full set Organization Behaviour Final Exam

Introduction to Teams: Teams

Two or more people who depend on each other and work together over time to achieve a shared goal

Team Types: Work Teams

A work team is the kind of team that does the organization's regular everyday work

R/F: long life span, high member involvement

Ex: production team members work together to assemble vehicles

Team Types: Management teams

Managers from different departments making big decisions for the whole company

R/F: long life span, moderate member involvement”

Team Types: Parallel Teams

Groups made up of different jobs or departments within an organization who meet to give recommendations or solve important issues that are alongside the normal production of work not the main everyday work itself

R/F: Life span varies, low member involvement”

Team Types: Project Teams

Teams created to do a one-time task, and that task is usually more complex and needs people from different areas to work together

R/F: lifespan varies, member involvement varies

Ex: Launching a new app, opening a new store

Team Types: Action Teams

They come together for a limited amount of time to perform a complex task in a situation that is often high-pressure, visible, and challenging (centered around performing a task)

R/F: life span varies, member involvement varies

Ex: Surgery, flight crew

Team development: Forming

Beginning stage

People are just getting started and trying to understand what they are doing

Team development: Storming

This is the conflict stage

People start pushing their own opinions

Team development: Norming

Team starts to settle down

Team starts getting on the same page

Team development: Performing

Team is working smoothly and effectively

Now the team is not wasting much time on confusion or conflict

Team development: Adjourning

This is the ending stage

The job is over so the team breaks up

For work teams this process might be a quite stressful process depending on how long they worked together for

Punctuated equilibrium model

Another way to explain how teams develop but its used more for project teams then long-term teams

Punctuated equilibrium model: Time

The team quickly falls into a routine that lasts for the first half of the project

Punctuated equilibrium model: Midpoint

Memebers then realize they must change their approach if they want to finish ontime

Punctuated equilibrium model: Time (2)

The team adopts a better plan and sticks with it until the project ends

Team interdependence

The way team members are connected to eachother

There are 3 types: Task, goal and outcome interdependence

Task interdependence

How bad team members need each other to get the work done

4 types of task interdependence

The higher up the scale you go, coordination increases, adaptability increases, productivity decreases,

Task interdependence: Pooled interdependence

The loosest form of task inderpendence

Each team member does their own seperate part of the work, then all of the individual work gets combined at the end

R/F: Not great for adapting and learning from eachother, high productivity and low coordination”

Task interdependence: Sequential interdependence

Team members do the work in a set order, so each person's job depends on the person before them finishing first

Tasks are being done in a prescribed order

Task interdependence: Recriprocal Interdependence

People doing different tasks

Not in a prescribed order, high degree of coordination with high adaptability but lower productivity

Task interdependence: Comprehensive Interdependence

Team members are all so connected that they usually need to constantly coordinate, share info, and adjust to one another while doing the work
R/F: requires high coordination, so lower productivity, but high adaptability

The highest most connected form of task interdependence

Goal interdependence

Team members share the same goal and line up their personal goals with that team goal

Outcome interdependence

Team members share the results or consequences of the team’s performance

High outcome: each person’s reward, evaluation, or success depends a lot on how the whole team performs, not just on their own individual work

Team composition

What kind of people make up a team

There are five different types: member roles, member ability, member personalilty, team diversity, team size

Member roles

They are the jobs or behaviours team members take on to help the team work together

Member roles: Team task roles

Roles that help the team actually get the job done

Member roles: Team building roles

Roles that help the team get along well

They are not mainly about the task itself- they are about keeping the group positive, cooperativem and comfortable (desirable in a team)

Member roles: Individualistic roles

Behaviours that help the person, but not the team. Not desirable in a team

Ex: someone who tries to get attention for themselves

brags about what they did

Team task roles: initiator-contributor

Proposes new ideas

Team task roles: Devils advocate

Someone who points out possible problems in an idea so the team does not make a bad decision

Team task roles: Energizer

Motivates the team to strive to do better

Team building roles: Encourager

The person who builds people up

Team building roles: Compromiser

The person who helps to settle disagreements

Team building roles: follower

Person who goes along with the teams direction once decision is made

Individualistic roles: Recognition seeker

Teammate who wants the spotlight

Individualistic roles: Slacker

Teammate who does not really put in much effort

Member ability: additive tasks

Additive tasks are tasks where team performance depends on the total of all members’ contributions added together

The more each person contributes, the better the team performs.

Example: 4 people each give 5 ideas, so the team produces 20 ideas total.

