Work teams and groups

Work teams and groups

1. Group

   • Two or more people with common interests, objectives and continuing interaction
     • 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 group members lose self-awareness and its accompanying sense of accountability, inhibition, and responsibility for individual behavior
     • Formation
       • Formal Groups –official or assigned groups gathered to perform various tasks
       • Informal Groups –groups that evolve in the work setting to meet need not met by formal groups.
     • Five stages model
       • Forming. little agreement, unclear purpose, guidance and direction
       • Storming. conflict, increased clarity of purpose and power struggles
       • Norming- agreement and consensus, clear roles and responsibilities
       • Performing- clear vision and purpose, focus on goal achievement
       • Adjourning- task completion, good feeling about achievements and recognition
     • 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
       • Behavioral norms
         • Well-understood standards of behavior within a group Also evolve around performance and productivity.
     • Cohesion
       • interpersonal attraction binding group members together; enables groups to exercise effective control over the members
       • demonstrate lower tension and anxiety demonstrate less variation in productivity demonstrate better member satisfaction, commitment, and communication
       • Factors influencing cohesion Time Size Prestige External pressure Internal competition

2. Work team

   • Group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common mission
     • Benefits
       • For Organizations
         • Encourages collaboration
       • For individuals
         • Psychological intimacy Integrated involvement
     • Team task functions
       • those activities directly related to the effective completion of the team’s work
     • Maintenance functions
       • those activities essential to the effective, satisfying interpersonal relationships within a team or group
     • Dissimilarity in teams
       • Demographic dissimilarity influences absenteeism, commitment, turnover intentions, beliefs, workgroup relationships, self-esteem, and organizational citizenship behavior.
       • Can have positive or negative effects on teams
       • Value dissimilarity negatively related to team involvement
     • Empowerment Skills
       • Self-management or Team skills
         • Competence skills
         • Process skills
         • Cooperative and helping behaviors
         • Communication skills
         • Self.managed teams
           • also called self-directed teams or autonomous work groups; teams that make decisions once reserved for managers
   • Why? Good for work that is complicated, complex or more voluminous than a person can handle / Overcomes individual limitations
   • Environment
     • New team environment
       • Person comes up with initiatives. Team has considerable authority to chart its own steps.
       • - Members form a team because people learn to collaborate in the face of their emerging right to think for themselves.
       • - People cooperate by using their thoughts and feelings.
     • Old work environment
       • Person follows orders, team depends on the manager to chart its course
       • Members were a team because people conformed to direction set by the manager
       • People cooperated by suppressing their thoughts and feelings.