chapter 13 team

Diversity as a Social Process

An alternative view is that diversity problems arise from social competition and conflict. Prejudices arise when the out-group is perceived as a threat to an individual's resources or power. Many negative effects of diversity are a direct result of the impacts of unequal power within the team.

Perceptual Biases Selective perception

The tendency to focus on and remember only information that confirms our beliefs and to ignore information that contradicts them.

Perceptual Biases Similar to me effect

The tendency to view people who are similar to us in a positive light.

Causes of Diversity Problems Leader-Member Exchange Theory

describes the dynamics of the relationship between a team member and a leader. ---Leader decides early in the relationship whether the team member is part of the in-group or the out-group. Members of the in-group have an advantage over those in the out-group. Two important insights: The group evaluation occurs very early in the relationship, before the leader actually knows much about the members performance.

Functional Attributes:

Concern knowledge, abilities, and skills relating to the work environment and differences in perspectives about task issues

Social Categorization Perspectives:

Differences among team members may lead to in-group/out-group divisions within the team that decrease team member friendships, trust, and cooperation, and disrupt the group process

Information/Decision Making Perspectives:

Differences in knowledge, skills, and perspectives may lead to higher quality and more creative decisions and improved performances

Personal Attributes:

Differences in personality, values, and various demographic variables like age, gender and race

Team Leaders Team leader example is special case for cognitive process

Diversity affects a team through the relationship between a team member and a leader. receive more resources, mentoring, and assistance; better performance ratings; and are more satisfied being a part of the team than those in the out-group.

Problems of Diversity

Diversity in teams can improve team performance because the members will have different approaches in problem solving and different information Diversity can also lead to misperceptions and increased emotional tension This can decrease communication and prevent the team from fully utilizing their resources

The Nature of Diversity

Diversity is the core of Teamwork Individuals offering different perspective of culture, critical thinking, and overall contribution bring more to a team then similarly thinking groups. Diversity is only increasing throughout America's workforce, and being able to adopt these principles in teams now will benefit corporations in the long run.

Causes of Diversity Problems Diversity as a Cognitive Process

Diversity is viewed as a social construction based on our cognitive processes. People categorize their social world into groups and treat the members of those groups differently based on their categories. We are more likely to categorize people in ways that are easily observable, such as race. These categories influence how people perceive and interact with others

Emotional Distrust

Dividing a team into in-group and out-group members can create social friction Power conflicts lead to distrust and defensiveness This can cause the team to become divided into cliques Distrustful teams will have more conflict, and the conflict will be more difficult to resolve

The book offers three different categorizations of diversity: Demographic Diversity

Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Nationality, Age or Generational, Religion, Sexual Orientation

Deep-Level Diversity:

Has positive effects on team decision making, creativity, and performance * Diversity improves problem solving and decision making, tasks that require creativity, complex tasks, and less routine work

Research on the Effects of Diversity on Teams What they've found:

Homogeneous teams function better in the short-run than in the long-run Diversity is a benefit for some types of tasks, but may be a problem for others The impact of diversity on a work team depends on the organizational climate and on how the team deals with diversity

successful negotiation

However, these teams are often difficult to operate due to the competing viewpoints. A successful cross-functional team is like a successful negotiation *The challenge is to manage conflict constructively!

Cross-Functional Teams

In most cases, diversity in a team is something that doesn't happen on purpose. Cross-Functional Teams area good example of diversity by design The diversity in cross-functional teams relates to both functional and organizational diversity Cross-functional teams are highly valuable because they bring together knowledge and expertise that exists through an organization

Diversity as a Social Process

In teams with unequal power, the level of communication is reduced and the powerful members control the communication process. Power differences affect cohesion because those with similar status are more likely to interact with one another. Power differences can also lead to more internal conflicts within diverse teams due to their conflicting goals and increased miscommunication.

The Nature of Diversity How does diversity affect a Team? The Trait Approach-

In this approach, the assumption is that diversity affects how people act. People with different cultural backgrounds have different values, skills, and personalities.

Surface-Level Diversity:

May lead to problems with communication and team cohesion, and increases in conflict, but often has mixed or limited effects on overall team performance

Perceptual Biases Halo effect

Once we have an overall positive or negative impression, we assume that they are good or bad at everything.

Misperceptions Prejudices and false stereotypes cause diversity problems

People with different backgrounds can hold differing values and behaviors To deal with this, people in the majority will ignore or misinterpret the contributions of minority members This eventually makes minorities contribute less to team communication and have less of an impact on team decisions

The book offers three different categorizations of diversity: Organizational Diversity-

Status, Occupation, Department or Division, Tenure

Misperceptions

Team members who appear to have expertise generally have more influence on decision making However, teams tend to value a man's expertise more than a woman's One way to combat discrimination is to reach a point where 20% of the team is made up of minorities/women This is the threshold where discrimination tends to drop off

Perceptual Biases First impression error

The tendency to based judgments on our first impressions and ignore later information that contradicts those judgments.

Perceptual Biases Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to explain why someone is acting in a particular way by using personal rather than situational explanations.

The Nature of Diversity How does diversity affect a Team? The Expectations approach-

This approach focuses on the beliefs people have about what other people are like. These expectations will form how someone will interact with someone different from them.

They also found...

Time working together reduces the negative social impacts of surface-level diversity, while increasing the value of deep-level diversity The challenge of diversity is to get the benefits of functional diversity and differences in perspectives, while managing the communication and conflict Diversity can improve problem solving by increasing the number of perspectives

The book offers three different categorizations of diversity: Psychological Diversity

Values Beliefs and Attitudes, Personality and cognitive behavior styles, Knowledge Skills and Abilities

Causes of Diversity Problems Diversity as a Cognitive Process Stereotypes

are cognitive categorizations that describe people in preconceived groups. They can be positive, negative, or both.

Causes of Diversity Problems Diversity as a Cognitive Process Prejudice

is an unjustified negative attitude toward a group and its members, typically based on stereotypes. Prejudices may lead to discrimination if there is social support for negative behavior toward the out-group.

Causes of Diversity Problems Diversity as a Cognitive Process Social perception

is the process of collecting and interpreting information about others The problem with social perception is that it leads to premature judgments.