SEM 322 - Test 2

Communication

•  process by which information and meaning transferred from sender to receiver 

• Communicating helpful information to struggling teammate - form of interpersonal citizenship behavior 

• Communication can also be counterproductive, harmful and negative 

• Whole concepts of performance management relies on , feedback, and management - processes can not happen without communication 

Communication Commitment

• rest on our understanding and interpretation of relationship with organization and members 

  • Social influence model of affective commitment - proposes employees who interact more frequently more likely to be influenced by each other

  • connections/links between people where communication occurs 

Communication process

• Information -> Sender -> encoding -> message -> decoding -> receiver = understanding 

  • Information sent to sender, who share information 

  • Information to accomplish goal/task, sender will need to translate (encode) idea into verbal, written, nonverbal message

  • Encoded message transmitted to receiver, who needs to interpret or decode the message to form understanding of information contains 

Face to face communication

•  exchange of information and meaning that occurs when two or more individuals are physically present, where communication occurs without aid of mediating technology 

  • Natural, immediate, type of comprehensive interdependence, “act and react” in real time to content and tone of message exchanged

    • Verbal (spoken and written lagnugae) and nonverbal (voice inflections, hand gestures, facial expressions)

    • “Gold standard of communication” 

    • Most information during face to fact communication is nonverbal cues - info not easily conveyed wearing face mask or wne using computer technology to communicate 

    • Changing with communication technology

Verbal Communication

• Verbal Communciation - form of communication in which messages sent and received suing written and spoken language 

  • Ex- worlds being used to convery information in textbook 

    • Two or more people communicating verbally, engage in activities: reading, writing, speaking, and/or listening 

    • Primary way organizational members communicate with each other, and with individuals and groups outside of organization 

  • Oral and written language - leaders coordinate and control activities of employees 

    • Ex - formal written attendance policy,k collective agreements 

    • Vehicle for obtaining, transferring, and storing information and knowledge within organization 

  • Written messages - text based documents and emails

    • Ubiquitous within organizations, serve many different purposes 

    • Ex- mission statement, corporate goals and values, annual report, work procedures, meeting minutes

  • Oral Communication - more prevalent in organizational settings

    • Managers and supervisors prefer speaking to writing 

    • Formal and structured in work settings, ex - job interviews, team meeints, performance appraisals, formal presentations

    • Informal and spontaneous - relationship building chitchat, casual information exchange 

Verbal Communication - Oral and Written Language

• leaders coordinate and control activities of employees 

  • Ex - formal written attendance policy,k collective agreements 

  • Vehicle for obtaining, transferring, and storing information and knowledge within organization 

• Written messages - text based documents and emails

  • Ubiquitous within organizations, serve many different purposes 

  • Ex- mission statement, corporate goals and values, annual report, work procedures, meeting minutes

• Oral Communication - more prevalent in organizational settings

  • Managers and supervisors prefer speaking to writing 

  • Formal and structured in work settings, ex - job interviews, team meeints, performance appraisals, formal presentations

  • Informal and spontaneous - relationship building chitchat, casual information exchange 

Non verbal Communication

• Deliberate or unconscious use of body language to convey information 

  • Inflection, tone, volume of voice, hand gestures, facial expressions, body posture and stance, eye contact and movements, smell, dress and appearance 

  • “Actions speak louder than words” - imply effective communication involves more than what is sair or read

  • 70-90% of message meaning conveyed not by words buy by body language

5 primary functions on nonverbal communication during face to face exchanges 

• Tell others who we are in terms of personalities, values, intentions, and attitudes 

  • Constantly giving off “signals” that convey info of who we are, motives, what we care about

• Communicate dominance and establish hierarchy within social group

  • Ex- time, eye contact, vocal pitch, facial appearance 

    • Nonverbal displays of Confidence, enthusiasm, and capability can encourage coordination and cooperation within a team 

    • Foster high quality relationships = signal trust to others via nonverbal behavior of willingness to be vulnerable

    • Display emotional states - via facial expressions, bodily gesutres, and tone of voice 

• Separating the effects of body language form verbal cues in face to face interaction can be challenignes 

  • Tend to evaluate and judge quality of relationships on basis of nonverbal instead of verbal cues 

  • Receivers tend to see nonverbal messages more credible, believable and trustworthy sources of information than verbal messages

    • True when discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal messages 

  • Interpretations of nonverbal cues much more than verbal communication have important contexts that need to be considered 

    • Ex- Eye contact, in Canada used to sign interest and engagement, Japan, not looking directly is seen of respect 

Computer based communication

• exchange of information and meaning using an electronic, digital medium 

  • Omnipresent + unavoidable in all organizations

    • Enhanced flow of communication within workplaces, increase form of communication used to connect and coordinate intraorganizational activities 

• Email, Videoconferencing, wikis, social network applications, acheivers

Email

• Electronic mail, most common form of computer mediated communication, involving exchange of written digital messages 

