Chapter 13 - Groups and Teams

What are the five conflict-handling styles or techniques you can use for handling disagreements with individuals?

- Avoiding - Ignoring or suppressing a conflict. Appropriate for trivial issues, when emotions are high and a cooling off period is needed or when cost confrontation outweighs the benefit - Obliging - Accommodating manager allows the desires of the other party to prevail. May be appropriate when it's possible to eventually get something in return or when the issue isn't important to you. - Dominatnig - aka forcing - ordering an outcome, when a manager relies on their formal authority and power to resolve a conflict. Appropriate when an unpopular solution must be implemented and when it's not important that others commit to your viewpoint - Compromising - both parties give up something to gain something. Appropriate when both sides have opposite goals or possess equal power - Integrating - collaborative style where the manager strives to confront the issue and cooperatively identify the problem, generating and weighing alternatives and selecting a solution. Appropriate for complex issues plagued by misunderstanding

What are eight attributes of a high-performance team?

- Participative leadership - Shared Accountability - Sense of Common Purpose - Trust and open communication - Clear role expectations - Early conflict resolution - Collaboration - Effective team process

What are the most essential considerations in building a group to an effective team?

1. Collaboration 2. Trust 3. Performance goals and feedback 4. Motivation through mutual accountability and interdependency 5. Composition 6. Roles 7. Norms 8. Effective team processes

What two types of disciplined role-plays can help people engage in debate?

1. Devil's advocacy - role-playing criticism to test whether a proposal is workable. It is the process of assigning someone to play the role of critic. Great training for developing analytical and communicative skills 2. The dialectic method - role-playing two sides of a proposal to test whether it is workable - the process of having two people or groups play opposing roles in a debate in order to better understand a proposal

What are the two types of conflict?

1. Dysfunctional conflict - bad for organizations - conflict that hinders the organization's performance or threatens its interest 2. Functional conflict - good for the organization - it benefits the main purpose of the organization and serves its interest. Also called productive conflict occurs when team members openly discuss disagreements and divergent perspectives without fear, anxiety, or perceived threat. - Can lead to superior team problem solving and decision making, and greater organizational effectiveness

What are Tuckman's stages of team development? - These stages aren't of the same duration or intensity or always in the same order

1. Forming 2. storming 3. norming 4. performing 5. Adjourning

What are the four principal conflict triggers?

1. Personality Conflicts - Clashes because of personal dislikes or disagreements. It is interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike or disagreement. Often begins with instances of workplace incivility or employees lack of regard for each other 2. Envy-Based Conflicts - Clashes because of what others have. Envy is the unpleasant feeling of inferiority and resentment caused by comparing yourself with a person or group who possesses something you desire. It can threaten self-esteem and promote the attitude of injustice. Employees have low level organizational citizenship behaviors and high-level counterproductive work behaviors 3. Intergroup dynamics - Clashes among work groups, teams, and departments - collaboration can create a we versus them with produces conflict among groups. Expressed by inconsistent goals or reward systems - when people pursue different objectives and ambiguous jurisdictions - when job boundaries are unclear and status differences - when there are inconsistencies in power and influence 4. Cultural differences Conflicts - Clashes between cultures - arises from dealing with differing assumptions about how to think and act. - Cross cultural awareness is the ability to operate in different cultural settings

Teams can differentiate according to their:

1. Purpose 2. Duration 3. Level of member commitment

How can managers stimulate constructive conflict?

1. Spur Competition among employees 2. Change the Organization's Culture and Procedures 3. Bring in Outsides for new perspectives 4. Use Programmed Conflict - Devil's advocacy and the dialectic method. Programmed conflict is designed to elicit different opinions without inciting people's personal feelings

What are the five career readiness competencies that enable you to work on disagreements and keep them from flaring into out-of-control personality conlicts?

1. Teamwork/Collaboration 2. Social Intelligence - the ability to connect with others in a meaningful way, to recognize and understand another person's feelings and thoughts, and to use this information to stimulate positive relationships 3. Openness to Change - Being flexible when confronted with change, seeing change as a challenge, and being willing to apply new ideas, processes, or directives 4. Emotional Intelligence - the ability to monitor your emotions and those of others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your thinking and behavior 5. Oral/Written Communication

Stage 5 _____ is the final stage in which members prepare for disbandment - For individuals the question is What's next? For teams the issue is Can we help members transition out? - Leaders can help ease the transition by rituals celebrating the end and new beginnings

Adjourning

____ is the foundation of teamwork. The act of sharing information and coordinating efforts to achieve a collective outcome. The secret sauce enabling teams to produce more than the sum of their parts. One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team

