Groups and Teams

Kieran Williams

Groups and Teams

Objectives:
To analyse the nature and determinants of group processes in organisations To assess their consequences for the development and management of teams

Groups - definition
two or more individuals who interact with one another and where there is a psychological interrelationship between them. There must be a significant level of interdependence between group members to the extent that members of the group perceive the group to be real and to the extent that members can readily distinguish themselves from non-members.
(Alderfer, 1977, quoted in Rosenfeld and Wilson, 1999)

Formal and Informal groups

Formal Informal

brought together by the organisation task focus temporary or permanent, eg: task force, project group

spontaneous satisfy psychological and/or social needs cut across structure, eg: friendship groups, interest groups

Hawthorne Studies
Illumination experiments
production varied unpredictably

Relay assembly test room

production increased - quality of supervision

Bank Wiring Room

informal organisation group norms

Functions for the Group

Distribution of work Management and control of work Problem solving and decision taking

(Handy)

Information and idea collection

Testing and ratifying decisions Coordinating and liaising Increasing commitment and involvement Negotiation and conflict resolution Inquest or enquiry into past

Functions for the Individual

(Festinger)

Satisfies social or affiliation needs Establishes a self concept Support for achieving objectives Means of sharing and helping in common activity. Stimulates mental activity Social comparison learning appropriate behaviour from workmates Important source of satisfaction for group members.
Kieran William s

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages
greater interaction between members mutual help and cooperation

Disadvantages
not necessarily more productive possible conflict with organisational goals

lower staff turnover

less absenteeism higher productivity rewarding for individual

possibility of ostracism
group norms hostile to outsiders intergroup conflict

Group Norms (Argyle)

Task norms rate and standard of work deviation affects group or individual rewards

Interaction norms makes behaviour more predictable prevents conflict

Attitude norms beliefs arise in groups which may not be the same as reality Appearance norms group may develop a particular style which members must adopt

Teams and teamworking (Wilson)

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach, for which they hold themselves mutually accountable (Katzenbach and Smith 1993: 113).

There is no generally accepted definition of teamwork.

Teamworking

has been advocated with almost religious zeal by management consultants (such as Katzenbach and Smith), and academics.

Some advantages of teamworking (Wilson)

Teamworking can offer a benign alternative to repetitive Tayloristic or Fordist work routines.

Workers in teams could be multi-skilled, routinely rotate tasks, organize and allocate their own work, prioritize tasks, select team members, and assume responsibility for product or service output and quality.

Some advantages of teamworking (Wilson)

Teamworking can represent an extension to employee involvement by offering a degree of influence and control over day-to-day working.
Teamworking can replace inflexible, dehumanizing work methods with more humanistic, involving ones.

What the best teams are said to do:

invest effort in exploring, shaping, and agreeing a purpose that belongs to them both collectively and individually. encourage open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings. have mutual accountability.

(from Wilson)

From Group to Team (Tuckman)

Forming

Storming
Norming Performing Re-forming (or mourning)

More from Wilson about the best teams

Size matters; effective teams can range between 2 and 25 people. Small size, less than 10, is a guide to success. Large numbers have trouble interacting effectively and face problems such as finding enough space and time to meet in. Teams must also develop the right mix of skills technical or functional expertise, problem solving, decision-making skills, and interpersonal skills.

Some problems with the consultants optimistic view on teams (Wilson)

They present a unitarist view of management where workers and managers are portrayed as being in pursuit of a common aimhigher productivity. While team-based approaches are being criticized, downsized, and abandoned, the consultants appear undaunted by the growing evidence that results of team efforts often fall short.

Some problems with the consultants optimistic view on teams

They are also inclined to ignore public sector or third sector examples.

Approach tends not to be founded in strong research findings.

Meredith Belbin on team roles

Team roles are described as a pattern of behaviour that characterizes one persons behaviour in relationship to another in facilitating the progress of the team (Belbin 2000: xv). Belbin originally described, from his research, eight team roles (Belbin 1981), but later identified nine (Belbin 1993).

