MHR 300 Chapters 7, 8, 10

Group

Two or more people who interact with one another such that each person influences and is influenced by each other person

Teams

An interdependent collection of at least two individuals who share a common goal and share accountability for the team’s as well as their own outcomes

Workgroups

A formal group formed by an organization to do its work

Command Group

A relatively permanent, formal group with functional reporting relationships and is usually included in the organization chart

Affinity Groups

A collection of employees from the same level in the organization who meet on a regular basis to share information, capture emerging opportunities, and solve problems

Functional Teams

A team whose members come from the same department or function area

Cross-Functional Teams

A team whose members come from different departments or functional areas

Problem-Solving Teams

A team established to solve problems and make improvements at work

Suggestion Teams

Short-lived and assembled to address specific issues

Self-Directed Teams

A team that sets its own goals and decides ways to pursue them

Venture teams

A team that operates semi-autonomously to create and develop new products (product development team), processes (process design team), or businesses (venture team)

Virtual teams

A team of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers who communicate using the Internet and other information technologies

Global teams

A team with members from different countries

Informal Groups

Are formed by their members and consist of friendship groups, which are relatively permanent, and interest groups, which may be shorter-lived.

Friendship Groups

Is relatively permanent and informal and draws its benefits from the social relationships among its members

Interest Groups

Is relatively temporary and informal and is organized around a common activity or interest of its members

Group Composition

The degree of similarity or difference among group members on factors important to the group’s work

Homogeneous Groups

Members are similar in one or several ways that are critical to the work of the group, such as in age, work experience, education, technical specialty, or cultural background.

Heterogeneous Groups

The members differ in one or more ways that are critical to the work of the group

Social Loafing

The tendency of some members of groups to put forth less effort in a group than they would when working alone

Norm

A standard against which the appropriateness of a behavior is judged

Group Cohesiveness

The extent to which a group is committed to staying together

Factors that Increase Group Cohesiveness

Homogeneous composition, mature development, relatively small size, frequent interactions, clear goals (competition or external threat), success

Consequences of High Group Cohesiveness

Goal accomplishment, personal satisfaction of members, increased quantity and quality of interactions, groupthink

Factors that Decrease Group Cohesiveness

Heterogeneous composition, recent formation, large size, physical dispersion, ambiguous goals, failure

Consequences of Low Group Cohesiveness

Difficulty in achieving goals, increased likelihood of disbanding, fewer interactions, individual orientation, lower commitment to group goals

Groupthink

A mode of thinking that occurs when members of a group are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, and the desire for unanimity offsets their motivation to appraise alternative courses of action

Informal Leader

A person who engages in leadership activities but whose right to do so has not been formally recognized by the organization or group

Mutual Acceptance Stage (Forming Stage)

Characterized by members’ sharing information about themselves and getting to know one another

Communication and Decision-Making Stage (Storming Stage)

Members discuss their feelings more openly and agree on group goals and individual roles in the group

Motivation and Productivity Stage (Norming Stage)

Members cooperate, help one another, and work toward accomplishing tasks. The members are highly motivated and may carry out their tasks creatively.

Control and Organization Stage (Performing Stage)

The group is mature; members work together and are flexible, adaptive, and self-correcting

Process Gain

Performance improvements that occur because people work together rather than independently

Process Loss

Performance decrements that occur when a team performs worse than the individual members would have if they had worked alone

Free Riders

Do not contribute because they rely on the work of others.

Team Efficacy

A team’s shared belief that it can organize and execute the behaviors necessary to reach its goals

Trust

Confidence that other people will honor their commitments, especially when it is difficult to monitor or observe the other people’s behavior

Social Facilitation

Happens when people are motivated to look good to others and want to maintain a positive self-image

Roles

Defines the behaviors and tasks each team member is expected to perform because of the position they hold

Why team members comply with team norms

To avoid punishments and receive rewards, to imitate team members whom they like and admire, because they have internalized the norm and believe it is the appropriate way to behave

Phases of Team Implementations

Start up, reality and unrest, leader-centered teams, tightly formed teams, self-managing teams

Phase 1: Start Up

Team members are selected and prepared to work in teams so that the teams have the best possible chance of success. Much of the initial training is informational or “awareness” training that sends the message that top management is firmly committed to teams and that teams are not experimental.

Phase 2: Reality and Unrest

After perhaps six to nine months, team members and managers report frustration and confusion about the ambiguities of the new situation

Phase 3: Leader-Centered Teams

As the discomfort and frustrations of the previous phase peak, teams usually long for a system that resembles the old manager-center organizational structure. However, members are learning about self-direction and leadership from within the team and usually start to focus on a single leader in the team.