  • Too much email can undermine communication within organizations 

    • Lacks richness as face to face conversation or telephone call 

    • Immediate and informal nature of email messages encourages senders to construct cryptic, idiosyncratic messages hard to interpret 

    • When text based, verbal email messages used to communication messages with emotional content, because email lacks nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and tone of voice, needed to convey feelings

  • Likelihood of conflict and misunderstandings increases those who are limited to email communication like virtual teams

    • Overreliance shown to adversely impact personal relationships

    • As use of email icnreaase, all other forms of communication decreased

    • Email eliminated need for casual face to face interactions, left employees feeling less connected to each other 

    • Volume of emails and spam messages sent everyday contribute to information overload 

  • Use email more effectively

    • Staying organized, labelling and using folders 

    • Don’t forget where delete button is 

    • Reduce ever increase amount of junk email, unsubscribe to websites that send regular promotional materials

    • Be mindful of copying too many people on outgoing messages

    • Limiting time on email - set aside one or more time in day 

Video conferencing

• communication medium that permits real time virtual interaction between remote individuals and individuals or groups via internet

  • Common for colleagues, coworkers, friends, customers, clients to communicate using tools like Zoom, skype, google meet, teams 

    • Viable option for those unable to meet in person yet need to interact in real time using both verbal and nonverbal plus verbal communication 

  • Pros and cons

    • Pros

      • Cost efficient, more task oriented than actual face to face interactions 

      • Connect people and communities 

      • Good for tasks that require simple information exchanges, cooperative problem solving, making routine decisions

    • Cons

      • Limit natural, informal nonverbal messaging 

      • Less effective for tasks require more “communciation bandwidth” such as bargaining, conflict resolution, negotiation, or getting to know people 

      • Overreliance can leave people feeling fatigues and emotionally drained

        • Brains have to work harder to communicate

          • Are not able to naturally process subtle nonverbal cues such as body movements, posture, facial expression, brains work harder to fill gaps to interpret and process both message and messenger 

        • Efforts and concentration needed to communicate 

          • When sharing written materials, difficult because have to read, listen, and watch all at same time 

      • To reduce fatigue, 

        • Avoid multitasking during meetings, lose productive time while switching tabs and poorer recall than those who focus on single task 

          • Close tabs or programs that might distract you (email), put phone away, stay engaged

        • Build in mental breaks, getting away from desk

        • Reduce amount of available information to process 

          • Tend to spend most itme looking at peoples faces and own face, backgrounds, even if not speaking. Encourage people to use plain backgrounds (ex- poster of beach) or agree as group to have everyone not talking turn off video (and audio if background distracting) 

        • Virtual social sessions should be voluntary, whoever owns events makes it explicit people welcome, not obligated to join

        • Switch from videoconferencing to phone or email

          • Best if communicating with people outside organization who don’t know well

          • video calls can be intimate, might not want to be open with person until relationships established

Wikis

• highly flexible application that allows people to quickly exchange verbal information and collaboratively solve problems, learn, manage projects, create knowledge

  • Similar to blogs, allow anyone to edit or delete written content, including work of previous authors 

  • Can be set up and used within organizations to support communication and collaboration within defined community of interest

  • Controlled by one or more “owners”, owners can be assigned by company or can informally emerge within community of users (individual steps forward and sets up wiki to coordinate volunteer opportunities)

    • Role of owner to define purpose of wiki and establish access privileges 

Social network applications

• Ex - Facebook, Youtube, Twitter

• Ubiquiotus, user friendly, highly interactive, conversational, enhance exchange of verbal information between senders and receivers

  • Bring people together in context of accountability, allowing for natural communities to emerge

  • Leveraged to increase individual and team performance by providing information in way that feels naturaland facilitates how people perform their technical roles

• Help aligns HR function with strategic goals (ex- peer based reward and recognition programs based on organizations core values) 

  • Support psychological environment, technical activities occur by strengthening emotional links between people, increasing feelings of empowerment

• Linkedin 

  • Not an internal social network application, but powerful platform for exchanging information with others

  • Challenges

    • Maintain personal security to minimize threat of unauthorized data-scraping activities

    • Limit risks to personal identity by changing passwords often

    • Restrict what information you reveal about yourself

    • Review privacy settings

    • Information managed by users themselves - some people may embellish or fabricate 

Achievers

• Facilitates top down, bottom up and peer to peer communication 

• Communicaiton heavy initiatives - employee engagement, reward and recognition programs, leadership development, promotion vision and values, retain employees

• Verbal - collect and process feedback, send message up to senior managers 

  • Not anonymous

Communication Process, potential issues

Communication competence, noise, information richness, gender differences, privacy

Communication competence

• ability of communicators to encode and interpret messages 

  • Some people have a natural sense of communciaiton, when senders and receivers differ too much in communication abilities, often communication problems emerge 

    • Skilled communicator should be able to process nonverbal information and extract intended meaning

    • Some are better than others in using and processing verbal and nonverbal messages

