OB Week 7 - Omar PDF

Week 7 (FINAL EXAM) (Chapter 7- beginning of meso) Groups Group: 2 or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal (vision, mission, strategy, goal, action) Formal groups: established organizations to facilitate the achievement of...

Week 7 (FINAL EXAM) (Chapter 7- beginning of meso) Groups Group: 2 or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal (vision, mission, strategy, goal, action) Formal groups: established organizations to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals ex. Job project Informal groups: emerge naturally in response to common interests of the organization’s members ex. Play on softball team Groups form because means (group can be a way to accomplish something) versus ends (having the group itself is what you desire) and personal characteristics (join because you have similar characteristics, OR you are all opposites and are together) Stages of group development 1. Forming: What are we doing here? What are others like? What’s our purpose? 2. Storming: Conflict often emerges, sorting out roles and responsibilities is an issue 3. Norming: norms are agreed on and the group becomes more cohesive 4. Performing: The group devotes its energies toward task accomplishment 5. Adjourning: Group disperses after achieving goals Groups develop through a series of stages over time Each stage presents the members with a series of challenges they must master in order to achieve the next stage Groups can vary in terms of how quickly they walk through the stages Practical Learnings from the stage model 1. A good tool for monitoring and troubleshooting how groups are developing 2. Especially helpful for new groups to understand the process of developing together. Greenfield: new team 3. Well acquainted task forces and committees can short circuit these stages when they have a problem to work out 4. Storming and norming may not be necessary for some organizational setting that are highly structured (you’re told what to do, so there’s no opportunity to storm) Punctuated equilibrium model A model of group development that describes how groups with deadlines (time) are affected by their first meetings and crucial midpoint transitions Practical learnings from the punctuated equilibrium model 1. Prepare carefully for the first meeting. Have motivation and excitement for the project 2. As long as people are working, don’t look for radical progress during phase 1 (not much progress happens in phase 1) 3. Manage the midpoint transition carefully. You should make the midpoint earlier (model  says the exact halfway point, but in real life it’s just when procrastination ends and you are motivated to work, which is usually past halfway) 4. Be sure that adequate resources are available prior to phase 2 5. Resist deadline changes Group structure As groups become larger, they suffer from process losses - performance difficulties that results from the problems of motivating and coordinating larger groups Difficulties are in communication, conflict, stress, diversity (become socially elaborate) Actual performance = potential performance - process losses 1. Size What’s the ultimate group size? (depends on the task) (form follows function) Size & satisfaction, size & performance Depends on the task ○ Additive task - group performance is dependent on the sum of the performance of individual group members (more people the better) ○ Disjunctive task - group performance is dependent on the performance of the best group member (ex. research team looking for a cure. More people is better) ○ Conjunctive task - group performance is limited by the performance of the poorest group member (ex. Assembly line, things are dependent on others) 2. Diversity of group membership Diverse groups might take longer to do their forming, storming, and norming Diverse groups sometimes perform better when the tasks requires cognitive, creativity demanding tasks and problem-solving rather than routine work (don’t waste diverse brains on routines) Negative effects of surface diversity (ex. Age, race) are small and wear off over time ​ Surface diversity - visible ​ Deep diversity- not visible - exp 3. Norms (vs rules) Collective expectations that members of social units have regarded the behaviour of each other. It provides regularity, predictability, and psychological security ○ 1. dress norms: aka appearance ○ 2. reward allocation norms: equity (reward depending on inputs), equality (reward equally. There’s a pay grade/range), reciprocity (reward ppl the way they reward you. You help me, I help you), social responsibility (reward those that need the reward) ○ 3. performance norms: behaviour while you’re at work. Norms about absenteeism is different depending on the manager ○ 4. social interaction norms: behaviour while you’re off work. Norms about how coworkers interact after work. Rules are formal and stated, it