Collaboration - Highest performing teams share two characteristics - Everyone on the team spoke in about equal proportion. Members were very good at interpreting other members' feelings based on their tone of voice and nonverbal cues - Can be promoted by - Team member learning to listen more than they talk. Team members are encouraged to practice empathy

_______ is a process in which one party perceives that its interest are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

Conflict

________ are designed to include members from different areas within an organization. - Can serve any purpose (can be work teams or project teams) - Assignments can be long or short term - Found to improve organizational productivity and efficiency and also reduce cost

Cross-functional Teams

____ are created to accomplish specific goals. It is a group assigned by organizations or its managers to accomplish specific goals. - May be a division, a department, a work group, or a committee. - It may be permanent or temporary

Formal groups

Stage 1______ is the process of getting oriented and getting acquainted. Characterized by a high degree of uncertainty as members try to break the ice and figure out who is charge and what the group goals are

Forming - Why are we here? How do I fit in here? - - Trust is low and members are holding back to see who takes charge and how - Conflict may be beneficial, leading to increased creativity - Needs leadership and direction - Allow people time to get acquainted and to socialize

A ____ is defined as (1) two or more freely interacting individuals who (2) share norms (3) share goals, and (4) have a common identity

Group A group is different from a crowd, a transitory collection of people who don't interact with one another (crowd on the sidewalk). It is also different than an organization that is so large that members also don't interact - Groups have individual accountability, teams require both individual and mutual accountability in order to produce results

What contributes to on the job conflict?

Mistakes, pressue-cooker deadlines, differeing personalities, increased workloads, demand for higher productivity, and stress

________ is when clear performance goals exist, work is meaningful, team members believe their efforts matter, and when they don't feel they are being exploited by others One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team

Motivation through Mutual Accountability and Interdependence - Mutual accountability is fostered by having team members share accountability for the work, authority over how goals are met, discretion over resources used and ownership of information - Team member interdependence - reveals the extent to which team members rely on common task-related team inputs, such as resources, information, goals, and rewards and the amount of interpersonal interactions needed to complete the work

Stage 3______ is where conflicts are resolved, close relationships develop, and unity and harmony emerge - Individuals main question - What do the others expect me to do? Group issue - Can we agree on roles and work as a team? - Group may now evolve into a team - Generally, make it through stage 3 because a respected member other than the leader challenges the group to resolve its power struggles so something can be accomplished. - Group cohesiveness is achieved - a we feeling binding group members together is the principal by-product of Stage 3. - Doesn't last long - Leader should emphasize unity and help identify team goals and values

Norming

_______ are more encompassing than roles. They are general guidelines or rules of behavior that most group or team members follow. They point out the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior

Norms One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team - Typically, unwritten and seldom discussed openly. - Enforced by group for four reasons: To help the group survive - Don't do anything that will hurt use; To clarify role expectations - You have to go along to get along; To help individuals avoid embarrassing situations - Don't call attention to yourself; To emphasize the group's important values and identity - We're known for being special

______ need to be defined for teams just like with individuals. One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team

Performance Goals and Feedback - Teams are individuals organized for a collective purpose. That purpose needs to be defined in terms of specific, measurable performance goals with continual feedback to tell team members how well they are doing.

Stage 4 ____ is when members concentrate on solving problems and completing the assigned task. - Individual questions - How can I best preform my role? Group question - Can we do the job properly? - During this stage the leader should allow members the empowerment they need to work on tasks

Performing

__________ predicted that future organizations would not only be flatter and information-based but also organized around teamwork (surveys say Gen Z are more interested in the team they are going to work with than the work itself).

Peter Drucker

_____ are assembled to solve a particular problem or complete a specific task, such as brainstorming new marketing ideas for one of the company's products. - Members can meet once or work together for many years depending on the nature of the assignment - May be virtual or face to face - Can come from the same or different departments or functional areas - They continue to fulfill their primary responsibilities

Project teams

In another type of group development, __________ they establish periods of stable functioning until an event causes a dramatic change in norms of functioning, returning to equilibrium. Occurs in the wake of unexpected change. - Ex - Brexit

Punctuated equilibrium

____ are socially determined expectations of how individuals should behave in a specific position.

Roles One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team - team members role is to play a part in helping the team reach its goal - A task role, or task-oriented role - consist of behavior that concentrates on getting the team's task done. They keep the team on track and get the work done. Ex: coordinators who pull together ideas and suggestions; orienteers who keep the team headed towards goals; initiators who suggest new goals or ideas; energizers who prod people to move along or accomplish more - A maintenance role, or relationship-oriented role - consists of behavior that fosters constructive and positive relationship amount team members. Ex: encouragers who foster group solidarity; by praising various viewpoints; standard setters who evaluate the quality of group processes; harmonizers who mediate conflict through reconciliation or humor; compromisers who help resolve conflict by meeting others halfway

