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UNIT VI GROUP BEHAVIOR Prepared by: ANA MAE ALEJANDRIA ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT FOR TEAMS ORGANIZATIONS - group of people

e who work together - are the grand strategies created to bring order out of chaos when people work together. - Provide the skeletal structure that helps create predictable relationships among people, jobs, and resources. 1. CLASSICAL ORGANIZATION CONCEPTS - is the process of starting with the total amount of work to be done and dividing it into divisions, work clusters, jobs and assignments of responsibilities to people. - Efficiency and integration of efforts are achieved through division of work and delegation. 2. MATRIX ORGANIZATION - is an overlay of one type of organization on another so that two chains of command are directing individual employees. - Used especially for large, specialized projects that temporarily require large numbers of technical people with different skills to work in project teams. Cross functional teams o a matrix organizational process applied on a large scale across internal organizational boundaries. o these are teams that draw their members from more than one specialty area. TEAMWORK AND TEAM BUILDING TEAM
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is a collection of individuals organized to accomplish a common purpose, who are interdependent, and who can be identified by themselves and observers as a team.

TEAMWORK - a cooperative state where individual employees perform operating tasks, work interdependently, and act as a task team. Task team o is a cooperative small group in regular contact that is engaged in coordinated action. Figure 1 Contrasting Groups and Teams Dimension for Comparison Group 1. Work products Individual 2. Performance External monitoring source 3. Focus of activity Efficient task performance 4. Leadership Single 5. View of conflict Dysfunctional and discouraged

Team Collective Internal Problem solving Shared Functional and encouraged

LIFE CYCLE OF A TEAM STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT 1. Forming o members share personal information, start to get to know and accept one another, and begin turning their attention towards the groups tasks. o an aura of courtesy prevails and interactions are often cautious. 2. Storming o Members compete for status, jockey for positions of relative control and argue about appropriate directions for the group. o External pressures interfere with the group, and tensions rise between individuals as they assert themselves. 3. Norming o The group begins moving together in a cooperative fashion, and a tentative balance among competing forces is struck. o Group norms emerge to guide individual behavior and cooperative feelings are increasingly evident. 4. Performing o The group matures and learns to handle complex challenges. o Functional roles are performed and fluidly exchanged as needed and tasks are efficiently accomplished. 5. Adjourning o Break up of groups, committees and project teams which requires dissolving intense social relations and returning to permanent assignments. INGREDIENTS OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS 1. Supportive Environment o Involves encouraging members to think like a team, providing adequate time for meetings and demonstrating faith in members capacity to achieve. 2. Skills and Role Clarity o Team members must be reasonably qualified to perform their jobs and have the desire to cooperate. o Members work together as a team after all members of the group know the roles of all others with whom they will be interacting. 3. Superordinate Goals o Is a higher goal that integrates the efforts of two or more persons. o Such goals serve to focus attention, unify efforts and stimulate more cohesive teams. 4. Team Rewards o These may be financial or they may be in form of recognition. o Are most powerful if valued by the team members, perceived as possible to earn and administered contingent on the groups task performance. 5. Empowered teams o Team members will feel motivated and empowered when they: Share a sense of potency (have a can do attitude) Experience meaningfulness (have a commitment to a worthwhile purpose) Are given autonomy (have freedom and discretion to control resources and make decisions) See their impact on results (can assess, monitor, and celebrate their contributions and results) for blame.

6. Clear direction

o Clear direction means that the team is given a clear and distinct goal. The team may be empowered to determine how to achieve that goal, but management, when forming the team, generally sets the goal. A clear direction also means that team outcomes are measurable. 7. Clear responsibilities o Clear responsibilities means that each team member understands what is expected of her or him within the team. The roles must be clear and interesting to the team members. Each team member needs to be able to rely on all the other members to carry out their roles so that the team can function effectively. Otherwise, one or two team members come to feel that they are doing all the work. This is one of the reasons so many individuals are initially reluctant to join teams. 8. Knowledgeable members o An effective team will be comprised of individuals who have the skills and knowledge necessary to complete the team's task. Cooperation is essential at an early stage in inventorying the skills and knowledge each member brings to the team, and working to determine how to utilize those skills to accomplish the team task. 9. Reasonable operating procedures o All teams need a set of rules by which they operate. Sports teams for example, operate according to a clearly laid-out set of rules about how the game is played. Similarly, work teams need a set of procedures to guide meetings, decision making, planning, division of tasks, and progress evaluation. Setting, and sticking to, procedures helps team members become comfortable relying on one another. 10. Interpersonal relationships o Teams are composed of diverse individuals, each of whom comes to the team with his or her own set of values. Understanding and celebrating this diversity helps to make a stronger, more effective team. 11. Sharing success and failures o Everyone wants to feel appreciated. Within a team, members should be willing to express their appreciation, as well their criticisms, of others' efforts. Similarly, the organization must be willing to reward the team for successful completion of a task and hold all members responsible for failure. 12. External relationships o In the process of building a strong team, groups external to the team are frequently ignored. In order for the team to successfully complete its task, it cannot operate in isolation from the rest of the organization. Teams need help from people within the organization who control important resources. Establishing clear lines of communication with these people early on will facilitate the completion of the team's task. POTENTIAL TEAM PROBLEMS - Encourages team members to examine how they work together, identify their weakness and develop more effective ways of cooperating. - The goal is to make team more effective. 1. Changing Composition 2. Social loafing o The free rider effect o Caused by perception of unfair division of labor, a belief that co-workers are lazy, or a feeling of being able to hide in a crowd and therefore not be able to be singled out