  • Emotiona states and emotional intelligence - emotions can impact how people express themselves and cloud interpretation of information receive from others 

    • Ability to regulate emotions and understand emotions of others result in clearer communication, less prone to misunderstanding

Noise

• disturbing or distracting stimuli (sounds, environmental events, technical issues) that block or interfere with transmission of message

  • Face to face communication sensitive to presence or absence of noise 

  • Can tak several forms 

    • Steam, make it difficult ot see hand and arm gestures 

    • Restaurant or party because of music or crowd

  • Noise increases effort commmunicators need to exert to make communication process work 

    • Talk louder, more cleary, increase use of alternative means of communicating, like hand gestures

    • Receiver has to listen more carefully, think harder to fill spaces left by spoken words can’t hear

  • If two parties aren’t willing to put extra effort to send and receive messages when there is noise, conversation won’t last long

Information Richness

• amount of depth of information transmitted in a message 

  • Face to face- highest levels of richness because senders can covey meaning through not only words but also body language, facial expressions, tone of voice 

    • Provide opportunity for senders and receivers to get feedback, verify and ensure messages received and interpreted correctly 

    • Quality if face to face communication can decrease - face masks, PPE affect crispness of both verbal and nonverbal data exchange

  • Least rich - computer generated reports that consist of just numbers 

    • Lots of information, limited to information quantifiable, absence of additional cues that provide context and meaning

  • Moderate level of information richness - personal written note

    • Limited to words on page, choice of words and punctuation can add meaning beyond words themselves

    • Try to interpret emotions of sender from content in email - often perceive emotion as negative when its not

  • Higher levels of informaitno richness preferable to lower levels is true when situation or task complex and difficult to understand

    • More cues available, more likely message understand way sender intended

  • Information richness may overcomplicate communication process when taks simple and straightforward

    • Additional info needs to be interpreted by receives increases chance some of cues will seem contradictory, receiver may feel given mixed messages

    • Appropriateness level of information depends on purpose of communication and complexity of task at hand, greater complexity of work, more likely benefits of information richness outweigh costs

Gender Differences

• different ways men and women tend to process and interpret information and communicate with otters 

  • Men - style of communication help to achieve and maintain status, power, and independence 

    • Ex - telling stories or jokes to be centre of attention, beind direct, taking credit 

  • Women - messages and style that builds and strengthens their relationshisp 

    • Ex - building rapport, “I’m sorry”, asking questions, asking for feedback, using compliments, being indirect and subtle 

  • Serious, can lead to misunderstandinsg between male and female team members, fault inferences about each others confidence and competence especially for women

    • Need to be aware of differences to be effective communicators, adapt natural communications style of fit demands of situation 

Privacy

• Federal and provincial governemtns revised or in process of revising laws and commission to regulate how personal information is collected, used, and disclosed

  • Aim of legislation and privacy policies to protect privacy rights while allowing benefit from new communciation channels 

• Ex- Internet allows for anonymous, say anything rude, impolite uncivil 

  • Do not apply in companies, easy to determine who said what, messages more guarded than face to face, downside is undermining of creative expression and innovation as seek to reduce personal risk 

• Protect ourselves and avoid embarrassment in computer mediated communication 

  • Never expect absolute privacy 

  • Befor joining site and posting profile, see if can join closed network

    • Find out oif site allows other to see profile without consent

  • Choose highest and most restrictive security setting available, do not give out ifnormatino like birthday, full name, phone number, social insurance number, address

  • Be mindful of what you’re posting about self, friends, etc

  • Keep in mind sites with extensive privacy options may be required to make personal information available to certain authorized persons, including law enforcement 

Network structure

• patten of communciaiton that typically occurs among members of a formal work unit 

Formal communicaiton

• Vertical

• horizontal

• downward

• upward

Vertical communicaiton

• information following along lines of authority and reporting relationships

Horizontal channels

• when information flows among members of work groups, teams, or functional units who reside at same level of roganization 

  • Communication used to coordinate effort, solve problems, share information, resolve conflicts, build rapport

  • Effecitveness linked to how well members able to work together as team 

Downward communciation

• communication that flows from top to bottom of vertical channel, reinforcing hierarchal nature of organization

  • Purposes

    • Relay directives, decisions, plans, goals, and instructions to subordinates 

    • Written policies, procedures, rules used to icnrease level of consistency within organization 

    • Evaluating subordinates job performance 

  • Concerns 

    • Volume of information flowing from top of organization to bottom requires managers at each level to process and filter information pass down

      • Too much information may cause overwhelmed, lead to deprioritize messages

        • Ignored messages or information gaps and misunderstandings

    • Slow - because of filtering decisions at each level

Upward communication

• communication that flows from bottom to top of vertical channel

  • Ex- managers at higher levels infrared about relevant activities and outcomes at lower levels, unsolved work prlbmes, suggestions for improvements, and how subordinates feel about their jobs

