Chapter 19

Informal Leader

1) A person who engages in leadership activities but whose right to do so has not been formally recognized by the organization or group. 2) An informal leader, ideally may also be the formal leader for the group or he may supplement the formal leader in fulfilling leadership roles. 3) Draw on referent or expert power to establish themselves as leaders.

Individual responses to norm conformity:

1) Adopt the norms of the group. 2) Try to obey the "spirit" of the norms while retaining individuality.

Resolving and eliminating conflict

1) Avoid conflict 2) Convince conflicting parties to compromise 3) Bring conflicting parties together to confront and negotiate conflict

Norming

1) Establishing and maintaining team ground rules. 2) More friendliness and confiding in one another.

Controlling Conflict

1) Expand resource base 2) Enhance coordination of interdependence 3) Set supraordinate goals 4) Match personalities and work habits of employee

Stages of Group and Team Development

1) Forming 2) Storming 3) Norming 4) Performing

Benefits of teams:

1) Give more responsibility for task performance to the workers who do the tasks. 2) Enable the organization to shed its bureaucracy and to promote flexibility and responsiveness. 3) Empower workers by giving them greater authority and decision-making freedom. 4) Allow organizations to capitalize on the knowledge and motivation of their workers.

Stimulating Conflict

1) Increase competition among individual teams 2) Hire outsiders to shake things up 3) Change established procedures

Factors that Influence Cohesiveness:

1) Intergroup competition 2) Personal attraction 3) Favorable evaluation 4) Agreement on goals 5) Interaction

Causes of Conflict

1) Interpersonal Conflict: personality clash, differing beliefs or perceptions and competitiveness. 2) Intergroup Conflict: interdependence, different goals, and competition for scarce resources. 3) Conflict Between Organization and the Environment: conflict w/ competition, conflict w/ consumer and conflict w/ employees.

Why People Join Groups and Teams

1) Interpersonal attraction- people are attracted to each other. 2) Group activities- activities of the group appeal to them. 3) Group goals- motivate to join. 4) Need satisfaction- fulfills an individual's need for affiliation. 5) Instrumental benefits- membership provides other benefits.

Role Conflict

1) Interrole conclict: is the result of a conflict between roles. 2) Intrarole conflict: is caused by conflicting demands from different sources. 3) Intrasender conflict: arises when a single source sends contradictory messages. 4) Person-role conflict: is the discrepancy between role requirements and an individual's values, attitudes, and needs.

Behavioral Norms

1) Norms are standards of behavior that a group accepts and expects of its members. 2) Norms define the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Types of Teams:

1) Problem-solving team: most popular team type; comprises knowledgeable workers who gather to solve a problem and then disband. 2) Management team: consists mainly of managers from various functional areas who coordinate the work among other teams. 3) Work team: are responsible for the daily work of the organization; when empowered, they are self-managed teams.

Approaches to Negotiation

1) Psychological- Individual differences 2) Contextual- Situational characteristics 3) Mathematical- Game theory 4) Behavioral- Cognitive approaches

Role Structures

1) Role Ambiguity- occurs when the sent role in unclear. 2) Role conflict- occurs when the messages and cues comprising the sent role are clear, but contradictory or mutually exclusive. 3) Role overload- occurs when role expectations exceed an individual's capacities.

Performing

1) The ability of the group/team to prevent or work through problems. 2) Members developing a close attachment to the team.

Cohesiveness

1) The extent to which members are loyal and committed to the group. 2) The degree of mutual attractiveness within the group.

The Development of a Role

1) The first two stages of role development are group processes as the group members let the individuals know what is expected of them. 2) The other two parts are individual processes as the new group members perceive and enact their roles.

Role Structures

1) The set of defined roles and interrelationships among those roles that the group or team members define and accept. 2) Are the result of role episodes in which the expected role is translated and defined into the enacted role. 3) Role Ambiguity- occurs when the sent role is unclear.

There is an optimal level of conflict in an organization:

1) Too little conflict and the organization becomes complacent and apathetic; and lacking in innovation and underperforms. 2) Too much conflict creates a dysfunctional organization where hostility and non-cooperation predominate, and suffers from low performance. 3) A moderate level of conflict in an organization fosters motivation, creativity, innovation, and initiative can raise performance.

Team

1) smaller-subset-interdependent 2) A group of workers who function as a unit, often with little or no supervision, to carry out work-related tasks, function, and activities. 3) Sometimes are called self-managed teams, cross-functional teams, or high performance teams.

Types of Teams (cont'd):

4) Virtual team: a new type of team that interacts by computer; member enters and leaves the network as needed and may take turns serving as leader. 5) Quality circle: declining in popularity, quality circles, comprising of workers and supervisors, meet intermittently to discuss workplace problems.

Conflict

A disagreement between tow or more individuals, groups, or organizations.

Informal or Interest Group

A group created by its own members for purposes that may or may not be relevant to organization goals.

Task Group

A group created by the organization to accomplish a relatively narrow range of purposes within a stated time horizon.

Functional Group

A permanent group created to accomplish a number of organizational purposes with an indefinite time horizon.

Formal Leader

A person who has been elected or designated to engage in leadership activities by the group members or who has been formally appointed or recognized by the organization as the leader for the group.

Forming

Attempting to define the task and how it will be accomplished through discussions of task-related concepts/issues.

Storming

Defensiveness, intragroup competition, and the formation of factions; arguing among members, even when they agree.

Task-specialist role

Focus on getting the group's tasks accomplished.

Factors that Influence Group Cohesiveness:

Increase Cohesiveness: intergroup competition, personal attraction, favorable evaluation, agreement on goals, and interaction. Decrease Cohesiveness: group size, disagreement on goals, intragroup competition, domination, unpleasant experience.

Norm conformity

Individuals conform as response to: 1) Group or team pressure to conform to group behavior. 2) Individual traits that reflect their propensity to conform. 3) The influence of situational factors (e.g., group size and unanimity). 4) An initial (ambiguous) stimulus prompting group behavior.

Socialization

Norm conformity that occurs when a person makes the transition from being an outsider to being an insider in the organization.

Norm variation

Norms and their application vary within a group or team.

Socioemotional role

Providing social and emotional support to others on the team.

Role

The PART an individual plays in helping the group reach its goals.

Consequences of Cohesiveness

The interaction between cohesiveness and performance norms. 1) The BEST situation is high cohesiveness combined with high performance. 2) The WORST situation is high cohesiveness and low performance.

Norm generalization

The norms of one group cannot always be generalized to another group (external).

Negotiation (Conflict Resolution)

The process in which two or more parties (people or groups) reach agreement on an issue even though they have different preferences regarding that issue.

Group

Two or more people who interact regularly to accomplish a common purpose or goal.

Tips for Building an Effective Team:

When hiring: 1) look for people who work well w/ other. 2) set a good example for your staff. 3) encourage one-on-one discussions between staffers rather than structured meetings. 4) hold informal retreats to foster communication and set goals. 5) reward collective accomplishment whenever possible.