TEAM BUILDING TEAM COACHING - Involves a leaders intentional effort and interaction with a team to help its members make appropriate use of their collective resources. THE NEED FOR TEAM BUILDING o Interpersonal conflicts among team members or between the team and its leader o Low degree of team morale or low team cohesiveness o Confusion or disagreement about roles within the team o Large influx of new members o Disagreement over the teams purpose and tasks o Negative climate within the team, evidenced by criticism and bickering o Stagnation within the team, with members resisting change and new idea. Figure 2 Stages in Team Building
Identification of the problem

Collection of relevant data

Data feedback and confrontation

Problem solving experience

On the job application and follow up

SKILLS USEFUL IN TEAM BUILDING 1. Process consultation o Is a set of activities that help others focus on what is currently happening around them. o Intended to help team members perceive, understand and react constructively to current behavioral events. Process consultants Team facilitators Encourage employees to examine their intended versus their actual roles within team, the ways in which the team discusses and solves problems, the use and abuse of power and authority and the explicit and implicit communication patterns.

Figure 3 Process Consultants use Facilitating Behavior to help Team function more effectively.

Facilitating behaviors Encouraging open communication Observing team meetings Probing and questioning Confronting individuals Stimulating problem solving Encouraging learning

Desired effects on Team members Examine intended versus actual roles Identify problems Examine consequences of behavior React constructively to current behavioral events Explore new alternatives Think and act independently

2. Feedback o Useful data for a team in which to base decision. o Encourages the team to understand how they are seen by others within their team and to take self-correcting action. COMMON OUTCOMES OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS Performance or Productivity improvement Product quality Response time Degree of innovation Customer / client satisfaction Decision quality Efficiency Member Behaviors Lower absenteeism Diminished turnover Improved safety record Increased acts of organizational citizenship Member Attitudes Individual satisfaction Interpersonal trust Organizational commitment

Team cohesiveness ETHICAL DILEMMAS WITHIN TEAMS 1. Team member appraisals o Example: Do you tell a teammate what is bugging you and risk offending the person or do you withhold your feelings and let the group suffer? 2. Member assistance o Example: Several teammates stop by to ask if you need help. You dont, but if you continue rejecting their offers, will they feel you are not a team player? 3. Team selection o Example: Your teammates want to hire new members who are similar to themselves. This approach is tempting for compatibility reasons but how will you ever achieve greater diversity in the team? 4. Team perfection o Example: Enormous time and effort is spent becoming the ideal team. However, you wonder if the team is losing its focus on the customer through its dominant focus on process. 5. Team rewards o Example: The team is rewarded on the basis of achieving its own performance goals. Yet, you wonder if such rewards prevent the team from seeing the larger organizational picture. SELF MANAGING TEAMS - Known as self-reliant or self-directed teams. - Are natural work groups that are given substantial autonomy and in return are asked to control their behavior and produce significant results. - The combination of empowerment and training to plan, direct, monitor and control their own activities distinguishes this team from others. - Have wide ranging autonomy and freedom, coupled with the capability to act like managers. - Require that their leader play a boundary spanning roles. Boundary Spanners o Interact with a variety of other groups in order to help team succeed. o Keep communication channels open and active by constantly sharing information with other units in the organization and with people at other levels. o They have often have little or no authority and so their task is best accomplished through skills such: Social awareness Relating to others Investigating problems Genuine caring for team members Influencing the team Persuading Advantages of Self Managing Teams: o o o o Improved flexibility of staff More efficient operations through the reduced number of job classifications Lower absenteeism and turnover rates High levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction

Disadvantages of Self Managing Teams : o The extended time to implement them (often covering several years) o The high training investment o Early inefficiencies due to job rotation o The inability of some employees to adapt to a team structure Figure 4 Contrasting Supervisory Roles Traditional Structure Authority figure Expert Teacher Problem solver coordinator Self-managing Team Structure Coach and counselor Champion and cheerleader Resource allocator Liaison and boundary manager Facilitator

VIRTUAL TEAMS - Groups that meet through the use of technological aids without all their members being present in the same location. - To overcome the inherent problems of individualistic behavior, feelings of isolation, lack of trust and the extra coordination needed in virtual teams, managers use one or more approaches to substitute for daily face to face interaction with their employees. These includes: Clarified goals and definition of the major issues. Conduct of a few short face to face meetings to humanize fellow team members. Temporary on location projects among virtual team members. Explicit definition of role expectations. Identification of potential problems likely to arise. Frequent use of e-mail and videoconferencing to encourage information exchange and collaboration.

School of Graduate Studies


Central Philippine University

Administrative Behavior

UNIT VI:

GROUP BEHAVIOR

Prepared by:

CHRISTINE ANNE L. LORENO, RN ANA MAE ALEJANDRIA, RN

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