  • Concerns

    • Individual - risk associated with sending messages to superior

    • Politically motivated and used as an influence tactic

  • Best way to improve upward communication - enhance quality of downward communication creating conditions for effective two way communication to occur

All channel network structure

• any member can send and receive messages from any other

  • All information shared equally, allows members to verify accuracy of messages receives

  • Ex- student teams

Circular Network structure

• members send and receive messages from indiivduals who are immediately adjacent to them 

  • All information shared within group, information with flows in serial manner from one member to another

  • Concdern - message becomes distorted or embellished, misunder4stnadings passed along

  • Nature of circle does not permit members to check or verify content of messages received with nonadjacent members in network - only check would be when message originally sent eventually makes back to you 

Chain Network Structure

• information passed from member to member from one end of chain to other

  • Typical in hierartchical organizaitonal structure, epitomizes downward communication 

  • Upward communication - facilitated by chain structure

  • Relies on each intervening member to faithfuylly pass along message

  • strength/weakness - receiver completely dependent on adjacent person for information 

    • Depends on task being performed by team or work unit

Y Network Structure

• Flow through single member

• One member controls flow of information between one set of members (who might interact) and another 

• Centralization but communication allowed between certain members 

• Use centralized networks often consist of formal leader who makes final decision on basis of recommendation from members who have special expertise 

Wheel Network Structure

• Flow through single member

• Little or no direct formal communication between “spokes”

• Person occupying central posiiotn (ex- leader) within wheel controls all information flow and communication, decides who receives information and who doesn’t 

Communication Network Structures - ACCYW

• All: All-Channel (Everyone talks to everyone).

• Circles: Circle (Each person communicates with two neighbors).

• Chain: Chain (Information flows in a straight line).

• Your: Y-structure (Two people report to one, who then passes it down a chain).

• Wheels: Wheel (A central "hub" person manages all communication).

Informal Communication networks

• spontaneous and emergent patterns of communication that result from choices individuals make on own 

  • Rooted in personal friendships, physical proximity, shared interests

    • Small, few people or large and ubiquitous

    • Information travels fast, content of messages often confirming, contradicting, elaborating upon information that travels through formal channels

    • Information from informal sources may be viewed as more believable and trustworthy than than formal 

• Ex- Grapevine, Rumours & Gossip

Grapevine

• THE primary informal communication network within organization, used by people ot circulate information about work or other people

  • Random, unsystematic, arbitrary 

  • Source can be difficult to locate, often crossing hierarchical levels, functional roles, professional affiliatiosn within organization 

  • Speed information (bad news) travels, relative accuracy )approx 75%)

  • Mimics social media technology, information passed verbally by means of “word of mouth” 

    • Unlike social media, not traceable, no “paper trail” or record of who said what and when 

  • Can’t really control grapviene, but sometimes senior managers will sue grapevine to spread information that can’t be shared officially if they want subtle way to test employee reaction to new policies before announcing anything 

Rumours and gossip

• Messages that lack evidence to truth or validity, yet explain confusing events and flourish in atmosphere of secrecy and competition 

  • Unverified statements circulated

  • Information in nature or personal

• Rumours about other people = gossip 

  • Rarely in positive light, idle chatter or chit chat

  • Informal and evaluative talk in organization, not more than few individuals, abou another member in organization not present

How important is communication?

• Supervisor feedback - downward communication linked ot future job performance and organizaiton commitment 

  • On own, has relatively weak correlation to job performance 

    • To produce change in performance, feedback that is negative can demoralize and discourage, lower rather than higher performance 

    • Feedback acceptable? Relevant?source credible? 

      • Rejected - motivation to change won’t increase

  • Organizaiton commitment

    • Accurate and timely (helpful) downward communication should enhance work environment, convey menuine support and confidence, encouraging to share information, offer suggestion to solve problems, participate in decision making

Face to face vs computer mediated communication

• Face to face communication STRONG = Verval and non verbal messages

• Computer mediated communication (email, video conferencing, wikis, social network applications) 

  • STRONG = Verbal messages

  • WEAK = nonverbal messages

Cultural context

• cultural factors that affect the communication of the intended meaning

Attribution

• the process in which people look for the explanation of another person’s behavior; the explanation is usually attributed to the other person’s characteristics (the fundamental attribution error0 

High context cultures

• feelings and thoughts are not explicitly expressed, one has to read between the lines and interpret meaning from one’s general understanding

Low context cultures

• personal and business relationships are more separated, communication media have to be more explicitly, feelings and thoughts are expressed in words, and information more readily available

Team

• two or more people who work interdependently over some time period to accomplish common goals related to some task oriented purpose

  • Interaction among members revolve around a deeper dependence on one another than interactions within groups

    • Interactions within teams occur with specific task related purpose in mind

    • Depend on each other for critical information, materials, and actions needed to accomplish goals related to purpose of being together 

  • Nature of today’s work requires teams

    • More complex, interactions between multiple team members more vital, allow team to pool complementary knowledge and skills

5 types of teams

Work team, Management team, Parallel team, project team, Action team

5 Types of Teams (AMPPA)

• Work: Work Team (Permanent, produce goods or provide services).

