Team Dynamics

• Group


  Two or more people who perceive themselves as a group and interact with each other
• Group


  • Must involve some degree of structure and permanency
  • To be called a group, the following criteria must be met: (a) the members of the group must see themselves as a unit; (b) the group must provide rewards to its members; (c) anything that happens to one member of the group affects every other members; and (d) the members of the group must share a common goal
• Group size


  • 2 (Dyad)
  • 3 (Triad)
  • 4 to 20 people (Small Group)
• An event that affects one group member should affect all group members (Corresponding Effects)
• Formal Groups


  Subunits that the organization has established
• Informal Group


  No to little interdependence and no organizationally mandated purpose, they exist due to the fact that humans are social animals and have a drive to bond with others, they define themselves by their group affiliations, and to accomplish personal objectives, develop apart from the official structure of the organization and exist relatively independent of it
• Work Group


  Interdependent collection of individuals who share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organization
• Team


  Consists of interdependent workers with complimentary skills working toward a shared goal or outcome, groups of two or more people who interact with and influence each other, to fulfill some purpose, held together by their interdependence and need for collaboration, influence each other, and perceive themselves to be a team
• Team characteristics


  • Team Permanence: how long that team exists
  • Skill Diversity: each member possesses different skills and knowledge
  • Authority Dispersion: the degree that decision-making responsibility is distributed throughout the team
  • Identification: extent to which group members identify with the team rather than in other groups
  • Interdependence: one member does greatly influence what another member does
  • Power Differentiation: overstepping roles, challenge opinions, interrupt each other, gives orders, and use sarcasm
  • Social Distance: an imaginary space that separates two colleagues such as treating them formally and very politely rather than being casual
• Team member response to conflict

  Collaborating, try to understand the other's views, makes attempt to compromise, and use nonthreatening tones
• Team member negotiation style

  Win-win style in which the goal is for every person to come out ahead
• Departmental Teams


  Consists of employees who have similar or complimentary skills and are located in the same unit of a functional structure, usually minimal task interdependence because each person works with clients or with employees in other departments
• Self-Directed Teams


  Teams whose members are organized around work processes that complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks and have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks
• Task Force (Project) Teams (Cross-Functional)

  Members are usually drawn from different disciplines to solve a specific problem, realize an opportunity, or design a product or service
• Production Teams


  Frontline employees producing tangible outputs
• Management Teams


  Corporate executive teams, coordinate other work units under their direction
• Service Teams


  Attend the needs of the clients
• Advisory Teams (Parallel Teams)


  Solve problems and recommend solutions
• Process Losses


  Teams have additional costs and resources expended on the team development and maintenance rather than on performing the task, refers to any nonmotivational element of a group situation that detracts from the group performance, amplified when more people are added or replace others on the team
• Brooks' Law


  Adding more people on a project team when the project is already on-going, the project will more likely finished longer than in shorter span of time
• Social Facilitation


  Involves positive effect of presence of others on individual's behavior
• Social Inhibition


  Involves the negative effects of other's presence
• Audience Effects


  Takes place when a group of people passively watch an individual, audience size, proximity, and status affects the performance of the group
• Coaction


  The effect on behavior when two or more people are performing the same task in the presence of one another
• Social Loafing


  Considers the effect on individual performance when people work together on a task; exerting less effort in group work than individual work, occurs on tasks with low in attractiveness, less likely to occur in cohesive groups
• Social Enhancement


  Occurred among group members who were working on a task that was high in attractiveness
• Free-Rider Theory


  When things are going well, a group member realizes that his effort is not necessary, and this does not work hard as he would if he were alone
• Sucker Effect


  Social loafing occurs when a group member notices that other group members are not working hard and does are "playing him for a sucker", then decide that they will no longer be played for a sucker and thus reduce their effort
• Social Compensation


  When individual increase their efforts on collective tasks because they don't anticipate much help from their group members
• Ways to minimize social loafing

  • Form smaller groups so each member's performance is noticeable and important and it increases individual commitment and identity with the team
  • Specialize tasks to easier observe when each member performs differently
  • Measure individual performance
  • Increase Job Enrichment so it could have high motivation potential
  • Select motivated, team-oriented employees, who are also known to have at least moderately high conscientiousness and agreeableness
• If the leader or group member has an accurate solution to a problem the group is trying to solve, the group will probably perform at a high level
• Groupthink


  Members become cohesive and like-minded that they make poor decisions despite contrary information that might reasonably lead them to other options
• Mindguard


  A member of a cohesive group whose job it is to protect the group from the outside information that is inconsistent with the group's views
• Team members tend to work together more effectively when they receive some team-based rewards, when the organization's structure assigns discrete clusters of work activity to teams
• External competition also increases motivation for teams to work together, groups that are pressured by outside forces also tend to become highly cohesive
• Psychological Reactance


  When we believe that someone is trying to intentionally influence us to take some particular action, we often react by doing the opposite
• Smaller size of group, more cohesive
• Types of group tasks

  • Additive Tasks: those for which the group's performance is equal to the sum of the performances by each group member; each contribution is important
  • Conjunctive Tasks: group performance depends on the least effective group member
  • Disjunctive Tasks: group performance is based on the most talented group member
• Social Impact Theory


  If the group is already stable and cohesive, adding another member might be disruptive
• The higher group status, the greater cohesiveness