Teams and Group Behavior

Groups and Teams

A collection of people is 2+ people who are in physical proximity to one another. A work group is a collection of people who interact and share some interrelated task goals A work team is a type of work group that is interdependent and coordinated, has specified roles and tasks for each member, and they work to accomplish common goals and objectives.

Principles of teamwork:

1. provide and accept feedback
2. willing, prepared, and back each other up
3. collectively view themselves as a group whose success depends on their interactions
4. foster within-team interdependence
5. have leaders who serve as models for the others

Types of Teams

Types of teams:

• tactical: executes a well-defined plan/objective
• creative: develops innovated possibilities, products, or solutions
• problem resolution: focuses on solving ongoing problems or issues
• ad hoc: resolves one problem with plans for limited duration
• virtual: members are often geographically dispersed, interact through electronic communication, may never meet f2f.
• self regulated (SRWT) or autonomous work teams: operates mostly or completely on their own without consistent supervision. Teams take on traditional management functions like planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. Supervisors take on new roles: coaches and facilitators. They are completely autonomous, which may be stressful for those who have low tolerance for uncertainty and interdependence.

Distinguishing features of an autonomous work group:

• employees frequently rotated jobs
• after 18 months, most employees knew the entire production process
• group designed and purchased their own tools
• group members went on service calls to do warranty repairs
• quality control inspection done by group members
• there were few supervisors
• group members participated in hiring and firing
• supervisors served as coaches for counseling and training
• weekly group meetings and monthly plant meetings
• there were employee advisory groups to management.

Structure, Cycle, Processes

Team development stages:

1. forming: little agreement, unclear purpose, guidance and direction
2. storming: conflict, increase clarity of purpose, power struggles, coaching
3. norming: agreement and consensus, clear roles and responsibilities, facilitation
4. performing: clear vision and purpose, focus on goal achievement, delegation
5. adjourning: task completion, good feeling about achievement, recognition

Team Processes:

• The transition process include mission analysis, goal specification, strategy formulation and development
• The action processes: coordination behaviors, monitoring behaviors, backup behaviors
• Interpersonal processes: conflict management, motivation and confidence building, mood and emotion management

Norms

Norms are unwritten rules of behavior accepted by group members; shared group traditions

• E.g., what time you leave for work

Conformity refers to the pressures individuals naturally feel that make them want to follow the group and adhere to its norms.

• conformity enhances the predictability of behavior within a group, which promotes feelings of group cohesion.

Cohesion, Cognition, Decisions

Group cohesiveness is the extent to which group members are loyal and committed to the group members and the group as well, and are motivated to remain part of the group.

• if a group is high in cohesiveness, membership is satisfying
• if it's low in cohesiveness, members may be unhappy with it and try to leave it.

The factors that influence group cohesiveness:

• allow frequent interactions between members, and allow effective interpersonal communication to meet member needs and build dependency
• make the group smaller
• highlight mutual interests and common backgrounds; manage diversity
• increase the time that members spend together
• locate group members close to one another; isolate the group from others
• encourage agreement with group goals, foster loyalty; give rewards to groups, not individuals
• stand together to face challenges posed by external pressures
• stimulate competition with other groups (intragroup vs intergroup)

Group identification* means that you think you are part of the group. This means you have high level of identification with the group.

If your group is diverse, it is heterogeneous. Moderate amount of heterogeneity improves innovation and group problem solving.

Group cohesion may be affected by the following differences among people in a group:

• cognitive diversity (skills, knowledge, values)
• skill differentiation (experience, who executes)
• authority differentiation (seniority, positional power, who makes the decisions)
• personality diversity (extraverted vs introverted group members)
• demographic diversity (age, ethnicity, gender, nationality)

Group Decision Making

Groupthink is the "dark side" of cohesion.

• when consensus and harmony is more important than rational, independent thinking
• harmful if isolated by outside ideas and influence
• illusion of unanimity (suppressing dissenting opinions).

It causes groups to make decision that they know are poor

• incomplete consideration of options and alternatives
• poor information search
• selective information processing

Groups are more vulnerable to groupthink when the group

• is composed of members of similar backgrounds
• is highly cohesive
• has no clear rules or defined processes for decision making
• has an outspoken leader
• feels threatened by external forces
• is isolated from outsiders.

Examples:

• bay of the pigs cuban invasion
• iraq invasion
• space shuttle challenger
• air traffic controller strike
• major league baseball umpire strike

To prevent groupthink:

• define rules and processes for decision making
• encourage full participation of every group member
• divide group members up into smaller brainstorming groups before sharing ideas with a larger group
• support debate and productive conflict in the group
• make it a priority to examine all the alternatives
• invite outside experts to share their perspective
• ask leaders to hold their opinion or idea until after the group has had their chance to express their opinion
• have a designated 'devils advocate'.

Group performance

Individual vs group decision performance

• problem solving (groups perform better)
• decision execution (individuals perform better)
• performance in the presence of others (arousal)
  • social facilitation- increase performance on a simple or well-known task when an individual is in the presence of others
  • social inhibition- decrease performance when the task is complex or new and the individual is in the presence of others.
• See Yerkes-Dodson law: the theory that there is a level of arousal

As group size increases, social loafing increases, individual performance is inhibited. This is because of process loss (the "Ringleman effect").

Social loafing is when group members don't put 100% effort in when they are in a group or team-based situations due to losses in motivation.

Three ways lack of individual incentives contribute to social loafing:

• free-riding, the desire to benefit from others' efforts
• sucker effect, reduced effort to match low expectation
• felt dispensability, reduced effort when able members available.

Identifiability reduces social loafing.

Group polarization is the phenomenon wherein the decisions of people in a group setting become more extreme than their actual, privately held beliefs. It also holds that a group's attitudes towards a situation may change in the sense that the individuals' initial attitudes have strengthened and intensified after group discussion.

• E.g., after a discussion about gun control, members of the group who are against gun control will defend their attitudes far more strongly then they would have before hand.

Team Conflict

Two types of team conflict:

• Beneficial or cooperative conflict is when team members openly share conflicting views, respect each others opinions, and focus on finding an acceptable solution. Cooperative conflict relates positively to team performance
• Competitive conflict occurs when individuals promote their own views with little regards for others' opinions, and try to get their own position adopted. Competitive conflict relates negatively to team performance.