Member ability: Disjunctive tasks

The most able member has the biggest influence on team performance

Ex: Group is trying to solve a hard puzzle, if one person figures it out the whole team benefits

Member ability: conjunctive tasks

The least able member has the biggest influence on team performance

Team can only go as fast as the weakest link

Ex: 4 people carrying a couch; if one person cant keep up the whole group can be hurt

Member personality: Agreeableness

Promotes harmony and cooperation, but too much can be a problem since no one will challenge weak ideas

Memeber personality: Extraversion

This person bring energy and is comfortable speaking up

But too many can lead to people interrupting and not enough listening, which can be detrimental

Memeber personality: Conscientiousness

This person actually does the work properly (hardworking and dependable)

Even one member low in conscientiousness can be detrimental

Team diversity

Degree to which team members are different from one another

2 perspectives:

Value in diversity problem-solving approach: good for complex/creative work, benefits from other people's ideas/approaches

Similarity-attraction approach: we like to associate with people similar to us

Team diversity: Surface level diversity

Differences in observable characteristics, like race, sex, ethnicity, and age

Has an negative impact at the start because you can see the differences

Team diversity: Deep-level diversity

Differences in things you learn overtime like values, and personality

These differences you dont always see immediately, but you discover them as people work together

Time increases the negative effects of deep-level diversity

Team size

The best team size depends on team types. Bigger teams can help for management and project teams. Bigger teams tend to not work well for production tasks

Complex tasks benefits from more members; more expertise helps gets tasks done

Simpler tasks (production) want as many members as needed to get work done, so they need less coordination to have higher productivity

Team process

Activities and interactions that happen inside a team while the team is working towards the goal

Team process: taskwork process

These are the activities that relate directly to completing the task itself

R/F: Process gains: getting together and realizing you have greater effectiveness together than individual contributions.

Process losses: individual contributions/abilities are worse in a group than expected

Task work process: Creative behaviour- brainstorming

Trying to come up with as many ideas as possible first, without worrying too much about judging them right away

R/F: increases morale, positive feelings, but results in lower quantity/quality than people working alone

Rarely works as intended because of social loading, hesitancy to express ideas, production blocking

Brainstorming: social loafing

People put in less effort when they are working in a group than when they would if they were working alone

Brainstorming: Hesitancy to express ideas

People may hold back their thoughts because they are worried the idea sounds dumb, weird or not good enough

Brainstorming: production blocking

When group members cannot share ideas right away because only one person can talk at a time

Creative behaviour: Nominal group technique

Instead of everyone shouting ideas out right away in a group, people first think ideas on their own, then bring them to the group after

Helps prevent social loafing and production blocking

Decision making- decision informity

Do team members actually know the information they are supposed to know about their own part of the job

Decision making- staff validity

Even if members have information, do they turn it into good advice

Quality of the recommendations

Decision making- Hierarchical sensitivity

The leader does not just hear ideas- the leader has to judge them to give the right amount of weight to each one

Taskwork process: boundary spanning

Doing activities with people who are outside the team

Scout activities: things team members do to get information from outside the team

Team process: Teamwork process

Interpersonal activties that help the team accomplish the task, even though they are not the task itself

Teamwork process- Transition processes

This team is getting ready. it is the planning stage

Happens before and between periods

Teamwork process: Action process

What the team does during the work to keep things moving while work is taking place

Teamwork process: Interpersonal processes

How team members get along with eachother

Happens all the time

Mission analysis

understanding the task, the challenges, and the resources before moving forward (the team is planning ahead)

Coordination

Team members sync their work so everything fits together smoothly (happens while the work is being done)

Poor coordination results in members having to wait on others for information source

Conflict management

What a team does to handle conflict that comes up while the team is working

Relationship: disagreements in interpersonal relationships

Task: disagreements about the team

Team process: Team states

These are the feelings and thoughts team members develop as a result of working together

Team states: Cohesion

The team members feel a strong emotional bond with eachother, level of closeness and connection

If at a moderate level it can have faster motivation, commitment, and performance and lead to conformity and overconfidence

Team states: Potency

The teams shared confidence that it can be successful

Generally beneficial, but too much confidence early on can hurt you

Has a strong positive correlation with team performance

Team states: Mental models

The team has a shared picture in their heads of how the team and task work

Ex: members agree about how conflicts should be managed in the groups

People on the team all understand the same process in the same way

Team states: Transactive memory

You dont need to know everything, as long as our team know who the expert is for each thing