Phase 4: Tightly Formed Teams

Teams become tightly formed to the point that their internal focus can become detrimental to other teams and to the organization as a whole.

Phase 5: Self-Managing Teams

The end result of the months or years of planning and implementation. Mature teams are meeting or exceeding their performance goals. Team members are taking responsibility for team-related leadership functions. Managers and supervisors have withdrawn from the daily operations and are planning and providing counseling for teams.

Benefits of Teams in Organizations

Enhanced performance (increased productivity, improved quality, improved customer service), employee benefits (quality of work life, lower stress), reduced costs (lower turnover, absenteeism, fewer injuries), organizational enhancements (increased innovation, flexibility)

Skill-Based Pay

Require team members to acquire a set of the core skills needed for their particular team plus additional special skills, depending on career tracks or team needs. Some programs require all members to acquire the core skills before any member receives additional pay. Usually employees can increase their base compensation by some fixed amount, say $0.50 per hour for each additional skill acquired, up to some fixed maximum.

Gain-Sharing Systems

Usually reward all team members from all teams based on the performance of the organization, division, or plant. Such a system requires a baseline performance that must be exceeded for team members to receive some share of the gain over the baseline measure.

Team Bonus Plans

Similar to gain-sharing plans except that the unit of performance and pay is the team rather than a plant, a division, or the entire organization. Each team must have specific performance targets or baseline measures that the team considers realistic for the plan to be effective.

Conflict Resolution Abilities

The ability to recognize and encourage desirable and discourage undesirable team conflict, the ability to recognize the type and source of conflict confronting the team and implement an appropriate resolution strategy, the ability to employ an integrative (win–win) negotiation strategy, rather than the traditional distributive (win–lose) strategy

Collaborative Problem-Solving Abilities

The ability to identify situations requiring participative group problem solving and to utilize the proper degree and type of participation, the ability to recognize the obstacles to collaborative group problem solving and implement appropriate corrective actions

Communication Abilities

The ability to communicate openly and supportively, the ability to listen objectively and to appropriately use active listening techniques, the ability to maximize the congruence between nonverbal and verbal messages and to recognize and interpret the nonverbal messages of others, the ability to engage in small talk and ritual greetings and a recognition of their importance

Goal-setting and Self-Management Abilities

The ability to help establish specific, challenging, and accepted team goals, the ability to provide constructive feedback

Planning and Task Coordination Abilities

The ability to coordinate and synchronize activities, information, and tasks among team members, the ability to help establish task and role assignments for individual team members and ensure proper balancing of workload

Four Ethical Issues Especially Important in Teams

How do teams fairly distribute work? How do teams assign blame and award credit? How do teams ensure participation, resolve conflict, and make decisions? How do teams avoid deception and corruption?

Team Contract

A written agreement among team members establishing ground rules about the team’s processes, roles, and accountabilities

Communicating effectively and matching technology to the situation

Collaborative online tools help virtual teams manage files, meetings, and task assignments.

Building community among team members based on mutual trust, respect, affiliation, and fairness

Effective leaders solicit and value the contributions of all team members and consistently treat all team members with respect and fairness.

Establishing a clear and motivating shared vision, team purpose, goals, and expectations

Subtle messages, such as quietly reminding someone not to attack ideas during a brainstorming session, are powerful tools in shaping virtual team norms.

Leading by example and focusing on measurable results

Effective virtual leaders set clear goals and make clear task assignments. The leaders then hold team members accountable for them.

Coordinating and collaborating across organizational boundaries

Virtual team leaders need to work effectively with people in multiple organizations and with free agents and alliance partners who are not employees of the leader’s organization.

Adaptation

Seeing a problem as a cultural difference and not a personality issue. This works when team members are willing and able to identify and acknowledge their cultural differences and to assume responsibility for figuring out how to live with them.

Structural Intervention

Changing the shape of the team. Social interaction and working can be structured to engage everyone on the team.

