Groups and Teams

Group

collection of people who interact such that one person’s actions have an impact on others

• formal: managers and subordinates

• informal: people working together in ways not formally prescribed

Team

coalition of people working together to achieve mutual goals

• key feature: shared and collective purpose

Importance of Assembling one

• accomplish larger, more complex goals that would be impossible for an individual alone

  • some tasks require multiple sets of KSAs

Team Size

cap at 5-7 members

• team effectiveness drops when teams are too large (coordination costs tend to outweigh the benefits)

  • one less person is better than one more person

Team Composition

mix to try to build in variety

• avoid similarity attraction phenomenon: people generally group themselves with similar others

  • makes them susceptible to conformity

Functional Roles in Teams

• Devil’s Advocate: formally assigned to challenge group’s preferred option (improves decision quality as it forces group to justify its reasoning)

• Information Broker: responsible for ensuring that unique information held by individual members actually reaches the group (limits common knowledge effect)

• Boundary Spanner: manages team’s relationship with the outside (brings in external information, resources, and legitimacy, and representing the team’s work to stakeholders) and prevents insularity

Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing Model

Team development

teams go through stages of development in the same way humans do

However

• evidence does not support theory that teams go through specific stages in linear fashion

  • instead, it shows that the life cycle of teams are much more dynamic and cyclical in nature

Forming

Team development

• general sense of excitement as group comes together for the first time

• marker: high uncertainty

  • members tend to be polite, conflict avoidant, and observant

• Goals:

  • try to get to know each other

  • discover what appropriate boundaries are

Storming

Team Development

Members start to shed social facades and become more authentic and argumentative

• Marker: Power and Influence

  • group members begin to stake out territory and form cliques

• Goals

  • express deeper thoughts and feelings

  • explore whether one will truly be accepted

Norming

Team Development

Members resolve differences and are more energized and committed to each other

Marker: Cohesion

• members are more open and respectful and ask each other for help and feedback

Goals

• define operating procedures and goals

Performing

Team Development

People not only get work done, but paying attention to how they’re doing it and at a higher level

Marker: Accomplishment

• members are fully bought in and have confidence to achieve goals

Goals

• help members grow in skill and leadership

Adjourning

Team Development

Group separates or dissolves

Marker: Debriefing

• team members discuss what went right or wrong and what could have been done differently

Goals

• reflect on ways to improve for next time

Punctuated Equilibrium Model

Change within groups occurs in rapid spurts rather than gradually over time

• group remains fairly static, maintaining equilibrium for long periods of time

• change only occurs in punctuated bursts generally catalyzed by a crisis or problem

Norms

informal rules a group enforces about what is acceptable behavior

• learned early on and difficult to change once set

Formation of Norms

• primacy: whatever happens in the first meeting tends to stick

• explicit statements from the leader

• carry over from past groups members have been in

• critical incidents that establish what the group cares about

Importance of Norms

governs information sharing, conflict tolerance, effort expectations, and how dissent is treated

Setting Norms

high-performing teams discuss the operating ones explicitly at the start (how decisions get made, how conflict gets raised, what happens when someone misses a deadline)

Relationship Conflict

personal, emotion-laden, friction, personality clashes, non-work

Task Conflict

work-based, content debates, non-personal

Procedural Conflict

delegation issues, role and resource distribution, coordination issues

Low Performing Group

High Performing Group

Ladder of Inference

Root of relationship conflict

Mistake: only arguing about conclusions

Overcoming Relationship Conflict

Walk back down the ladder of inference

• do i understand your conclusion?

• help me understand your data

• infer and test underlying assumptions

• be willing to be wrong

Evaluating Team Effectiveness

performance

• output meets quantity and quality standards

learning and satisfaction

• involvement contributes to growth and wellbeing of individual members

viability

• team retains ability to work together in the future

Value of Teams

Actual Productivity = Potential Productivity - Process Losses

Process Gains: error correction, cognitive diversity, motivation gains, division of labor

Process Losses: coordination costs, motivation losses, communication failures, decision failures

Pooled

Interdependence in Team Decision Making

Sequential

Interdependence in Team Decision Making

Reciprocal

Interdependence in Team Decision Making

Common Knowledge Effect

Biases in team decision making

• collaborators tend to discuss what everyone already knows and miss unique info

Occurs due to

• Availability: common info is more salient

• Credibility: others can vouch for common info

• Validation: makes you and others feel competent

Redundant information guides decisions

• information held by more members before team discussion has more influence on team judgements than information held by fewer members

Overcoming Common Knowledge Effect

Improve information sharing

• structure the process

  • assign the role of information manager

  • rank order alternatives instead of considering one at a time

  • discuss pros and cons of each option before disclosing preferences

• advocate for ideas that challenge assumptions

  • make a consistent case for an important minority opinion

• establish and enact norms for inquiry

  • unearth the silent minority

  • direct attention to unshared knowledge

Groupthink

Biases in team decision making

tendency to avoid a critical evaluation of ideas that group favors

• occurs more frequently in highly cohesive groups and/or with strong leaders

• often associated with reductions in moral judgment

even if people disagree, people fear they will become marginalized for daring to disagree with group or leader

• people accordingly censor their thoughts to go along with group

• increased social pressure to fit in with group creates illusion of unanimity

Overcoming Groupthink

• Actively seek disconfirming evidence

• Assign a devil’s advocate

• Bring in a neutral, third party

• Create psychological safety

Social Loafing

Biases in team decision making

tendency for people to put in less effort when working in a group context

as number of group members increases, the effort of each member typically decreases

• diffusion of responsibility as group gets larger as it is easier to deflect blame if group fails

Overcoming Social Loafing

• limit number of individuals you need

  • ideal team size

• task significance: less likely when members believe what they are doing is highly important

Cohesion

degree of camaraderie within the team

• “social glue” or shared bond

facts that predict

• similarity

• time: the longer a group stays together, the stronger their bond tends to be

• size: smaller groups tend to have higher levels of this

Benefits of a Cohesive Team

• higher levels of productivity

• members are generally more satisfied and more invested

• members support one another and more likely to persevere through challenging situations

Consequences of a Cohesive Team

• people will modify their behaviors to keep in line with the majority if belonging is valued over all else

• can lead to more instances of common knowledge effect and groupthink

Psychological Safety

belief held by team members on whether it’s okay to take risks

teams without this consistently underperform

• leader’s job to encourage different opinions and explain why everyone’s voice matters

Ineffectiveness of Brainstorming

Production Blocking: forget ideas developed while others are talking

Social Loafing: easy to free ride during it as others are contributing

Anchoring on Early Ideas: first ideas shape entire session as later contributions cluster around what was said first

Brainwriting

working individually and then combining results

• consistently outperforms other methods

Transactive Memory System

team’s shared understanding of who knows what and who knows who knows what

• doesn’t waste time re-explaining context, coordinate varied knowledge, and functionalities

• can be build through explicit role assignments, maps of who knows what, and committing these to memory

• vulnerable to turnover, remote work, poor socialization or communication

Virtual and Distributed Teams

Challenges: decrease in coordination, cohesion

• dynamics are similar, but more difficult to fix problems when they arise

• trust slow to develop

• TMS slower to develop

Remedies

• In-person socialization, early investment in relationships, structured check-ins or drop-in periods