Groups

1. Groups

2. Another slight shift • Moving from managing individual to collectives. Up to now focus is on supervising one person at a time. Its important. But individual behavior is a also a function of teams. • Commonly behave differently in different groups. • We will explore why this occurs • Effective team management

3. Trends towards Teams and Groups in Organizations. • Primary advantages—More informed decision making/better decisions (usually). Associated with delegation especially in Service sector where there is more variability of what to do than in production. • Examples Weyerhauser Diaper, Pella and Kaizen (both production).

4. Quality and Quantity of Performance • Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Utilize talents more effectively. • Teams ensure less lumpy quantity of performance. Share work loads. • Examples—good team projects. Project teams.

5. Motivational • Social Facilitation—people perform harder simply being in the presence of others than by self.

6. Dark Side • Teams do not always work well together and communication needs slows down work (quantity of performance) • Individuals coast (Motivation). • Decision processes sometimes go very wrong (Lousy decision making).

7. Effective Teams Improve organizational performance • Ineffective teams decrease organizational performance. • Following content is designed to make the advantages prevail over the disadvantages. • Need to understand group dynamics. Not so easy see/address. Tend to be abstract.

8. What Influences group behavior • Roles • Norms • Status (not in book) • Cohesiveness • All of these almost an “invisible hand” unlike leadership

9. Roles • Behaviors associated in occupying a given position in a group. • Individual expect you to do certain things (related to norms). • Based on acting roles. One adopts a role. • Identity or Role within a group

10. Uses of Role--Identity • Role of the newcomer? • Role of certain positions on athletic team (point guard) • Role of older employee say 55-60.

11. Functional Roles • Team members often have functional roles--task roles (initiator, agenda setter, critic, advocate role, control role) and maintenance roles (humorist, encourager, conflict manager, social organizer).

12. Role Stress/problems • Role overload Simply having too many demands put on you • In teams can someone play both task and maintenance roles? • Commonly supervisors put role overload on subordinates.

13. Role conflict • Conflict expectations between people • Supervisors naturally have this. • Caught between managers and employees.

14. Role ambiguity • Do not know what is expected of them. Absence of defined role expectations. Not communicated and assumed.

15. Roles and Team effectiveness • Disruptive roles and supportive roles. • Complainer, back stabber etc. • Functional roles are critical to effectiveness. • Role stress is prevalent in new groups or changes in groups.

16. Norms • Difficult to describe—prescribed ways of behaving. But not clear who exactly prescribes them. • Breaking a norm.

17. How do norms develop • Leadership shapes norms directly with statements or indirectly by role modeling behaviors and rewards. How do I make this class different from other classes? • Critical events • Primacy—new group • General expectations

18. Contrast norms in two groups • How do you behave differently in your family than you do at work. How do you behave different in class than at work? Why? • Norms have their positive and negative consequences.

19. Norms are good • Help the group survive • Clarify expectations • Avoid embarrassments • Give a group an identity

20. Asch Study a b c

21. Groupthink • Read the text.

22. Status • Heirarchical social order. • Pecking order. • Animals naturally have one. • Societies have them. • Groups have them.

23. How is status created?

24. Function of Status

25. Do status differences tend to create the positives or negatives of team performance as discussed earlier?

26. Cohesiveness • Willingness to remain in a group • Book refers to we-ness. • Research suggests effective teams have higher cohesiveness. Linked to communication, trust, and retention. To much can be bad.

27. How do you move to effective teams • Functional roles • Role stress low • Functional norms (how you change them is never easy because they are shared habits). • Lower status • Higher Cohesiveness

28. Case—hot seat • What are the identities • Are functional roles being played? • Status? • What are some of the norms in this group? • Cohesiveness? • What can be done.