If someone leave it very much disadvantages your team

Transactive memory *Lecture only*

Liang examined transactive memory in a radio assembly task

Transactive memory *Lecture only*: Findings

Compared to groups whose members were trained alone, groups whose members were trained together

Remembered more about how to assemble a radio

Made fewer errors while assembling the radio

Worked at the same speed as those who trained alone

Transactive memory evidence

Memory differentiation: different team members each remember or know different parts

Task coordination: people know who is good at what, they can organize the work better

Task credibility: team members trust one another's knowledge

Transportable teamwork competencies

Training people in general teamwork skills that can carry from one team to another, instead of training people for one specific team

Ex: conflict resolution, goal-setting, and communicatioon

Cross trainning

Teaching team members about duties and responsibilities of their teammates, not just their own job

Purpose: helps the team work better as a whole

Cross-trainning: levels of depth

Personal clarification: Receives information. Told what the other person’s job involves

Positional modelling: observe. You watch how someone else does their job

Position rotation: experience. Members actually experience carrying out the responsibilities of their teammates

Team process training

Giving a team real experiences that help the team learn how to function and perform better together as a whole unit

action learning ex: team practices teamwork by dealing with an actually issue together

Team building

Fun activities that facilitate team problem-solving, trust, relationship building, and clarification of role responsibilities

Not always effective in increasing productivity

Power

Having the ability to influence other peoples behaviour and resist unwanted influence from them in return

Organizational power: Legitimate power

Power that comes from your official position or title

Ex: someone that is above you; coach manager, teacher, team leader, referee

Organizational power: Reward based power

Power by being able to give people what they want (power through rewards)

Ex: teacher gives participation marks to students who contribute in class

Organizational power: Coercive power

Power that comes from being able to punish someone or give them negative consequences

Personal power: expert power

Power that comes from having knowledge, expertise, or a valuable skill

Ex: going to an older coach because they know more than you

Personal power: Referent power

It comes from charisma, attractiveness, likeability or admiration

How likeable you are

You have power because people admire you

Contingencies of power

Factors of how much power someone has

Contingencies of power: Substituability

How easily it would be for someone else to do your job instead of you

Low substituability: not many people can do what you do

High substitutability: lots of people can do what you do (easily replaceable)

Ex: lots of people can teach a cartwheel (low); not many people can teach one (high)

Contingencies of power: discretion

How much freedom you have to make your own decisions

Low: you can make your own decisions

High: you have to ask before you do something

Contingencies of power: centrality

How important your role is to the organization's goal or to getting work done

Low: employee works more on their own, few people rely on them

High: A lot of people depend on that person

Contingencies of power: visability

How noticeable your work and role are to others

Low: people dont know who you are or what value you provide

High: People know who you are and what value you provide

Influence

How you try to get someone to do something, agree with something or see something differently

There are 10 Tactics

Influence: Rational persuasion (most effective)

Using logic, facts and evidence to show why something makes sense

Using proof that something’s a good idea- common sense

Only tactic that can work effectively in upward direction (can inflence people in positions higher than you)

Influence: Inspriational appeal (most effective)

Having people want to do something because it feels meaningful or special to them

Ex: if we work together, we can make this project something to be proud of

purpose of what they are doing

Influence: Consultation (most effective)

Asking someone for their ideas or letting them help decide, so they are more likely to support what you want (ask for their input)

Influence: collaboration (most effective)

Making the request easier by offering help, support, or resources (you actually work with them to do this)

Ex: Can you finish this report today? I’ll send you the data and help with the slides

Influence: Integration (moderately effective)

trying to get someone to like you bu using flattery, praise, or friendliness

Influence: Personal appeals (moderately effective)

Asking based on friendship, loyalty, or your relationship with the person

Do something for me because we are close

Influence: Appraising (moderately effective)

Telling someone why doing something will help them

Explaining what’s in it for them

Ex: can you cover my shift? youll get extra hours and more pay

Influence: Pressure (least effective)

Using threats, demands, or intimidation

closely connected with cocerieve power

May work once or twice but not longterm

Influence: Coalitions (least effective)

Getting other people to help pressure or persuade the target

Teaming up to influence someone in power

Influence: Exchange tactics (least effective)

Offering a reward in return for doing what you want

Ex: Can you cover my shift on Friday? I’ll cover yours next week

Responses to influence tactics

Internalization: target agrees and becomes committed to request (behavioural and attitudinal changes)- most effective

Compliance: Target is willing to perform requests but does so with indifference (behavioural change only)- medium effective

Resistance: Target is opposed to request and attempts to avoid doing it (no change in behaviour or attitude)- least effective