Chapter 9 Nelson

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Chapter 9Nelson Quick

• Work Teams and Groups

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Groups Teams

• Group - two or more people with common interests,
  objectives, and continuing interaction
• Work Team - a group of people with complementary
  skills who are committed to a common mission,
  performance goals, and approach for which they
  hold themselves mutually accountable

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Characteristics of a Well-Functioning, Effective
Group
Relaxed, comfortable, informal atmosphere
Task well understood accepted
Members listen well participate
People express feelings ideas
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Characteristics of a Well-Functioning, Effective
Group
Conflict disagreement center around ideas or
methods
Group aware of its operation function
Consensus decision making
Clear assignments made accepted
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Group Behavior

• Norms of Behavior - the standards that a work
  group uses to evaluate the behavior of its
  members
• Group Cohesion - the interpersonal glue that
  makes members of a group stick together
• Social Loafing - the failure of a group member to
  contribute personal time, effort, thoughts, or
  other resources to the group
• Loss of Individuality - a social process in
  which individual group members lose
  self-awareness its accompanying sense of
  accountability, inhibition, and responsibility
  for individual behavior

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3 Issues Addressed by Groups

• Interpersonal issues(Matters of trust, personal
  comfort, and security)
• Task issues(Mission or purpose, methods,
  expected outcomes)
• Authority issues(Leadership, managing power and
  influence, communication flow)

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Group Formation

• Formal Groups official or assigned groups
  gathered to perform various tasks
• need ethnic, gender, cultural, and interpersonal
  diversity
• need professional and geographical diversity

Informal Groups - unofficial or emergent groups
that evolve in the work setting to gratify a
variety of member needs not met by formal groups
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Tuckmans Five-Stage Model of Group Development
Forming
Conflict increased clarity of purpose Power
struggles Coaching
Little agreement Unclear purpose Guidance and
direction
Clear visionand purpose Focus on
goalachievement Delegation
Agreement and consensus Clear roles and
responsibili-ties Facilitation
Task completion Goodfeeling about
achievements Recognition
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Mature Group Characteristics

• Purpose and Mission
• May be assigned or may emerge from the group
• Group often questions, reexamines, and modifies
  mission and purpose
• Mission converted into specific agenda, clear
  goals, and a set of critical success factors

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Mature Group Characteristics

• Behavioral Norms - well-understood standards of
  behavior within a group

Productivity Norms may be consistent or
inconsistent, supportive or unsupportive of
organizations productivity standards
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Mature Group Characteristics

• Group Cohesion - interpersonal attraction binding
  group members together
• Enables groups to exercise effective control over
  the members
• Groups with high cohesiveness
• demonstrate lower tension anxiety
• demonstrate less variation in productivity
• demonstrate better member satisfaction,
  commitment, communication

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Cohesion

• Factors influencing cohesion
• Time
• Size
• Prestige
• External pressure
• Internal competition
• Problems with groupthink

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Mature Group Characteristics

• Status Structure - the set of authority task
  relations among a groups members
• Hierarchical or egalitarian
• Often leadership is shared

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Team Functions
Task Functions those activities directly
related to the effective completion of the teams
work Maintenance Functions those activities
essential to the effective, satisfying
interpersonal relationships within a team or
group
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Team Task Functions
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Team Maintenance Functions
Support Others
Test Group Decisions
Express Member Ideas
Harmonize Conflicts
Gatekeep Communication
Maintenance Tasks
Test Consensus
Reduce Tension
Follow Others Lead
Set Standards
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Why Teams?

• Good when performing complicated, complex,
  interrelated and/or more voluminous work than one
  person can handle
• Good when knowledge, talent, skills, abilities
  are dispersed across organizational members
• Empowerment and collaboration not power and
  competition
• Basis for total quality efforts

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New vs. Old Team Environments
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Quality Circles Teams

• Quality Team - a team that is part of an
  organizations structure is empowered to act on
  its decisions regarding product quality service
• Quality Circles (QC) - a small group of employees
  who work voluntarily on company time, typically
  one hour per week, to address work-related
  problems
• QCs deal with substantive issues
• Do not require final decision authority
• QCs need periodic reenergizing

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Social Benefits of Teams
Psychological Intimacy - emotional
psychological closeness to other team or group
members
Emotion Vs. Behavior And Activity
Integrated Intimacy - closeness achieved
through tasks activities
Not necessary to obtain both in the same group
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Organizational Foundations for Empowerment

• Participative, supportive culture
• Tolerant of mistakes
• Tolerant of uncertainty
• Sharing of information to make decisions
• Work design
• Broader tasks
• Direct responsibility for a whole piece of work
• Ability to monitor and evaluate results
  (self-feedback)
• Design quality into the task

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Empowerment Skills
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Self-Managed Teams

• Self-Managed Teams - teams that make decisions
  that were once reserved for managers
• Takes time to become self-directed
• Risks of groupthink
• Best if started from scratch

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What SMWTS Manage
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Upper Echelons Teams at the Top
See table 9.4, page 303
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Executive Tenure Organizational Performance
High
Organizational performance relative to the
industry average
Low
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7
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CEO tenure (years)
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Diversity at the Top

• Types of diversity needed
• Functional diversity
• Intellectual diversity
• Demographic diversity
• Temperamental diversity
• And more and more and more

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Roles of Managers and Team leaders

• Managers (external)
• Create environment for teams
• Set limits
• Remove barriers
• Set charter
• Provide performance evaluation criteria
• Be available as a resource

• Team leaders
• Teach
• Listen
• Nurture
• Solve external problems
• Manage internal conflict
• Enhance team dynamics