i/o psychology - chapter 11/12

6 characteristics of effective groups

1) shared goals and purpose

2) agreed upon decision guidelines/procedures

3) communicate freely w/ each other

4) help each other

5) deal with intragroup conflict

6) identify/improve individual and group processes

types of teams

• groups vs. teams - teams interdependent with complimentary skills and shared goals

• functional teams - daily work on many tasks ongoing and interdependent

  • ex. department functions (marketing, HR, quality assurance)

• problem-solving teams - focus on specific issues

  • ex. consultant teams

• cross-functional teams - bring people with different skills together to find and solve mutual problems

  • ex. green beret special force

• self-managed teams - work together to produce entire product (leaderless team)

  • ex. whole foods, zappos

• can combine any of these too

stages of team development

regardless of team, all go through the following life cycle:

• forming - get the group together, decide on goals

• storming - face conflict

• norming - come to agreement, re-eval standards, set norms

• performing - teams diverge (extend their scope)/branch out, autonomous members

• adjourning - after problem is solved, team dies

⭐ risk of failure in transitory periods between stages

⭐️ maturity/acclimation of team increases as time goes on

influences on team effectiveness

• context

  • ex. trying to cultivate NYC work ethic in middle of Minnesota

• goals

  • is everyone on same page?

• size

  • team size matters!

  • as team size increases, so do leader demands, leader direction, member tolerance of leader direction, member inhibition (not speaking up), policy use, decision making time

• member roles

  • next card

• norms

  • unwritten rules

  • can often govern behavior more than rules

• cohesiveness

  • glue that binds team together

  • member attraction to their group

• leadership

  • ex. ceo’s paid lots of money because society believes them to be the leader CAUSING an outcome

outcomes of these influences:

• performance

• member satisfaction

• other

team member roles and behaviors

• group task role - getting job done

  • initiating, seeking info, giving info, coordinating, eval

• group building (relationship) role - interpersonal relations

  • encouraging, harmonizing, making standards, following

• self-centered role - satisfying personal goals

  • blocking progress, seeking recognition, dominating, avoiding involvement

groupthink

attempting to reach consensus at ALL COSTS

conditions

• high cohesiveness and strong group norms

• insulation of team from outsiders

  • ex. echo chamber - beliefs echo through group, no diversity of ideas

• lack methodical procedure for search and appraisal

• directive (dictatorial) leadership

• high stress, low hope for solution better than the one given

• complex/challenging environment

conditions create conformity seeking group

• ex. professor sy helping evaluation board of people considering new professor candidate. he disagreed but board HAD to reach uniformity in decision. professor sy obligated to conform and hire the candidate in the end.

characteristics

• illusion of invulnerability

• collective rationalization

• belief in inherent morality of team

• stereotypes of other groups

• direct pressure on dissenters

• self censorship

• illusion of unanimity

• self appointed mind guards

leads to defective decision making

• incomplete survey of alternatives and goals

• failure to examine risks of preferred choice

• poor info search

• selective bias in processing info

• fail to reappraise alternatives

• fail to work out contingency plans

effective team decision making

likely to be superior to individual decision making WHEN:

• diversity of info is made important

  • opposite of echo chamber

• acceptance of decisions is crucial

  • aka “buy-in” or personal acceptance

• participation important for reinforcing vales of representation vs.authoritarianism

  • ex. ucr made decision to pair with chatgpt and gemini w/o consulting faculty

• team members rely on each other in performing their jobs