Meredith Belbin on team roles

He believes that there are only a limited number of ways in which people can usefully contribute in teamwork.

Team roles (Belbin)

Plant Resource investigator Monitor/evaluator Implementer Shaper Co-ordinator Completer/finisher

Team Worker
Specialist

Effective Teams
Professional roles plus Work roles plus Team roles

equal
Political role

Some critiques of Belbins approach

There are more concepts associated with highperforming teams than just team roles. At least 35 concepts have been associated with high-performing teams. There is little evidence to support Belbins original premise; there is a paucity of research that attempts in a systematic way to test team role theories in real teams in real organizations. See Aritzeta article on Blackboard

Some problems with teamworking

Employees may have little discretion over the way work is organized. Workers are pressed to give more of their time and energy, to identify with the goals of the organization and to collaborate effectively with their co-workers. This impacts on their individual autonomy and personal lives. If work is intensified then you would expect to find heightened stress levels.

Team Work in Health Care

Borell/West/Dawson

Members of teams that work well have low stress levels Diverse teams associated with higher innovation in patient care Quality of meetings/communication linked to improved patient care Clear leadership contributes to effective teams and high quality patient care

Models of management
Manager gives instructions and staff follow these (they have tasks). There is no need for feedback. Manager gives parameters and staff achieve objectives within these (they have responsibilities). Feedback loop informs future planning.

Factors affecting cohesiveness (solidarity)

Membership (size, homogeneity, permanence)

Work environment
(nature of task, physical setting, technology)

Organisational factors
(management and leadership, personnel, success)

Development from group to team

Group decision making

Advantages:
pooling of resources complementary knowledge new ideas evaluation of decisions acceptance of decisions increased legitimacy probably better solutions

Disadvantages
compromise risk avoidance power imbalances groupthink
illusion of invulnerability pressure to conform collective rationalisation

illusion of unanimity

Some problems with teamworking

Can be resistance amongst workers to managements attempts in teamworking to disguise control which shatters any illusion of unity that management or consultants may hold. While teamworking may be promoted for the greater unity it may bring, there may also be some negative consequences.

Some problems with teamworking

There can be free riders in teams. We need to be alert, then, to the petty tyranny and negative conflicts that can arise in teams.

Groupthink (Janus)
A result of over-cohesiveness in the group Result - the group, not the organisation, is put first Over-emphasis on group harmony and loyalty Group consensus overrides individual consciences Concurrence-seeking

Team behaviours (Sayles)

Apathetic Erratic Strategic Conservative

The more homogenous the group is in terms of skill, pay, background etc and the more important to the company, the more likely the group is to present a united front.

Kings MBA 2009 Kieran William

Some challenging questions

On the management of teams - the team is supposed to be self-managing, so why do they need external management? What leadership behaviour should the team leader adopt?

Team Effectiveness
When measuring effectiveness of a team, we must always ask effectiveness for whom? May hold great satisfactions for some members and not for others Criteria for effectiveness often takes no account of the satisfaction of members.

Multi Cultural Teams

Task and Process Strategies

Multicultural Teams
Teams are becoming more prevalent Teams have more decision making powers delayering, cross functional working

Bring together wide perspectives

Provide solutions, creativity

Balance individual and collective effort

Multicultural Teams
Issues of internal integration task and process.

Issues of risky shift and groupthink.

Differing cultural assumptions may make teams more difficult to manage.

Multicultural Teams
Individualist cultures often see teams as solutions Team approaches typified aspects of Japanese management which dominated the 1980s

The demise of the Communist bloc saw a trend towards the individual in Eastern Europe
Self managed work teams were traditional in the Balkan countries ( formerly Yugoslavia ) Teams are now often virtual

Multicultural Teams
Culture impacts on the viability of teams Culturally appropriate strategies are needed for managing task and process

Teams create their own cultures

Teams operate on shared values, beliefs and assumptions

Cross functional, cross level teams are now more common

Multicultural Teams
Pooling of expertise across national boundaries is critical to facilitate marketing and selling to different types of customer Involves sharing of perspectives, expertise but also of national, corporate and functional cultures Globalisation is bringing multiculturalism and more trans national teams

Multicultural Teams
Transnational teams create different networks Provide better understanding of international issues and dependencies

Allow managers to learn how to function effectively across the cultural divide
Useful for image and recruitment

Multicultural Teams
Interpersonal conflict and communication problems can be enhanced in multicultural teams. Active team management is still critical.