defines boundaries  Norms are informal and not stated 4. Roles Positions in a group that have a set expected behaviours and responsibilities attached to them Assigned roles (formally given) vs emergent roles (developed naturally ex.Class clown) Job description: what are the roles and responsibilities Job specification: minimum qualifications needed to be a candidate for the job Key issues: ○ Role ambiguity - don’t know what/how to do it (due to organizational factors, role sender, focal person) ○ Role conflict - there’s incompatible role expectations due to intrasender (ex. take it easy, but it’s due tomorrow or always changing mind), intersender (ex. middle manager conflict between boss and employees), interrole (multiple roles) or person-role conflict (conflict between personality and job) ○ Status effects - perceived superiority like “i'm the CEO, you know nothing” Role issues leads to job dissatisfaction, lower commitment, higher stress and turnover Group cohesiveness The degree to which a group is especially attractive to its members (want to be together and talk well of each other) 1. Threat and competition: if people all want to be the best, they will work together well 2. Success: if groups are successful they like each other more, reciprocal with cohesion 3. Member diversity: diverse members take time to develop cohesiveness, but will end with a strong group 4. Size: large groups are harder to be cohesive 5. Toughness of initiation: Higher cohesion in hard to join groups bc ppl are proud. Ex. yacht clubs Consequences of cohesiveness: ○ More participation in group activities - There’s decrease voluntary turnover ○ More conformity - groupthink ○ More success - each individual's performance is similar in cohesive groups ○ More success in reciprocal relationships - high cohesion groups that accept a firm’s norm have high productivity. If they don’t accept a firm’s norm, they have low productivity Social loafing Tendency to withhold physical or intellectual effort when performing a group task Members exert less effort when working in teams then working alone It’s a process loss, people can hide in the group, its the group members that don’t work Social inhibition: decrease individual effort due to more group members Social facilitation: improve individual effort due to more group members Social loafing comes in the form of free rider effect (social loafers want a free ride) or sucker effect (other ppl work less due to the social loafer’s  unfairness/equity) How to counteract social loafing? ○ Make individual performance more visible (call people out) ○ Make sure the work is interesting ○ Increase feelings of indispensability (make person believe their work is important) ○ Increase performance feedback (tell person what they should do) ○ Reward group performance Teams Not all groups are teams, but all teams were groups Team is more than a group Group becomes a team when there is: ○ Strong sense of shared commitment (we’re on the same page) ○ When there’s synergy that develops such that group efforts are greater than the sum of its parts (2+2=5) Collective efficacy: each team member believes they can effectively perform their task, and have faith in their group members Team reflexivity: belief in adaptability, engagement, trust building (soft skills) in the group, teams discuss and reflect on team processes and goals Types of teams 1. Process improvement teams: ex. teams to improve efficiency of producing a product or service. Gain sharing is the motivation pay system. 2. Self managed work teams: (most common) Work team that has the opportunity to do challenging work under some form/continuous supervision. Different levels of autonomy (management involvement). High autonomy means employees have full control. Ex. PDP was moderate autonomy because partners were picked, and work was marked by TA, but we did everything else. ex. teams with full, reduced, or no supervision 3. Cross functional: Teams with functional areas of expertise. People are sme (subject matter expert) ex. team with people from HR, marketing, accounting 4. Virtual teams: There’s no hub or central gathering geographically. Primary feature is no physical face to face contact. Virtual teams use technology to communicate and collaborate across time, space and other boundaries. There can always be miscommunications. ex. teams that spans the globe Self managed work team factors Task: ○ Challenge: should be difficult enough but not impossible ○ Complexity: only put diverse brains on complex tasks, don't waste your diverse brains on routine ○ Interdependence: sequential (assembly line reliance, one at a time) and reciprocal (working with people at the same time) Group composition: ○ Stability: there has to be trust and understanding among the group ○ Size: size depends on the task (additive, conjunctive, disjunctive) Should be as  small as feasible/possible. ○ Expertise: have enough SME (subject matter experts) ○ Diversity: members similar enough to work together, yet diverse enough to bring a variety of perspectives. Support: ○ Training: can’t expect a team to be successful unless they have enough technical, social, language, and business acumen training. ○ Rewards: there’s 4 pay systems (profit sharing, gain sharing, employee stock ownership plan, skill based pay system) ○ Management: managers must not see autonomy as threatening, be able to give more responsibility to workers Cross functional team factors Cross functional: bring people with different functional specialties together to do a task. 6 principles for effectiveness. 