4 Teams and Leadership Flashcards
What are teams?
Interdependent collection of individuals who work together toward a common goal and who share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organisations
- There is a growing trend in organisations to use workgroups
- Identifiable memberships and tasks - require to interact with one another
What are the factors that affect team performance?
(1) Inputs; environment, task characteristics, team members
(2) Processes; norms, communication and coordination, cohesion, decision-making
Explain the Inputs that affect team performance
Environment; resources and support team receives from organisation affects performance. Training, managerial support increase satisfaction and performance.
Task Characteristics; type of task (divisible vs unitary). teams motivated by tasks that require a variety of skills, provide autonomy, are meaningful and important and provide performance feedback
Team Members; personality predictors of teamwork (agreeableness and conscientiousness = ratings and work completed), cognitive ability predictors (increase=better)
Explain the Processes that affect team performance
Norms; violation to production norms are very serious, what time day starts/ends.
Communication & Coordination; important especially when task is interdependent and dynamic. Effective groups minimise coordination losses. Increase accountability of team and increase individual evaluation.
Cohesion; associated with good team performance
Decision-Making; good for larger pool knowledge and checking each others errors. Good when demonstratable right answers
What is the norm?
Informal and sometimes unspoken rules that teams adopt to regulate members behaviour
- The violation of productivity norms is considered a serious violation: showing up late (may be forgivable) but not doing your work is a big no
What is cohesion?
The degree to which team members desire to remain in the team and are committed to the goals
What is social loafing?
Reduced motivation and performance in groups that occurs if there is a reduced feeling of accountability or reduced opportunity for evaluation of individual performance
In communication and coordination, what can groups do effectively?
Effective groups are able to minimise coordination losses (i.e., reduced coordination that occurs when team members expend their energies in different directions or fail to synchronise their work)
In factors that affect team performance, what personality predictors affect teamwork?
Agreeableness and conscientiousness predict supervisor ratings of work team performance, objective measures of work team accuracy and work completed
In factors that affect team performance, what cognitive ability predictors of teamwork?
General cognitive ability and job-specific skills are good predictors of team performance
When do groups do well?
There are demonstrable right answers
- Smart kid can convince everyone else
- They rely on member with the most expertise
- Intellective vs judgemental tasks
What is the Illusion of Group Effectivity?
The experience-based belief that we produce more and better ideas in groups than alone
Why don’t groups do better than the best member?
(1) Process loss
(2) Failure to share unique information
(3) Group polarisation
(4) Groupthink
What is process loss?
Aspects of group interaction inhibit good decision making
What is meant by failure to share unique information when groups are working together?
Most of the group discussion focuses on shared information, even though each may possess lots of unshared information e.g. 3-person teams of physicians diagnosed hypothetical medical shared -> shared info was discussed more than unshared info