_____ are defined as groups of workers who are given administrative oversight from their task domains. - Believe to increase productivity between 15 - 20% - Autonomy they provide can lead to increased innovation - Most common chores are work scheduling and customer interaction and least common are hiring and firing - Positive effect on productivity and attitudes of self-responsibility and control - Experts expect trends towards these teams in North America because of strong cultural bias in favor of direct participation

Self - Managed teams Three takeaways from creating self-managed teams: - Ensure a leader quickly emerges - Select the right individuals to join the team - Provide proper training for team members

Stage 2 ______ is characterized by the emergence of individual personalities and roles and conflicts within the group - Individual question - What's my role here? Group question - Why are we fighting over who's in charge and who does what? - May be short or painfully long depending on goal clarity and commitment and maturity of the team - Time for testing (individuals test the leader's policies and assumptions as they try to determine how they fit in the power structure.) - Subgroups take shape and subtle forms of rebellion, such as procrastination occur - Groups may stall at stage 2 because power politics may erupt into open rebellion - Leader should encourage members to suggest ideas, voice disagreements, and work through their conflicts about tasks and goals

Storming

_____ reflects the collection of jobs, personalities, values, knowledge, experience, and skills of team members. Related to the concept of team diversity

Team Composition One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team - Consider having a higher tolerance for uncertainty during the early stages of team development - Utilize greater diversity in the way you solve problems - Try to avoid assigning employees to multiple teams - Utilize public performance feedback in mixed-gender groups

__________ are team members interdependent acts that transform inputs to outcomes through activities directed toward organizing taskwork to achieve collective goals. These activities can be cognitive, verbal, and behavioral

Team Processes One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team - Can be improved by creating a team charter - outlines how a team will manage teamwork activities. Associated with higher, sustained performance, particularly for teams that are low on team conscientiousness - Engage in team reflexivity - A collective process by which members reflect on the team's objectives, strategies, methods, and processes and adapt accordingly. Can help improve team performance, trust, and creativity. It reduces burnout because it provides a sense of control and support. Can be engaged by conducting project postmortems (review of recent decisions to identify possible future improvements - Give team members a voice - Team voice reflects the extent to which team members feel free to express opinions, concerns, proposals, or thoughts about work-related issues.

What happens when there is too little or too much conflict?

Too little conflict - Inactivity - work groups, departments, or organizations tend to be plagued by apathy, lack of creativity, indecisions, and missed deadlines Too much conflict - warfare - excessive conflict and erode organizational performance because of political infighting, dissatisfaction, lack or teamwork, and turnover. Workplace aggression and violence are manifestations of excessive conflict Moderate level conflict can induct creativity and initiative thereby raising performance

____ is about having reciprocal faith in each other's intentions and behaviors. One of the essential considerations in building a group into an effective team

Trust - Reciprocal emphasizes the give and take aspect of trust that is we tend to give what we get - It is based on credibility - how believable you are based on your past acts of integrity and follow-through on your promises - There are three core drivers known as the "Trust Triangle": 1. Authenticity - I'm seeing the real you - People tend to trust you if they believe you're being your genuine self 2. Logic - Your reasoning and judgement make sense - You stand a better chance of having people trust you if they have faith in your judgment and competence 3. Empathy - You care about me and my success - people will trust you if they believe you really care about them

_____ work together over time and distance via electronic media to combine efforts and achieve common goals. - Benefits: ability to leverage diverse knowledge, skills, and experience across geography and time; ability to share knowledge of diverse markets; reduced commuting and travel expenses; flexibility can reduce work-life conflicts for employees which makes it easier to attract and retain talent - Challenges: More difficult to establish team cohesion, work satisfaction, trust, cooperative behavior, and commitment to team goals; unable to observe nonverbal cues of other members and experiencing a lack of collegiality - In person meetings are important when there is a need to re-organize or re-strategize

Virtual teams - Survey by International Workplace Group in 2019 found: - 85% of businesses reported that productivity increased - 80% of employees would select offer that offered flexible working hours - 50% of workers worked outside their main office for at least 2.5 days a week - 65% of businesses said flexible workspaces reduced capital and operational expenditures

___ have several things in common, they have a clear purpose that all members share. - They are usually permanent - Member must give their complete commitment to the team's purpose in order for the team to succeed

Work Teams

___ created for friendship. A group formed by people whose overriding purpose is getting together for friendship or a common interest.

informal group - Important to know that informal groups can advance or undercut the plans of formal groups - Can be highly productive and have a positive effect on productivity and motivation. - Enhanced communication, autonomy, and process innovation

A _______ is defined as a small group of people working together with a common purpose, performance goals, and mutual accountability. - Produce joint work product through the joint combination of their members - Essential element to effective teams is trust

team