Transcript Chapter 3 Personality, Perception, and Attribution Authors???

Chapter 9
Work Team & Groups
Nelson & Quick
Strategies for
Successful Teams
Groups & Teams
Group - two or more people with common
interests or objectives
Team - a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to
a common mission, performance goals, and
approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable
Characteristics of a WellFunctioning, Effective Group
Relaxed, comfortable, informal
atmosphere
People express feelings
Task well understood
& ideas
& accepted
Consensus decision
making
Group aware of its
operation & function
Members listen well
& participate
Clear assignments made
& accepted
Conflict & disagreement center
around ideas or methods
Group Behavior
Norms of behavior - the standards that a work group uses to
evaluate the behavior of its members
Group cohesion - the “interpersonal glue” that makes
members of a group stick together
Social loafing - the failure of a group member to contribute
personal time, effort, thoughts, or other resources to the
group
Loss of individuality - a social process in which individual
group members lose self-awareness & its accompanying
sense of accountability, inhibition, and responsibility for
individual behavior
Group Formation
Formal groups - official or
Informal groups - unofficial
assigned groups gathered
or emergent groups that
to perform various tasks
evolve in the work setting
to gratify a variety of
– need ethnic, gender,
cultural, and interpersonal
member needs not met by
diversity
formal groups
– need professional and
geographical diversity
Stages of Group Formation
• Mutual acceptance
– Focus is on the interpersonal
relations among the members
• Decision making
– Focus is on decision making
activities related to tasks
• Motivation & commitment
– Focus on self- and group-motivation,
execution, achievement
• Control & sanctions
– Focus on effective, efficient unit
Mature Group Characteristics
Purpose and Mission
• May be assigned or may emerge from the
group
• Group often questions, reexamines, &
modifies mission & purpose
• Mission converted into specific agenda, clear
goals, & a set of critical success factors
Mature Group Characteristics
Behavioral Norms - well-understood standards
of behavior within a group
Formal & written
Ground
rules
for
meetings
Informal but understood
Intra-group socializing
Dress codes
Mature Group Characteristics
Group cohesion - interpersonal attraction
binding group members together
• Enables groups to exercise effective control
over the members
• Groups with high cohesiveness
– demonstrate lower tension & anxiety
– demonstrate less variation in productivity
– demonstrate better member satisfaction,
commitment & communication
Cohesiveness &
Work-Related Tension
Group Cohesiveness from low to high
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
3.2
3.3
3.4
“Does your
work ever make
you jumpy or
nervous?”
3.5
Mean tension
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
4
7
16
52
65
57
19
Number of groups
12
From S. E. Seashore, Group
Cohesiveness in the Industrial Work
Force, 1954. Research conducted by
Stanley E. Seashore at the Institute for
Social Research, University of
Michigan. Reprinted by permission.
Mature Group Characteristics
Status structure - the set of authority & task
relations among a group’s members
• Hierarchical or egalitarian
• Often leadership is shared
Diversity
styles
Data/Info
Contributor
Mission
Collaborator
Facilitator
Communicator
Devil’s advocate
Challenger
Why Teams?
• Good when performing complicated,
complex, inter-related and/or more
voluminous work than one person can handle
• Good when knowledge, talent, skills, &
abilities are dispersed across organizational
members
• Empowerment & collaboration; not power &
competition
Quality Circles & Teams
Quality circles (QC) - a small group of employees
who work voluntarily on company time, typically
one hour per week, to address work-related
problems
QC’s deal with substantive issues
– Do not require final decision authority
– QC’s need periodic reenergizing
Quality team - a team that is part of an
organization’s structure & is empowered to act on
its decisions regarding product & quality service
Social Benefits of Teams
Psychological intimacy emotional &
psychological closeness
to other team
or group members
Integrated intimacy closeness achieved
through tasks &
activities
Team Task Functions
Task functions - those activities directly
related to the effective completion of the
team’s work
Initiate activities
Give information
Seek information
Test ideas
Summarize ideas
Coordinate activities
Elaborate concepts
Evaluate effectiveness
Diagnose problems
Team Maintenance Functions
Maintenance functions - those activities essential
to the effective, satisfying interpersonal
relationships within a team or group
Support others
Follow others’ lead
Harmonize conflict
Set standards
Express member feelings
Test consensus
Test group decisions
Reduce tension
Gatekeeper communication
Empowerment
An attribute of a
person or of an
organization’s culture
Encourages
participation
Preparation & careful
planning focuses
empowered employees
Foundations for Empowerment
Participative, supportive
organizational culture
Organizational
foundations
Team-oriented work design
Individual Prerequisites
for Empowerment
• The capability to become psychologically
involved in participative activities
• The motivation to act autonomously
• The capacity to see the relevance of
participation for one’s own well being
Empowerment Skills
• Competence skills - mastery and experience
in one’s chosen discipline & profession
• Process skills - including negotiating skills
• Development of cooperative and helping
behaviors
• Communication skills - skills in self
expression & skills in reflective listening
Self-Managed Teams
Self managed teams - teams that make
decisions that were once reserved for
managers
How does an organization avoid the risks of self
managed teams?
– morale reduction
– increased conflict
– groupthink
Upper Echelons:
Teams at the Top
Upper Echelons A top-level executive team
in an organization
Top management's
background characteristics
predict organizational
characteristics
Organization reflects
top management's
values, competence,
ethics & unique characteristics
Management team's
leadership, composiiton, &
dynamics influences the
organization's performance
Multicultural Teams
Multicultural groups represent
three or more ethnic backgrounds.
Diversity may increase uncertainty,
complexity, & inherent confusion in
group processes. Culturally
diverse groups may generate more
& better ideas & limit groupthink.
Executive Tenure &
Organizational Performance
Organizational performance
relative to the industry average
High
Low
1
7
14
CEO tenure (years)Source: D. Hambrick, The Seasons of an Executive’s Tenure, keynote address, the
Sixth Annual Texas Conference on Organizations, Lago Vista, Texas, April, 1991.
Triangle for Managing
in the New Team Environment
Manager
Team
Individuals
L. Hirschhorn, Managing in the New Team Environment, (pages 13/14). Copyright© 1991 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Addison Wesley Longman.