Managerial Intervention

Setting norms early or bringing in a higher-level manager. This usually works best early in a team’s life. In one case, a manager of a new multinational team set norms of respect by telling his new team that several members did not speak English as their first language but had been chosen because they were technically the best person for the job. Consequently, each team member needed to be patient with other members regarding their communications skills

Exit

Removing a team member when other options have failed. If emotions get too high and too much face has been lost, it can be almost impossible to get a team to work together effectively again

Decision Making

The process of choosing from among several alternatives

Problem Solving

Finding the answer to a question

Programmed Decision

A decision that recurs often enough for a decision rule to be developed usually are highly structured; that is, the goals are clear and well known, the decision-making procedure is already established, and the sources and channels of information are clearly defined

Decision Rule

A statement that tells a decision maker which alternative to choose based on the characteristics of the decision situation

Nonprogrammed Decision

A decision that recurs infrequently and for which there is no previously established decision rule, are poorly structured because information is ambiguous, there is no clear procedure for making the decision, and the goals are often vague

Condition of Certainty

A manager knows what the outcomes of each alternative of a given action will be and has enough information to estimate the probabilities of various outcomes

Condition of Risk

The decision maker cannot know with certainty what the outcome of a given action will be but has enough information to estimate the probabilities of various outcomes

Condition of Uncertainty

The decision maker lacks enough information to estimate the probability of possible outcomes

Rational Decision-Making Approach

Assumes that managers follow a systematic, step-by-step process, that the organization is dedicated to making logical choices and doing what makes the most sense economically, and that it is managed by decision makers who are entirely objective and have complete information

Statement of a Situational Goal

Begins the rational decision making process, a goal for a particular situation

Problem Identification

Second step in rational decision making process, gather information that bears on the goal. If there is a discrepancy between the goal and the actual state, action may be needed.

Determine the Decision Type

Third step in rational decision making process the decision makers must determine whether the problem represents a programmed or a nonprogrammed decision.

Generate Alternatives

Assumes that decision makers will generate all the possible alternative solutions to the problem

Evaluation

Involves assessing all possible alternatives in terms of predetermined decision criteria.

Choose an Alternative

Usually the most crucial step in the decision-making process, consists of selecting the alternative with the highest possible payoff, based on the benefits, costs, risks, and uncertainties of all alternatives.

Contingency Plans

An alternative action to take if the primary course of action is unexpectedly disrupted or rendered inappropriate

Implementation

Puts the decision into action, requires the proper use of resources and good management skills to succeed

Post-Decision Dissonance

A doubt about a choice that has already been made, closely related to cognitive dissonance

Control: Measure and Adjust

The final stage of the rational decision-making process, the outcomes of the decision are measured and compared with the desired goal. If a discrepancy remains, the decision maker may restart the decision-making process by setting a new goal (or reiterating the existing one).

Strengths of the Rational Approach

It forces the decision maker to consider a decision in a logical, sequential manner, and the in-depth analysis of alternatives enables the decision maker to choose on the basis of information rather than emotion or social pressure.

Weaknesses of the Rational Approach

The rigid assumptions of this approach often are unrealistic. The amount of information available to managers usually is limited by either time or cost constraints, and most decision makers have limited ability to process information about the alternatives. Not all alternatives lend themselves to quantification in terms that will allow for easy comparison. Finally, because they cannot predict the future, it is unlikely that decision makers will know all possible outcomes of each alternative.

Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

The commitment to identify and use the best theory and data available to make decisions

Five Basic “Principles” of EBM

Face the hard facts, and build a culture in which people are encouraged to tell the truth, even if it’s unpleasant. Be committed to “fact-based” decision making— being committed to getting the best evidence and using it to guide actions. Treat your organization as an unfinished prototype—encourage experimentation and learning by doing. Look for the risks and drawbacks in what people recommend. Avoid basing decisions on untested but strongly held beliefs, what you have done in the past, or uncritical “benchmarking” of what winners do.

Forced Ranking

Divides employees into three groups based on performance—the top 20 percent, middle 70 percent, and bottom 10 percent—and terminates those at the bottom. According to many HR managers, this impaired morale and collaboration and ultimately reduced productivity.

Administrative Model of Decision Making

Argues that managers use bounded rationality, rules of thumb, suboptimizing, and satisficing in making decisions

Bounded Rationality

The idea that decision makers cannot deal with information about all the aspects and alternatives pertaining to a problem and therefore choose to tackle some meaningful subset of it

Suboptimizing

Knowingly accepting less than the best possible outcome to avoid unintended negative effects on other aspects of the organization

Satisficing

Examining alternatives only until a solution that meets minimal requirements is found

Coalition

An informal alliance of individuals or groups formed to achieve a common goal

Intuition

An innate belief about something without conscious consideration. Usually not arbitrary, rather, it is based on years of experience and practice in making decisions in similar situations

Escalation of Commitment/Sunk Cost Fallacy

Occurs when a decision maker stays with a decision even when it appears to be wrong

Risk Propensity

The extent to which a decision maker is willing to gamble in making a decision

Ethics

A person’s beliefs about what constitutes right and wrong behavior

Ethical Behavior

That which conforms to generally accepted social norms; unethical behavior does not conform to generally accepted social norms