• Managers: Management Team (Coordinate subunits across the organization).

• Prefer: Parallel Team (Members from different jobs who provide recommendations/resolve issues).

• Project: Project Team (Created for a one-time task; complex and requires different expertise).

• Action: Action Team (Perform complex tasks in highly visible or challenging circumstances).

Work team

• Produce goods or provide services

• Long life span

  • Designed to be relatively permanent

• High member involvement

  • Generally require full time commitment from memebrs

• Ex- Self Managed work team, production team, maintenance team, sales team

Management Team

• Integrate activities of subunits across business functions

  • Participate in managerial level tasks that affect entire organization

  • Responsible for coordinating activities of organizaitonal subunits - departments of functional areas- to help organization achieve long term goals

• Long life span

  • Designed to be relatively permanent

• Moderate member involvement 

  • Members of management teams usually heads of departments, commitment to management team offset somewhat by responsibilities they have in leading their unit or teams in unit 

• Ex- top management team

Parallel Team

• Provide recommendations and resolve issues

  • Members from various jobs who provide recommendations to managers about important issues that run “parralel” to organizations production process 

• Life span varies

  • Can be permanent or temporary depending on aim 

• Low member involvement

  • Require only part time commitment from members, 

• Ex- Quality circle, advisory council committee

Project Team

• Produce a one-time output (product, service, plan, design, etc)

  • Take on tasks one time that are generally complex, require lot of input from members with different types of training and expertise 

• Life span varies

  • Although exist to finish project, some projects complex and can take years

• Member involvement varies

  • Some full time, some part time

• Ex- Product Design team, research group, Planning team 

Action Team

• Perform complex tasks that vary in duration and take place in highly visible or challenging circumstances

  • Normally limited in duration, tasks complex or take place in contexts highly visible to audience or highly challenging nature

• Life span vaires

  • Can be for extended period based on project timeline or task 

• Member involvement varies

• Ex- Surgical team, musical group, expedition team, sports team

1st model of team development

• Forming - members orient themselves by trying to understand boundaries in team 

  • What is expected, types of behavior allowed, whos in charge

• Storming - members remain committed to ideas bring with them to team

  • Initial unwillingness to accommodate others trigger conflict that negatively affects interpersonal relationships and harms teams progress

• Norming - members realize they need to work together to accomplish team goals and begin to cooperate with each other, feelings of solidarity development as working towards goals

  • Norms and expectations development what different members responsible for

• Performing - members comfortable working within roles, team makes progress toward goals

• Adjourning - members experience anxiety and other emotions as disengage and separate from team 

Second model of team development - Punctuated Equilibrium, pattern of development

• Initial team meeting - members make assumptions and establish pattern of behavior lasts for first half of project life

  • Pattern of behavior habit and create inertia that continues until midway

  • Members then realize have to change approach to task to complete on time 

  • Teams that take opportunity to Plan new approach during transition perform well, new framework dominates behavior until task completion 

  • Teams that don’t take opportunity change approach and persist with original pattern and go down with sinking ship

4 types of team interdependence (PSRC)

• way members of team linked to one another, interactions that take place to accomplish work, goals and rewards

• Ex- Pooled, sequential, reciprocal, comprehensive

• PLEASE SEND REAL COFFEE

Sequential Interdepence

• Different tasks done in prescribed order, group structured such that members specialize in tasks

• Interact to cary out work, interaction occurs only between members who perform tasks next to each other in sequence

• Member performing task in latter part of sequence depends on member performing task in earlier part of sequence but not other way arround 

• Ex- Assembly line

Pooled Interdependence

• Lowest degree of required coordination 

• Complete assignments interdependelty, work is simply “piled up” to represent groups output

• Ex- Fishing boat

Reciprocal Interdependence

• Members specialized to perform specific tasks, instead of strict sequence of activities, members interact with subset of other members to complete teams tasks work

• Ex- team of people that make custom homes for wealthy clients

  • After meeting with client, salesperson provide general criteria, structural and aesthetic details, rough sketches to architect who work up initial plans and evaluations

  • Architect then submit initial plans to salesperson, review plans with client, plans revised by architect several times, during process customers have questions and request that require architect to consult with structural engineer, construction supervisor, salesperson meets with designer for special features

Comprehensive Interdependence

• Highest level of interaction and coordination among members

• Each member has great deal of discretion in what they do and whom they interact with in cours

Goal Interdependence

• High degree of goal interdependence exists when team members have a shared vision of team’s goal and align their individual goals with vision as result 

• How to create high levels of goal interdependence? 

