GROUPS AND TEAMS IN ORGANIZATIONS Flashcards
What can qualify a group?
- Interdependent set of people performing some function
- Role relationships among members
- Norms regulate functioning
- Shared identity
Why work in groups?
- Diversity of knowledge and skills
- More critical evaluation
- Better implementation (execution) of decisions
- Sense of social belonging
…all of which can lead to improved effectiveness and motivation when it goes well.
Group decision-making benefits :
- Pooling of resources and expertise (mise en commun)
- Achieve synergies (crée des synergies)/build on others’ ideas
- More commitment to decisions
- Decisions better understood by those involved
What is the nature of decisions in groups and organizations ?
- Usually no clear right or wrong answers
- Usually rely as much on “buy in” as making a good decision
- Effects of taken decisions are often hard to isolate & measure
- Smart people have to be persuasive as well
What are the two models of decision-making tackled here ?
- Rational Model
- Normative Model (Bounded rationality)
What is the Rational Model ?
STEPS
- Identify the problem
- Generate alternative solutions
- Select a solution
- Implement the solution
Rational decision making favors objective data and a formal process of analysis over subjectivity and intuition.
The model of rational decision making assumes that the decision maker has full or perfect information about alternatives; it also assumes they have the time, cognitive ability, and resources to evaluate each choice against the others.
This model assumes that people will make choices that will maximize benefits for themselves and minimize any cost.
What does the Normative Model (Bounded rationality) assume?
- Managers select the first alternative that is satisfactory (Limited information processing) (Satisficing).
- Managers recognize that their conception of the world is simple.
- Managers are comfortable making decisions without determining all the alternatives. (Satisficing)
- Managers make decisions by rules of thumb or heuristics.
Explication du mot “Satisficing” ? (Français)
Le terme satisficing, ou principe du seuil de satisfaction de l’individu est un mot-valise formé des mots satisfying (satisfaisant) et sufficing (suffisant), qu’on pourrait ainsi traduire par suffisfaisant ou satisfisant. Le mot sous ce sens apparaît en 1957 dans le discours du sociologue, économiste et psychologue Herbert Simon dans le cadre de ces recherches sur le comportement humain. Il explique ainsi que les gens sont prêts à accepter une solution «suffisamment bonne» plutôt «qu’optimale» si l’apprentissage de toutes les alternatives devait coûter du temps ou des efforts
Explication du mot “rules of thumb” :
“En règle générale”
“Première approche”, “première vue”, “première approximation”
Explication du mot “heuristics”:
Un raisonnement ou une méthode heuristique (ou une heuristique) est une méthode de résolution de problème qui ne s’appuie pas sur une analyse détaillée ou exhaustive du problème. Elle consiste à fonctionner par approches successives en s’appuyant, par exemple, sur des similitudes avec des problèmes déjà traités afin d’éliminer progressivement les alternatives et ne conserver qu’une série limitée de solutions pour tendre vers celle qui est optimale.
Une hypothèse heuristique est une hypothèse choisie provisoirement comme idée directrice indépendamment de sa vérité absolue.
What are the Group decision-making challenges/possible problems ?
- Process losses (i.e., it takes time!)
- Information processing demands
- Deciding on decision rules
- Sharing information
- Potential for conflct
- Groups can make riskier choices
- Escalation of commitment
What is the escalation of commitment ?
In 1966 a project to build a nuclear power plant in Long Island, New York began. It was anticipated it would cost $75 million and be able to generate power for the growing city by 1973. No one anticipated the pushback from local citizens, and because of that resistance the project wasn’t completed until 1986 at a cost of more than $6 billion. In the end, the plant never opened.
Why was management at the Long Island Lighting Company so willing to stick to their project even as the cost skyrocketed and the completion date was pushed back by more than two decades? The answer is escalation of commitment.
Escalation of commitment happens when someone continues to dedicate resources, including time and money, to a failing course of action. Like management at the Long Island Lighting Company, it is sometimes easy to feel that if we give up on a course of action, then we lose the money and time already committed to that decision. In response, we sometimes continue to commit resources in an attempt to turn our failure around, thereby increasing the cost and making it that much harder to just acknowledge a bad decision and move on.
What is information processing ?
Interpreting incoming information (stimulus) to make a response suitable within the context of an objective, problem, or situation.
What is the Abilene Paradox ?
The Abilene paradox is a phenomenon in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group.
It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating to the Abilene paradox is a desire to not “rock the boat”.
How to make good group decisions ?
- Make sure everyone is clear on the GOAL and criteria/parameters
- Get potentially useful information/expertise shared and considered
- Gather all necessary info from outside sources
- Poll group members to try to ensure they share
what they know
- If the decision requires agreement, make sure everyone weighs in – and feels safe to disagree!
What is the Thomas Kilmann conflict mode ?
Competing: You try to satisfy your own concerns at the other person’s expense.
Accommodating: You attempt to satisfy the other person’s concerns at the expense of your own
Avoiding: You sidestep the conflict without trying to satisfy either person’s concerns
Collaborating: You try to find a win-win solution that completely satisfies both people’s concerns
Compromising: You try to find an acceptable settlement that only partially satisfies both people concerns
Is conflict good or bad ?
Effects of Affective Cohesion :
