PERFORMANCE

Chapter 9

Group Performance

Increasing importance in todays workplace

Teams/Groups are more common now Global competition will require more effort from employees Downsizing requires adaptability & extra effort Resources may be scarce

Adaptive Group Performance

Beneficial due to changing nature of work

Changing technologies alter work tasks Mergers, downsizing, & corporate restructuring dealing with uncertain conditions Globalization & Diversity - working in different cultures

Social Facilitation

Social facilitation: improvement in performance in the presence of others (both audience and coaction)

Tripletts (1898) early studies on cyclists performed better when racing against others than being timed alone against others than being timed alone Coaction performing a task in the presence of one or more other individuals who are performing a similar activity

Social Facilitation (cont)

Zajoncs motivational analysis of social facilitation (1965)

Dominant Responses vs. Nondominant Responses

If task requires dominant response If task requires nondominant response

Presence of others

Dominant responses increase and nondominant responses decrease

Social facilitation

Social interference

Social Facilitation (cont)

Zajoncs motivational analysis of social facilitation (1965)

Social Facilitation occurs on simple tasks that require dominant responses Social Impairment occurs for complex tasks that require nondominant responses

Examples: Making speeches Getting dressed in familiar & unfamiliar clothes Playing games

Theories of Social Facilitation

Zajoncs Drive Process: Zajonc suggests compresence (responding to the presence of others) leads to increased readiness and arousal (psychologically & physiologically) Motivational Processes: Cotrells evaluation apprehension theory (also, self-presentation theory): when working in the presence of others a general concern of how others are evaluation them, and this apprehension facilitates their performance on simple, well learned tasks

Theories of Social Facilitation

Cognitive Processes: distraction-conflict theory when people are in the presence of others their attention is divided by the other people and the task This attentional conflict increases motivation and so it facilitates performance on simple, well learned tasks Recall is poorer when original stimulus was presented in the presence of others

Alone or with Others ?

Prejudice as a dominant response Electronic performance monitoring Study groups

Group Productivity

Social Loafing the reduction of individual effort

when people work in groups compared to when they work alone

Productivity losses in groups

Steiners law of group productivity Actual productivity = Potential productivity losses owing to faulty process People become less productive when they work with others Loss increases as group become larger

The Ringelmann Effect

Group Productivity

The Ringelmann Effect

People become less productive when they work with others Loss increases as group become larger

Causes of Loss

Coordination problems Reduction of effort

Potential Productivity
600 500 400

Pseudo groups

300 200 100

Actual groups

Alone

Dyads

6-person groups

Social Loafing

Social loafing depends on a number of group-level factors, including:

Identifiability Free-riding Goals

Cures for Social Loafing

Involvement

exciting, challenging, involving tasks limit loafing Karau and William's (1993) collective effort model, or CEM social compensation: involved members work harder to compensate for others

Identification with the group: Social identity

Building an Effective Team

Steiners social combination theory predicts productivity depends on

Group composition: Who is in the group, how do they fit together? The groups task: What must the group do to reach its goals?

Building an Effective Team

Group composition

Members knowledge, skills, abilities, or KSAs outperform less skilled groups the best individuals make the best teams Group Diversity may outperform less diverse groups b/c their wide range of talents & traits enhances their cognitive flexibility i.e., creativity, alternatives, solutions Men and women in performance groups (solo status)

Building an Effective Team

Steiners taxonomy of tasks and task demands

Distinguishes between the types of tasks groups perform based on how members inputs are combined Task Demands the effect that a problem or tasks features, including its divisibility and difficulty, have on the procedures the group can use to complete the task Asks three basic questions. Divisibility, Quantity vs. Quality, Interdependence

Task Demands
Question Task Type Qualities

Examples
Playing a football game Building a house Preparing a sixcourse meal Pulling on a rope Reading a book Solving a math problem

Divisible Subcomponents can be identified Can the task be and assigned to specific broken down members into subtasks? Unitary The task does not have subcomponents

Quantity vs. Quality

Quantity:

Maximizing The more Is quantity produced more important than quality of performance ? Optimizing
produced the better the performance

Generating many ideas Lifting a great weight Scoring the most goals

Quality:

A correct or optimal solution is needed

Developing the best answer Solving a math problem

Interdependence
Additive
Individual inputs are added together averaging together individual decisions

Pulling a rope Shoveling snow

Compensatory Decision is made by

How are individual inputs Disjunctive combined to yield a group product ?

Conjunctive

Estimating a pigs weight by asking 3 people to guess & averaging their guesses Averaging ratings of job applicants

Group selects one solution or product from a pool of members solutions or products All group members must contribute to the product for it to be completed Group decides how individual inputs relate to group product

Picking one persons answer to a math problem to be the groups answer Letting one art project represent the entire school Climbing a mountain Eating a meal as a group

Discretionary

Deciding to shovel snow together Choosing to vote on the best answer to a problem

Types of Tasks

Additive Task a task or project that a group can complete by cumulative combining of members input Compensatory Task a task or project that a group can complete by averaging together individual members solutions or recommendations Groups outperform individuals on additive tasks and compensatory tasks.

Types of Tasks
Disjunctive Task a task or project that is completed when a single solution, decision, or recommendation is adopted by the group Groups perform well on disjunctive tasks if the group includes at least one individual who knows the correct solution (truth-wins rule on Eureka problems)

Groups rarely perform better than the best member (synergy, or an assembly bonus effect)

Types of Tasks

Conjunctive Task a task that can be completed successfully only if all group members contribute Groups perform poorly on conjunctive tasks unless less skilled members increase their efforts (the Khler Effect) or the task can be subdivided. Khler Effect an increase in performance by groups working on conjunctive tasks that require persistence but little coordination of effort and is likely due to the increase effort expended by the less capable members. The effectiveness of groups working on discretionary tasks covaries with the method chosen to combine individuals inputs (see Table 9-3).

Brainstorming

Brainstorming rules

Be expressive Postpone evaluation Seek quantity Piggyback ideas

Brainstorming

Brainstorming groups are not as creative as nominal groups due to Social loafing Production blocking Social matching Illusion of productivity.

Other methods: brainwriting, synectics, the nominal-group technique (NGT), and electronic brainstorming (EBS), offer advantages over traditional brainstorming.