  • Formalized mission statement that everyone bought into, developed by the teams

    • Identify important team goals and action, increase feelings of ownership

Outcome Interdependence

•  how members linked to one another in terms of feedback and outcomes received as consequence of working as a team 

  • High degree of outcome interdependence exists when team members share rewards that ream earns, ex - pay, bonuses, formal feedback and recognitions, extra tiem off, continued team survival 

  • High outcome interdependence implies team members depend on performance of other team members for rewards received

  • Low outcome interdependence exists when indivdiual members receive rewards and punishment on basis of own performance without regard to performance of team 

  • Increase in amount of informaiton shared among members, promotes learning, and team performance 

5 Aspects of team composition (RAPDS)

Member Roles, member ability, Member personality, team diversity, team size

REALLY ABLE PEOPLE DO SIZE

Role

• pattern of behavior a person generally expected to display in given context 

Team Task Roles

• behaviors that directly facilitate the accomplishment of team tasks, importance of task oriented roles depend on nature of work team invovled

  • Initiaor-Contributor: Proposes new ideas

  • Coordinator: tries to coordinate activities among team members

  • Orienter : determines direction of teams discussions

  • Devils advocate: offer challenges to teams status quo

  • Energizer - motivates the team to strive to do better

  • Procedural technician - performs routine tasks needed to keep progress moving

Team building roles

• behaviors that influence quality of teams social climate

  • Encourager - praises the contributions of other team members

  • Harmonizer - mediates differences between group members

  • Compromiser - attempts to find halfway point to end conflict 

  • Gatekeeper-expediter - encourages participation from teammates

  • Standard setter - expresses goals for team to achieve

  • Follower - accepts the ideas of teammates

Individualistic Roles

• behaviors that benefit the individual at expense of team

  • Aggressor - deflates teammates, expresses disapproval with hostility

  • Blocker - acts stubbornly resistant and disagrees beyond reason

  • Recognition seeker - brags and calls attention to themselves

  • Self confessor - discloses personal opinions inappropriately 

  • Slacker - acts cynically or nonchalantly or goofs off

  • Dominator - manipulates team members for personal control 

Member Ability

• Physical abilities

• Cognitive abilities 

• Disjunctive task

• conjunctive task

• additive tasks

Disjunctive Tasks

• in tasks with objectively verifiable best solution, member who posses highest level of ability relevant to task will have most influence on effectiveness of team 

Conjunctive tasks

•  teams performance depends on abilities of the “weakest link”

Additive Tasks

•  contributions resulting from abilities of every member add up to determine team performance 

Member Personality

• Agreeableness - tend to prefer harmony, easier to work with, they care more about success of work than own interests but too many agreeable members mean everyone will keep harmony of group at expense of task

• Conscientiousness - if someone low and doesn’t work hard, have to work harder to motivate them, disgruntled 

• Extraversion - good for positive and optimistic, too many can hurt as extraverts tendency to be assertive and dominant, power struggles and unproductive conflict 

Team Diversity

•  degree to which members are different from one another in terms of any attribute that might be used by someone as a basis of categorizing people 

• Diversity positive effects = value in diversity problem solving approach 

  • Beneficial because provides larger pool of knowledge and perspectives team can draw on for work 

  • Stimulates exchange of information, fosters learning among team members, shared and integrated with knowledge of other members, help team perform more effectively 

• Diversity detrimental 

  • Similarity attraction approach - people tend to be more attracted to others who perceived to be similar

    • People tend to avoid interacting with those perceived to be dissimilar, reduce likelihood of having uncomfortable disagreements

Surface Level diversity

• diversity regarding observable attributes such as race, ethnicity, sex, and age

  • May have negative impact on teams early on because of similarity attract, negative effects disappear as members become more familiar with and knowledgeable of one another

    • Stereotypes members have about one another replaced with knowledge underlying characteristics more relevant to social and task interactions

Deep Level diversity

•  diversity with respect to attributes that are less easy to observe initially but can be inferred after more direct experience

  • Difference in attitudes, values, and personality 

  • Time increase negative effects of deep level diversity on team functioning and effectiveness

    • Learn more about each other, differences relate to underlying values and goals become apparent, can create problems that can reduce effectiveness

  • Manage negative effects: 

    • Teams instructed to take time to reflect on progress toward goals and strategies 

    • Positive effects on team creativity when members instructed to take perspectives of teammates

    • Team leaders emphasize teams task and provide explicit direction regarding team procedures, standards, roles, and expectations

      • Team leaders can make problems worse, increased in teams with leaders who emphasize freedom of expression and participation 

Team Size

• Having greater number of members beneficial for management and projects team that work is complex and knowledge intensive, benefit from additional resources and expertise

• Production eams in routine tasks less complex, additional members than needed result in unnecessary coordination and communication problems

  • Additional members less productive because more socializing, less accountable for team outcomes

Team Process

• different types of interacftions that occur within team as team works towards goals

Process Gain

• getting more form team than expect according to capabilities of individual members

  • Synergy - critical in situations complexity of work high, tasks requires members to combine knowledge, skills, and efforts to solve problems

Process Loss

• getting less from team than expect on basis of capabiltiis of individual members 

