Groups and Decision Making Flashcards
What is a group
Two or more ppl interacting to achieve a common goal
What are 2 types of groups
Formal and Informal
Formal: Established by organization
Informal: Emerges naturally in response to common interests of organizational members
What is a Group Norm
Collective expectations group members have about others behaviours
What two characteristics do group norms have?
Descriptive(What most people do)
Prescriptive (Beliefs about what people should do)
What do norms provide?
Psychological security:
Comfort in predicting what people do.
Provide means to regulate behaviour
When is a norm established?
When you first enter a new situation. You search information to develop them by observing behaviour of established group members.
What happens when someone doesnt follow a group norm?
Alienation, chastising, punishment, shame of the individual.
What are three types of group tasks?
Additive tasks-Predict performance by adding up performance of individual members. Performance INCREASES with group size
Disjunction Tasks-Performance depends on performance of best member. Performance INCREASES with size
Conjunctive Tasks-Performance limited by weaker member. Performance DECREASES with size increase
What are group ‘process losses’?
When you have performance losses because as group size increases, communication and coordination problems arise.
How can you calculate group performance?
Actual Performance= Potential Performance - Process Loss
What is Group Cohesiveness
Degree to which group members are attracted to group and are motivated to stay in the group.
How to increase group cohesiveness
- Make it smaller
- Increase time members spend together
- Increase group status and admission difficulty
- Stimulate competition with other groups
- Give rewards to the group (not individual)
- Physically isolate the group
How does diversity affect group cohesiveness?
Surface diversity (eg. age differences of members) is a superficial factor that doesnt have an effect in the long run.
Gender/ethnic diversity can have a small negative effect
What are some byproducts of group cohesion?
Much less absenteeism and turnover
How can group cohesion affect productivity?
High cohesion can work for or against the organizational task.
-> People can like to work together but not want to work.
Low cohesion will see individual productivity all over the place some low some high
What are the stages of group development?
Prestage 1
Stage 1- Forming(Testing waters What are we doing here?)
Stage 2- Storming(Conflicts can begin as roles established)
Stage 3- Norming(Group develops what their goals and norms are)
Stage 4- Performing(Once norms are agreed upon, group becomes cohesive)
Stage 5- Adjourning (geddafuqoutaher)
When can the group development stages be skipped or adjusted?
Highly structured tasks. For example, a flight crew can be complete strangers before boarding but still perform the job
What is one group effectiveness model?
The Korn Ferry Group Model
What are the 5 components of the Korn Ferry group effectiveness model?
5T’s
Thrust- Vision, mission goals. Purpose.
Trust- Do you trust team mates? Take time. Is communication truthful btwn members. Do u trust their actions.
Talent- Do the group members have the appropriate skill level to get the job done
Teaming- Team learning, decision making, conflict resolution. Does the team work together
Task- Is the target being met? Are individuals meeting targets
What is the txtbk defn of decision making
Process of developing a commitment to a course of action.
Problem solving: bridging gap between existing and desired state?
What are two types of problems encountered?
Well structured problems
Ill structured problems
How to solve well structured problems?
Use programmed solutions. Known solutions or means to ends. Follow the guidelines of whats been done before
Ho to solve ill structured problems?
Think outside the box. Design thinking. Non programmed thinking
Why use groups for decision making?
Quality
-Groups or teams should make higher-quality decisions than individuals
Acceptance and Commitment
-People wont buy in to a change or decision if they didnt have a role to play in making that decision
Diffusion of Responsibility
-Reduces likelihood of incapacitation of decision maker based on overburden of responsibility
