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Summary Organizational Behaviour - chapter 6

Management And Organizational Behaviour (The University of British Columbia)

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Groups and Teamwork Chapter 6

Teams vs. Groups: What’s the difference?

 Group – two or more people with a common relationship

 Team – small number of people who work closely together toward a common objective and are accountable to one

another

o Collective work

o Interdependent effort

o Shared leadership

o Share accountability for the work of the team

o Develops its own purpose or mission

o Continuous problem solving, not just at scheduled meeting times

o Effectiveness = team’s outcome & goals, not individual

Why have teams become so popular?

 More flexible and responsive to changing events

 Capability to quickly assemble, deploy, refocus and disband

 Potential to generate more outputs with no extra inputs

 Usually best when tasks require multiple skills, judgment and experience

 Greater task identity

Types of Teams – classified based on their objective

 Problem-solving or process-improvement teams

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o 5-12 people from same department

o Discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency and the work environment

o Planning teams, task forces, committees

o Shared ideas and offer suggestions on how to improve work processes and methods

o Rarely has the power/authority to implement their suggestions

 Self-managed or self-directed teams

o 10-15 employees who perform highly related and interdependent jobs

o Not only solves problems and makes suggestions, but they also implement the solutions and assume

responsibility for the outcome

o Select their own members and leader

o Take on responsibilities of former manager

 Planning and scheduling of work, assigning tasks to members, collectively controlling the pace of

work, making operating decisions and taking action on problems

o Work better than teams that have an formally elected leader

o Higher levels of job satisfaction, but not all teams have worked well (difficult to implement)

o Effectiveness depends on strength and make up or team norms, type of tasks, & reward structure

 Cross-functional or project teams

o A group of employees at about the same hierarchal level, but from different work areas (departments) who

come together to accomplish a task

o Task forces – temporary cross-functional teams

o Committee – groups composed of members from different departments

o Effective means for allowing people from diverse areas to exchange information, develop new ideas, solve

problems and coordinate complex projects

o Early states of development – time consuming as members are still learning to work with the diversity – takes

time to build trust among people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives

o Skunkworks

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 Develop simultaneously to create new products or work on complex problems

 Usually found in high-tech sector

 Sheltered from other organizational members

 Work on new ideas in isolation without being watched over by org. members during creative stages

 Ignores the structure and bureaucratic rules of org.

 Virtual teams

o A team that uses computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a

common goal

o Collaborate online

o Challenges: less social rapport, less direct interaction, cant duplicate the give-and-take of face-to-face

discussion

o Tend to be more task oriented, less of a social-emotional factor

o Lower job satisfaction with the group process

o Keys to effectiveness:

 Trust is established

 Team progress is monitored closely – as to not lose sight of goals

 Efforts and products are publicized throughout the org. – so the team does not become invisible

From Individual to Team Member

 Need to find balance between team needs and individual needs

 Differences = pressures that group members put on each other through roles, norms, and status expectations

Role – a set of expected behaviors of a person in a given position in a social unit

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o To understand behavior, one must grasp the role that a person is currently playing

o Governed by role expectations – how others believe a person should act in a given situation

Role Conflict – a situation in which an individual finds that complying with one role requirement may make it more

difficult to comply with another

o Increase tension and frustration

o Conflict can be resolved by relying on the rules and regulations of the governing organization

Role Ambiguity – a person is unclear about his or her role

o Causes confusion, stress and bad feelings

o Role overload – what is expected of a person exceeds what he or she is able to do

o Role underload – when too little is expected of someone and that person feels that he/she is not contributing

Norms – acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the group’s members

 What members ought to do and not to do under certain circumstances

 Means of influencing behavior of group members, with a minimum of external controls

 Most common norms have to do with issues such as:

o Performance – how hard should one work, what kind of quality

o Appearance – appropriate work attire, when to look busy, how to show loyalty

o Social arrangement – how team members interact

o Allocation of resources – pay, assignments

The How and Why of Norms: How they are developed?

o Explicit statements made by a group member

o Critical events in the group’s history

o Primacy – first behavioral patterns

o Carry-over behaviors from past situations – bringing to the present group expectations from the past group

What makes a norm important?

o It facilitates group’s survival – so they don’t fail; protection from interference from other groups

o It increases the predictability of group members’ behaviors – able to anticipate each other’s actions and

prepare appropriate responses

o It reduces embarrassing interpersonal problems for group members – ensure satisfaction and prevent

interpersonal discomfort

o It allows members to express the central values of the group and clarify what is distinctive about the group’s

identity – helps solidify and maintain the group

Conformity

o Adjusting to one’s behavior to align with the norms of the group

o Group norms can pressure us toward conformity

o May explain why some groups are more prone to antisocial behavior

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Stages of Group and Team Development