  • Coordination loss - coordinate acitviites with teammates activities, consume time and energy that could have been devoted to task 

    • Driven by production blocking - members have to wait on one another before can do their part of team task 

  • Motivational loss- team members don’t work as hard as they could 

    • Difficult to gauge how uch each team member contributes to team, some contributions less obvious, don’t work at same time 

    • Social loafing - less effort when working on team tasks than if worked alone due to less accountable for team outcomes 

Taskwork processes

•  activities of team members that relate directly to accomplishment of team tasks 

• Creative behavior, decision making

Creative behavior

• focused on generating novel and useful ideas and solutions 

  • Driven by creativity on individual employees because some simply more creative and original and imaginative than others

  • Creativity affected by conformity and attention to detail 

  • Be open to developing informal means of coordinating potential synergies 

    • Ex- Brainstorming develop large pool o fideas 

      • Some research shows better to make ideas indvidiaully than present to group

        • Tendency for people to social loaf in brainstorming sessions, may not work hard thinking of ideas if they didn’t have to prepare list with name on it

        • Hesitant to express ideas 

        • Production blocking because members have to wait their turn to express ideas, consumes time that can be used to generate new ideas 

      • Builds morale, people think best way, sharing of knowledge

Nominal Group technique

•  bring team together and outline purpose of meeting, give people time to write down ideas on paper, share ideas in group, ideas recorded, discussion to clarify and build on ideas, individually members rank ideas and submit, tabulate scores to determine winning idea

  • Decrease social loafing and production blocking

  • Easier to share ideas in group

Decision Making

• Decision making in teamsresult from interaction among team members

• Consensus - general agreement among members to final solution 

  • Ex- Juries

• Involve multiple members gathering and considering information that’s relevant to their area of specialization and then making recommendations to team leader who responsible for final decision, judged with accuracy or effectiveness

Team ability to make effective decision factors

• Decision conformity - whether members possess adequate information abou their own task responsibilities

  • Ex- project team fail when marketing person doesn’t gather enough information about desires and needs of client

• Staff validity - degree to which members make good recommendations to leader

  • Team member can have all the right ifnrmation to make good recommendation but fail to do so because of lack of ability, insight, or good judgement

• Hierachical sensitivity - degree to which leader effectively weights recommendations of members

  • Who does leader listen to? Ignore? 

Boundary Spanning

• activities with individuals and groups other than those who are considered part of team

  • Ambassador activities - communications intended to protect team, persuade others to support team, obtain important resources for team 

    • Tend to communicate with people higher up in organization 

  • Task coordinator activities - involve communications that are intended to coordinate task related issues with people or groups in other functional areas

    • Member of marketing team meet with someone from manufacturing to work out how coupon might be integrated into product packaging materials

  • Scout activities - thing steam members do to obtain information about technology, competitors, or broader marketplace 

    • Marketing team member meet with engineer to seek information about new materials 

  • Boundary spanning activities may be as important to determining team success as processes that occur entirely within team 

    • Many teams in organizaitons involved with complex work that requires going outside team to coordinate, support, resources, and information, beneficial to have members with expertise, experiences, and type of disposition to engage in boundary spanning activities 

Transitino Processes

• teamwork activities that focus on preparation for future work 

  • Ex- Mission analysis - analysis of team task, challenges, resources availability

    • Strategy formulatio - development of courses of action and contingency plans, adapting plans in light of changes

    • Goal specification - development and prioritization of goals related to mission and strategy 

  • Relevant before team begins to conduct work, important between periods of work activity, improve effectiveness of teams

Action Processes

• important as taskwork being accomplished

  • Monitoring progress towards goals - good position to realikze when “off track” and need to make changes

  • Systems monitoring - keeping track of things that team needs to accomplish its work 

    • If don’t - run out of inventory, time, resources

  • Helping behavior - members going out of way to help or back up other team members

    • Provide indirect help in form of feedback or coaching, assistance with tasks and responsibilities

    • Helpful and workload distributed unequally among team members

  • Coordination - sychronizing team members activities to mesh effectively and seamlessly 

    • Poor coordination results in team members constantly having to wait on others for information or resources necessary to do their part of work

Interpersonal Processes

• important before, during, or between periods of task work, related to manner in which team members manage their relationships

  • Motivating and confidence building - things team members do or say that affect the degree to which members motivataed to work hard on teams task

    • Expressions that create sense of urgency and optimism 

  • Affect management - activities that foster sense of emotional balance and unity

Conflict Management

activites that team uses to manage conflicts that arise in course of work, conflict tends to be negative but nature of effect focus on conflict and manner conflict managed

• Effective conflict management 

  • Important for members to stay focused on teams mission, can rationally evaluate relative merits of each position

  • Benefits of task conflict disapper if level of conflict gets too heated, acting in self interest rather than interest of team, or high relationship conflict

  • Need to discuss position openly and willing to exchange information that fosters collaboratively problem solving

Relationship conflict

•  disagreements among team members in terms of interpersonal relationship or incompatibilities with respect to personal values or preferences