1. Composition - all relevant specialties are important, no one is overlooked 2. Superordinate goals - attractive outcomes only achievable with collaboration 3. Physical proximity - team members must be physically located close to each other 4. Autonomy - Upper management shouldn’t micromanage the teams 5. Rules and procedures - rules must be followed to prevent anarchy 6. Leadership - team leaders need strong people skills Virtual team factors Advantages: ○ Around the clock ○ Reduced travel cost/time ○ Larger talent pool Challenges: ○ Trust - ppl typically develop trust through direct contact and socialization ○ Miscommunication - less communication richness ○ Isolation - no casual interactions ex. no lunch time with coworkers ○ Management issues - hard for managers to assess performance and diligence Lessons: ○ Recruitment - choose team members with good interpersonal and intercultural skills ○ Training - train in technical and interpersonal skills. Most issues are due to communication ○ Personalization - encourage team to get to know each other and socialize ○ Leadership - team leaders should define goals, set rules, and provide feedback Group decision making Advantages: ○ Decision quality - higher decision quality than individuals, because they have more ideas and can evaluate them better  ○ Decision acceptance and commitment - fully engaged and bonded ○ Diffusion of responsibility - groups can share the burden of failed decisions Disadvantages: ○ Time - takes longer to make decisions due to process losses ○ Conflict - infighting over resources, SMEs debating, political wrangling over territories and jurisdictions ○ Domination - group meetings dominated by a single individual or small coalition, which won’t create synergy ○ Groupthink - feel pressure for conformity How to improve decision making: ○ Devil's advocate - a role someone is appointed/assigned to identify and challenge weaknesses in proposed plans and decisions ○ Whistle blowing - not a role but is a cultural norm, it’s encouraged to have the capacity to call out something wrong ○ Encourage outliers/earning idiosyncratic credits - Cultural norm, people who have quirks that help the company ○ Disruptors - Cultural norm, being positively oppositional Groupthink Capacity for group pressure to damage the mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement of decision making groups Mental efficiency: you can’t do proper cost benefit analysis, cannot hear or see the kinds of data you should be looking at Cults do reality testing: impacted your brain so your old reality is completely gone Moral judgement: changes what you think is right or wrong Develops because of too much cohesiveness, concern for approval and isolation of the group Reasons for groupthink: ○ 1. Became too cohesive ○ 2. Want people to like me ○ 3. Got you away from home Symptoms: (pg 29 in notes - full list of symptoms) ○ Unfavourable stereotypes of outsiders ○ Pressure for conformity ○ Avoid saying opinions contrary to the group/self censorship How do groups handle risk Risky shift: tendency for groups to make riskier decisions than the average risk initially advocated by their individual members due to diffusion of responsibility Conservative shift: tendency for groups to make less risky decisions than the average risk initially advocated by their individual members due to diffusion of responsibility. They’re more cautious and have more checks. Ex. when a bunch of social loafers get into a group, they have a conservative shift because they are less risky and will do  more work The shift chosen depends on each of the individual's personality. Group discussion tends to polarize or exaggerate the initial position of the group Contemporary approaches to improving decision making Evidence based management: making decisions through explicit evidence though multiple sources. Using research studies and expert opinions to make decisions. Crowdsourcing: outsourcing aspects of a decision making process to a large collection of people. It’s used bc decision makers don’t have the info needed, and info technology/social media is low cost to use Analytics and big data: analyze meaningful patterns in large data sets to make better decisions.