Strategies for task and process are crucial.

Belbins team types are sometimes claimed to translate across cultures Swedes as resource investigators, Germans as shapers, French as plants.

Multicultural Teams
Arriving at common ground is key and is the are where multicultural teams often fail Once teams are settled, Adler suggests that multicultural teams often outperform monocultural teams Expectations about the purpose of the team and how it is to operate can differ widely even though all can agree on what makes an effective team.

Multicultural Teams
Shared task and process strategies are critical Purpose, goals, priorities, structure, roles, responsibilities, leaders, decision making, trust, conflict, participation, communication and evaluation all need to be resolved. Underlying assumptions relate to power, individualism and time.

Task Strategies
Shared sense of purpose different cultures assume a different purpose to teams decisional, action based or sharing information on problems, social contacts

These issues determine structure, timing, who attends

Issues of formal and informal interface

Those chosen to attend may be task related, hierarchy based, socially inclusive

Task Strategies
Setting explicit goals anathema to some cultures ( high context ) where goals should be implicit Purpose as evolutionary without time frames

Rapport building as important as goals ?

Pragmatic versus ideal solutions

Task Strategies
Agendas critical in some cultures e.g. Germany where desire to reduce uncertainty matters France tendency to take discussion forward on several fronts at once Monochronic or polychronic time

Task Strategies
In individualist cultures, splitting tasks into roles is paramount In collectivist cultures, interdependent working is key Control over environment and personal accountability is a factor collectivist cultures cannot understand why personal responsibility should be taken for things over which they have no control

Task Strategies
Leadership differs across cultures Technical competence is critical in Germany In France and Italy, political influence and power are more important In USA and UK, interpersonal skills are favoured In hierarchical cultures, team leaders will chair In egalitarian cultures, roles and responsibilities will be shared and leaders may be facilitators Teams might be leaderless in some cultures

Task Strategies
Decision making will vary majority rule, consensus or compromise Americans will assume silence means agreement in a vote Voting creates winners and losers, anathema to a consensus culture. Consensus can bring together different views or be a means of compliance to adopt the best or worst idea! Loss of face has to be avoided in Japan Decisions have to be formalised in some cultures e. g. USA but not in others e.g. France where they can be implicit.

Process Strategies
Team building is a forced process and tends towards task orientation It depends on trust Americans tend to trust first until proven wrong, Germans do the reverse Americans base trust on friendly, informal behaviour, Germans on competence and technical knowledge and predictability

Relationship cultures emphasise concern for others rather than deadlines and words.

Process Strategies
Deciphering language and communication patterns is essential to negotiating strategies for working together Choice of working language can create winners and losers Be aware of dominant cultures

Levels of fluency and composition of team need to be considered.

Process Strategies
Native language safety valve Summarising, paraphrasing and visual records become critical

Sophisticated language is favoured in some cultures

Patterns of language differ and some cultures value silence

Process Strategies
Interrupting is taboo in some cultures Technology compounds cultural differences Multicultural teams should not force conformity or contributions the corridor meeting may be more important

Process Strategies
Culture will impact on conflict techniques e.g. France which is individualist but with unequal power will use avoidance by passing things up the hierarchy followed by confrontation Sweden will use collaboration more equal power and concern for relationships Other relationship cultures will use accommodation when mutuality is key Ambiguity can make some cultures feel more comfortable than clarity Constructive tension is desirable

Process Strategies
Feedback differs across cultures, particularly if it is critical. Feedback from subordinates may not be acceptable in hierarchical cultures In multicultural teams, differences have to be resolved without being personally threatening. Understanding and channelling difference not accommodating , absorbing or ignoring it is the key It is about valuing and using diversity not making everyone conform to the identikit pattern

Humour is important
Added value comes from diversity