part of the team task, you already understand how frustrating production blocking (and coordination loss) can be. In the context of a game like soccer, production blocking might occur if a player has to wait too long for a teammate to get into position to receive the ball before making a pass. Motivational loss is the loss in team productivity that occurs when team members do not work as hard as they could. Why does motivational loss occur in team contexts? One explanation is that it is often quite difficult to gauge exactly how much each team member contributes to the team. Members of teams can work together on projects over an extended period of time, and as a consequence, it is difficult to keep an accurate accounting of who does what. Similarly, members contribute to their team in many different ways, and contributions of some members may be less obvious than the contributions of others.