The Five Stage Model

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 Stage I – Forming

o Uncertainty about team’s purpose, structure and leadership

o Testing the waters to determine what type of behavior is acceptable

o Ends when members think of themselves as part of a team

 Stage II – Storming

o Characterized by intergroup conflict

o Power struggles

o Members accept the existence of the team, but resist the constraints that the team imposes on individuality

o Conflict on leadership

o Ends when there is a clear level of hierarchy

 Stage III – Norming

o Close relationships develop and team develops cohesiveness

o Strong sense of team identity and camaraderie

o Ends when team has assimilated a common set of expectations of what defines correct member behavior

 Stage IV – Performing

o Significant task progress

o Fully functional structure

o Team energy is focused on performing the task at hand

 Stage V – Adjourning

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o Disbandment

o Attention directed towards wrapping up activities

Putting the Five Stage Model into Perspective

o Does not acknowledge what makes the group more effective as it progresses

o High levels on conflict can positively affect group performance as long as the conflict is directed towards the

task and not other members

o Several stages can go on simultaneously

o Stage IV is most preferable

o Ignores organizational context

The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model – Temporary groups with deadlines

 First meeting – sets group’s direction

 First phase of group activity is one of inertia

 Transition occurs when the group has used up half of its allotted time (between first and second phase)

o Transition initiates major changes

 Second phase of inertia follows the transition

 Group’s last meeting – markedly accelerated activity

Phase I

o First meetings sets direction

o Framework of behavioral patterns and assumptions

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o Period of inertia – team tends to stand still; locked into a fixed course of action

o Incapable of acting on new insights

o Everyone carries out the tasks, but there is low coordination

o Performing at a low level

Phase II

o Members realize work needs to get done

o Halfway between first meeting and deadline – midpoint alarm clock

o Heightened awareness

o Concentrated burst of changes – dropping old patterns adoption of new perspectives

o New period of inertia – executes plans created during transition period

o Team’s last meeting – final burst of activity to finish its work

Applying the Punctuated-Equilibrium Model

o Typical experiences of student teams created for doing group team projects

o First meeting  basic timetable established

o Midpoint  problems begin to be confronted; criticisms are taken seriously; more open discussions

o Characterizes deadline-oriented teams which exhibit long periods of inertia, interspersed with revolutionary

changes triggered by awareness of times and deadlines

o Forming and norming  low performing  storming  high performing  adjourning

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Creating Effective Teams

Team Effectiveness

 Context

o Adequate resources – technology, staffing, admin assistance, encouragement, timely information

o Leadership and structure – how the team will make a modify decisions

 Multi-team systems – different teams need to coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome

– leaders (role of facilitator) delegate responsibility to the team

o Climate of trust – must feel that members are capable of getting the task done

o Performance evaluation and rewards – group based appraisals, profit sharing, gainsharing, small-group

incentives; small differences in salary = lower collaboration

 Work design – helps increase members’ sense of responsibility and ownership

o Autonomy

o Skill variety

o Task identity

o Task significance

 Composition – how teams should be staffed

o Skills

 Technical expertise

 Problem-solving and decision-making skills

 Interpersonal skills

o Personality

 High level of conscientiousness and openness to experience

 High level of agreeableness

o Roles (page 235)

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 Task-oriented roles – roles performed by group members to ensure that the tasks of the group are

accomplished

 Initiating, seeking info and opinions, providing info and opinions, clarifying, elaborating,

summarizing, consensus testing

 Maintenance roles – roles performed by group members to maintain good relations within the group

 Harmonizing, compromising, gatekeeping, encouraging

 Individual roles – roles performed by group members that are not productive for keeping the team

on task

o Diversity – presence of a heterogeneous mix of individuals within a group

 Advantage – multiple perspectives, openness to new ideas, multiple interpretations, increased

creativity, flexibility and problem-solving skills

 Disadvantage – ambiguity, complexity, confusion, miscommunication, difficulty in reaching a single

agreement and agreeing on specific actions

o Size

 Most effective – fewer than 10 members

 Cohesiveness and mutual accountability decline when groups are too big

 Social loafing – tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when

working individually; happens when one believes that others in the team are not carrying their fair

share and dispersion of responsibility

o Members’ flexibility

o Members’ preference for teamwork

 Process

o Common purpose

 Provides direction, momentum and commitment

 Broader than specific goals

 Reflexivity – reflect on and adjust the master plan when necessary

o Specific goals

o Team efficiency

 Cohesiveness – degree to which team members are attracted to each other and are motivated to

stay on the team

 Socio-emotional - sense of togetherness that develops when individuals derive emotional

satisfaction from group participation

 Instrumental – develops when group members are mutually dependent on one another

because they believe they could not achieve the group’s goal my acting separately

 Relationship between cohesiveness and performance norms

o Mental models – knowledge and beliefs about how work gets done – ideas on how to do things

o Managed level of conflict

 Relationship conflicts – worst kind

o Accountability

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