Topic: Groups and Teams

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Topic Groups and Teams
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Groups
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Groups

• Defined
• 2 or more people
• interact with one another
• share common goals, norms
• perceive themselves to be members
• What they are not...

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Stages of group development
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You need to allow these to work... You need to
create a situation where they can work...
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Group influences on performance

• Cohesiveness
• Social presence effects

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Group cohesiveness (liking)

• Cohesion leads to
• communication
• resistance
• satisfaction
• small in performance (more in smaller,
  military, and sports), but depends on norms -
  (highly cohesive groups more likely to accomplish
  goals, but groups can choose high or low
  performance goals)

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Cohesiveness and Performance
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Social Presence Effects

• Social facilitation - improve performance on well
  learned task (the cockroach races)
• Social inhibition - harm performance on learning
  task

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Social Presence Effects

• Social facilitation - improve performance on well
  learned task (the cockroach races)
• Social inhibition - harm performance on learning
  task
• Why?
• Implications?

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Teams
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Teams

• Team has an objectivea specific goal (usually a
  performance objective)
• Teams are trying to do something
• Reaching the goal requires collaboration
• Team members must work together

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• Teams interact both socially and during task
  performance.
• The quality of interaction is critical to team
  performance
• Opportunity and atmosphere for information
  sharing

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Attributes of Effective Teams

• Small size (max. 10)
• Complimentary skills
• technical
• problem solving/decision making
• interpersonal

• Common purpose
• Specific goals
• Common approach
• Mutual accountability

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A Note on Virtual Teams

• Less effective and innovative than colocated
  teams
• More effective if meet face-to-face initially
• Information transfer more difficult

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Team roles

• Task Initiator, info opinion seeker/giver,
  elaborator, coordinator, orienter, evaluator,
  energizer, procedural technician, recorder
• Maintenance Encourager, harmonizer, compromiser,
  gatekeeper, standard setter, commentator

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Attributes of effective team members

• Working knowledge
• Experience
• Problem-solving ability
• Teamwork factors
• Openness
• Supportiveness
• Personal Style
• Action Orientation

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Work Knowledge

• Experience
• Practical knowledge relevant to team objective
• Problem-solving ability
• Clarifying problem
• Developing strategies to overcome problems

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Teamwork Factors

• Openness
• Willingness to deal with problems
• Surface issues that need to be discussed
• Promote an open exchange of ideas
• But most teams report they dont discuss critical
  issues.

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Teamwork Factors

• Supportiveness
• Desire and willingness to help others succeed.
• Caring
• Supportiveness and openness combine

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Teamwork Factors

• Action oriented
• Tendency toward acting
• Encouraging others to act
• Willingness to experiment

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Teamwork Factors

• Personal Style
• Energetic
• Optimistic
• Confident
• Friendly

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Why teams fail

• Management
• Members

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Why teams fail (management)

• Bad strategies, practices (game plan)
• Hostile environment (rewards, climate)
• Quick fix mentality
• No transfer of learning
• Conflicting goals (between teams)
• Poor skills and/or staffing
• Lack of trust (recall this when we get to
  motivation)

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Why teams fail (members)

• Too much, too soon
• Work style conflicts
• Results-only focus (think process, especially at
  first!)
• Roadblocks kill morale (show wins)
• Resistance to change (personality trait)
• Jerks Interpersonal skills
• Jerks Interpersonal chemistry
• Lack of trust (motivation)

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Group Decision Making
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Wilderness Survival
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• Groups have greater resources than individuals,
  but group dynamics may inhibit the realization of
  the groups full potential

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Markets vs. small groups
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What makes wise groups

• Diversity of opinion
• Independence
• Decentralization
• Aggregation
• Individual judgmentsinformation error. In big
  enough groups, errors cancel each other out

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Making small groups wise

• Must ensure
• Diversity of opinion
• Independence
• Decentralization
• Aggregation
• What interferes with this?

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Problems in Group Decision Making

• Emphasizing consensus over dissent
• (groupthink)
• Difficulty incorporating non-shared information

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Problems in Group Decision Making

• Overly influential individuals
• Earlier comments more influential
• But theres no relationship between who speaks
  first and knowledge

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• Overly Influential
• Talkativeness
• Higher status people talk more and more
  frequently than lower status individuals
• Even when they dont know what theyre talking
  about, high status folks speak more
• People who talk more are also talked to more
• May not be liked, but are listened to
• No clear relationship between talkativeness and
  expertise

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• Ideas need champions
• Dominant individuals may champion the wrong
  idea

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Problems in Group Decision Making

• Group polarization
• Group decisions become more extreme than
  individual decisions
• Groups depolarize when opinion is equally split
  and both sides are explored

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Problems in Group Decision Making

• Social loafing
• Individuals work less hard in group
• Diffusion of responsibility
• No one person is responsible for
  decision/implementation
• Production-blocking
• Quantity and quality of ideas better for
  individuals working separately than those working
  in a group

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Techniques to improve group decision making

• Ensure everyone has a chance to speak
• Minority viewpoint (even if wrong) makes the
  groups decision more nuanced.
• Discuss before deciding (verdict-based groups and
  evidence-based groups)
• Devils advocate
• Nominal Group Technique/Stepladder approach