Week 13, Group & Team Dynamics, Slides Flashcards
History of work teams
- While work teams are present everywhere you look, they were not always part of work design
- Agrarian culture and family
- Industrial revolution and “interchangeable” workers
- Large scale labor was seen as more important than efficiency
- Employee attitudes were of no consequence
- The psychological study of groups was not seen as a useful research area
- Some researchers disputed the study (and the existence) of group phenomenon (behavior was studied at the individual level)
- No attention paid to “emergent properties”
- “Group behavior” as a fallacy
- Gestalt principles
** Similarity
** Proximity
** Common Fate
Reification Image
- Constructive aspect of perception
Image
Hawthorne Studies
- Mayo (1933)
- Study began in a strict environmental framework
- Uncovered the impact of group norms on human behavior
- Led the way to the modern study of organizations and
group dynamics - Influenced the work of Kurt Lewin in the 40’s & 50’s
** Grandfather of group behavior - In turn influenced McGregor who proposed Theory X and Theory Y management
60’s Team Building
- T groups
- Portable exercises that highlighted new theories of team functioning
- Viewed as fun, but “touchie-feelie”
- Not viewed as a competitive tool by management, primarily because work was not yet conducted in teams
- Assembly line mentality
The team philosophy
- Since the mid-eighties U.S. corporations have been rapidly turning to an emphasis on teamwork
- Significantly due to the large success of teams in Japan (Nahavani & Aranda, 1994)
- Deming, 1982
- Quickly became a driving force in Western Business
- 82% of US businesses with 100 or more employees employ some form of team
The group phenomenon
- Aggregation occurs in the smallest organisms—bacteria—and the largest—whales
- Physical aggregation can be regarded as part of a continuum in group integration
- At one end of this continuum are territorial animals with little need
to engage in information transfer / no need for group structure (orangutan). - At the other end are highly integrated, long-term associations between individuals that know other members of the group (great apes)
Group Dynamics
- General term for group processes
- A group is three or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships.
- Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop a number of dynamic processes that separate them from a random collection of individuals.
- Processes include norms, roles, relations, development, social influence, effects on behavior, etc.
De-individuation
- Sense of self
- Deindividuation results in a loss of individual identity and a gaining of the social identity of the group
- When you are in a group, you may feel a shared responsibility and so less individual responsibility for your actions.
- Questionable acts may seem less personally wrong.
- Ex. lynchings, riots and wartime atrocities
- Also feel a strong need to conform to social norms.
Social Loafing
- Process Loss
- Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group.
- Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible.
- Can be countered by making members accountable
- Staffing implications – e.g. 1 person less than needed
Social Facilitation
- Process gain
- Social facilitation: Is a person’s performance on a task affected by the “mere presence” of another person?
** Triplett (1897) bicyclist’s times faster when racing together than
when racing alone. - Arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant (e.g. behavior during an emergency).
- Arousal also influences task performance by increasing concentration.
- Presence of others increases arousal which in turn facilitates performance on easy tasks for which the dominant response is the correct one.
- Learned fear of being evaluated—“evaluation apprehension”.
- Apprehension facilitates performance of simple tasks but inhibits performance of difficult tasks.
- Increase in self-focus reminds people that they can fail and therefore motivates them.
Risky Shift Phenomenon
- When people are in groups, they make decision about risk differently from when they are alone
- Shared risk makes the individual perceive less risk
- Greater risks are chosen due to a diffusion of responsibility
- Emotional bonds decrease anxiety and risk is perceived as shared
Groupthink (Janis, 1982)
Premature concurrence seeking
Central antecedent is group cohesion
* High stress from external threat
* Decision difficulty
** Insulation from outside experts,
** Lack of impartial leadership,
** Lack of norms for methodical consideration
** Homogenous background of group members
Poor decisions as a result of a strong cohesion that
suppresses critical thinking
Most research involve case studies and retrospective
analysis
Contemporary example
* Challenger and Columbia incidents
Results in poor (sub-optimal) decision making
Impacts Decision
Making
DM requires a systematic search for possible alternatives and rigorous evaluation in light of relevant information
Seven symptoms of defective decision making:
* Poor information search
* Selective bias in processing information
* Incomplete survey of objectives
* Incomplete survey of alternatives
* Failure to reexamine preferred choice
* Failure to reexamine rejected alternatives
* Failure to develop contingency plans
Teams
Teams are more effective because:
* Complexity
* Teams are often self-reliant in gathering information and resources, which fosters a more efficient and speedy process
* Teams are a natural way to share and gain the new information
* Diversity of thought and innovation
The early implementation of teams focused on project
teams and quality circles (QC)
In the 1990’s a restructuring and re-engineering process
of teams began
Organizations realized cultural differences were a barrier to team functioning, and redesigned the process to incorporate these factors
What is a team?
- One may walk into any organization and find the label “team” applied to any group of employees consisting of two or more individuals.
- However researchers have questioned the premise that it only takes two or more individuals to comprise a true team (Sundstrom, Meuse & Futrell, 1990).
- 2 commonalties are crucial in defining team dynamics
** Common goals
** Interdependence