  • Centres on issues not related to teams task

  • Dissatisfying, result in reduced team performance

Task Conflict

• disagreements about teams tasks, can be beneficial if stimulates conversatiosn that result in development and expression of new ideas

  • Tends to result in reduced team effectiveness unless several conditions present

    • Need to trust on another, be confidence can express opinions openly without fear of reprisals

    • Need to engage in effective conflict management principles

    • May benefit teams as long as composed of members emotionally stable and open to new experiences

  • Most beneficial to teams when relationship conflict low, focus on efforts trying to reduce aspect of conflict

    • Benefit when conflict positively skewed, majority of team unaware of conlifct occurs among few members of team

Team States - CPMT

 specific types of feelings and thoughts that coalesce in minds of team members as consequence of expertise working together

Cohesion, Potency, Mental Models, Transactive memory

CAN PEOPLE MEMORIZE THINGS

• Can: Cohesion (The emotional bond and "stickiness" between members).

• People: Potency (The team's collective confidence that they can succeed).

• Memorize: Mental Models (The shared understanding of how the work gets done).

• Things: Transactive Memory (Knowing who knows what on the team).

Cohesion

• emotional entachment to other members of team and team itself

  • Foster high levels of motivation and commitment to team, promote higher levels of team performance

    • Reciprocal relationship with team performance, higher team performance = higher team cohesion = enhance team cohesion

  • In highly cohesive teams, sometimes bad

    • Maintain harmony without offering, seeking, considering alternative viewpoints and perspectives, conformity expense of team priorities = Groupthink, feelings of overconfidence about teams capabilities 

Potency

• members believe team can be effective across variety of situations and tasks

  • High potency = members confidence team can perform well, consequence focus energe onf team tasks and teamwork in hopes of achieving team goals

  • Low potency = members not as confident about team, question team goals and one another

    • Result focusing on energies that don’t benefit them 

  • Potency has strong positive impact on team performance

    • Con - team confidence too high, decrease amount of beneficial discussions centred on different position relevant to team 

  • How to develop high potency? 

    • Confidence in own capabilities, trust in other members capabilities, feedback about past performance

Mental Models

• level of common understanding among team members with regard to important aspects of team and its task, degree to which knowledge shared among members 

  • Ex- understanding of one another capabilities, more likely to know where to go for help they might need to complete work 

    • Shared understanding of processes necessary to be effective, carry out processes efficiently and smoothly 

Transactive Memory

• how specialized knowledge is distributed among members in manner results in effective system of memory for team 

  • Not everyone on team have same knowledge, members understand when own specialized knowledge relevant to team and how knowledge should be combined with specialized knowledge of other members to accomplish team goals

  • Meta knowledge - knowledge of who knows what

  • Fragile because memory system depends on each and every member

Team performance

• metrics such as quantity and quality of goods or services produced, customer satisfaction, effectiveness or accuracy of decisions, victories, completed reports, successful investigations

Team viability

• team commitment, likelihood team can work together effectively into future

Cross Training

• training members in the duties and responsibilities of their teammates

  • Team members can develop shared mental modes of whats invovled in each of the roles in the team 

  • Invovle instruction at three different levels of depth

    • Personal clarification - shallowest

      • Receive informatino regarding roles of other team members

    • Positoional modelling - team members observing how other members perform their roles

    • Positional rotation - gives members actual experience carrying out responsibilities of teammates

      • Hands on expand skills

      • Level of training required to achieve proficiency or certification may be prohibitive 

      • Ex- surgeon

Team process training

• context of team experience that facilitates team being able to function and perform more effectively as intact unit 

  • Action learning - team given real problem relevant to organization and held accountable for problem, developing action plan, carrying out action plan

    • Team receives coaching to help facilitate more effective processes during different phases of project

    • Meeting during team members encouraged to reflect on team processes used as worked on project

  • Experience in team context when task demands highlight importance of effective teamwork processes 

Team building

• by consultant, facilitate development of team processes related to goal setting, interpersonal relations, problem solving,role clarification

  • Meta analysis - no significant effect on team performance for productivity 

  • Positive effects on smaller teams and situations where exercise emphasize important of clarifying role responsibilities 

Power

• ability to influence the behavior of others and resist unwanted influence in return 

  • Just because someone has influence does not eman they will use it 

    • Power can be seen as ability to resist influence attempts of others, voicing dissenting opinion, refusal to perform behavior, organization of opposing group of coworkers

Organizational Power (LRC)

• Legitimate power

• Reward power

• Coercive Power

LITTLE RATS CRAWL

Legitimate Power

• derives from position of authority inside organization and sometimes referred to as formal authority, have title

  • Have understood right to ask others to do things within scope of their authority

  • Limits - does not give person right to ask employees to do something outside scope of jobs or roles

  • Guidlines for use

    • Stay within rights your position holds

    • Communicate request politely 

    • Make sure describe purpose of your request