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W5 CH6 – Groups and Teamwork

Group: 2+ people with a common relationship. (co-workers, ppl waiting for the bus, etc…). Does not necessarily
engage in collective work.

Team: Small number of ppl with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance
goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
 Members share leadership
 Individual and the team share accountability
 Develops its own purpose or mission
 Team’s measure of effectiveness is the team’s outcomes and goals, not individuals

three skills necessary to effective team performance: technical expertise, problem-solving skills,
and interpersonal skills.

Types of teams:
 Problem solving/Process improvement team: typically 5-12 employees from the same department, meet
a few hours weekly to discuss potential improvements
 Self-Managed/Self Directed: 10-15 employees that perform highly related or interdependent jobs, take on
many responsibilities of former manager. Issue: when disputes arise, members stop cooperating and
power struggles ensue.
 Cross-functional: Made-up of employees from same hierarchal level but different work areas. Early stages
of development are time consuming. Skunkwork: cross-functional team that develops spontaneously to
create a new product or work on a complex problem; often seen in high teck.
 Virtual Teams: physically dispersed members. Members report less satisfaction. To be effective:
o Establish trust amongst members
o Monitor progress closely
o Efforts and products publicized throughout the organization so team does not become invisible

How individuals learn to work in groups:

 Roles: Positions in a group that have a set of expected behaviors attached to them
 Norms: Collective expectations that members of a team have regarding the behavior of each other

Roles:
 Role expectations: how others believe a person should act in a given situation.
 Role conflict: arises when complying with one requirement makes it difficult to comply with others
o Intersender conflict: 2 role senders provide a role occupant with conflicting expectations
o Intrasender conflict: single role sender provides incompatible role expectations to a role
occupant
o Intrarole conflict: several roles held by a role occupant involve incompatible expectations
o Person-role conflict: role calls for behavior that is incompatible with personality of role occupant
 Role ambiguity: person is unclear about the expectations of his role.
 Role Overload: what is expected of a person far exceeds what he can do

Task Oriented roles: Ensure that tasks are completed. Includes:

 Initiators: state goal/problem, proposal on how to tackle, set time limits
 Information seekers
 Information providers
 Elaborators: build on each others ideas
 Summarizers
  Consensus makers

Maintenance Roles: carried out to ensure that members keep good relations. Includes:
 Harmonizers: mediating conflict
 Compromisers: admitting error at times of group conflict
 Gatekeepers: make sure all members can express ideas and feelings; avoid interruptions
 Encouragers:

Norms: Acceptable standards of behaviors within a group that are shared by the members. Most norms are
informal/undocumented. Norm cover all aspects of group behaviors:
 Performance: How hard to work, level of output
 Appearance: Dress code
 Social Arrangement: with whom to eat lunch, whether to form friendships on/off work
 Allocation of resources: Pay, assignments, allocation of tools
 Ethical
 Interpersonal

Ways to develop Norms:

 Explicit statement made by group member
 Critical event in the group history
 Primacy: First behavioral pattern that emerges in a group frequently sets team expectation (ex: ppl sit
together in class; one day stranger steals someone’s seat)
 Carry-over behaviors from past situations

Why are norms important:

 Facilitates the group’s survival; increases chances of group success
 Increases predictability of member’s behaviors
 Reduces embarrassing interpersonal problems
 Clarify what is distinctive about the group’s identity and allows members to express central values

Conformity: Adjusting behavior to align with the norms of the group

Stages of group development:

 Forming: uncertainty about group purpose, structure and leadership. Members are discovering what
types of behaviors are acceptable
 Storming: Members accept existence of team but resist constraints imposed. Power struggles, conflicts
over who will control the team. When completed, clear hierarchy of leadership emerges.
 Norming: Close relationships emerge and team demonstrated cohesiveness. Complete when team has a
common set of expectations of what defines member behaviors
 Performing: significant task progress, structure is fully functions
 Adjourning: Group prepares for disbandment; attention focused towards wrapping up activities

Punctuated equilibrium model: pattern of development specific to temporary groups with deadlines:
 First meeting sets direction
 First phase: (Inertia); direction is locked into fixed course of action. Ppl execute tasks but not in a
coordinated fashion; team low performing
 Transition takes place once group used ½ allotted time; initiates major changes
 Second phase: of inertia; team executes plan created in transition period.
 Last meeting characterized by accelerated activity

Team effectiveness caviats:

  Teams differ in form and structure
 Some work is preferably accomplished individually rather than in team
Characteristics of effective team:
 Clear Purpose
 Informality
 Participation
 Listening
 Civilized disagreement
 Consensus Decisions
 Open communications
 Clear work and rule assignments
 Shared leadership
 External relations: team spends time developing key outside relationships
 Style diversity
 Self-assessment (periodic)

Second model for team effectiveness:

 Context:
o Adequate resources
o Leadership and structure
o Climate of trust
o Performance evaluation and reward
 Composition:
o Skills
o Personality
o Roles
o Diversity
o Size: most effective 5-9 people. Social loafing: tendency for individuals to expend less efforts
when working collectively than individually.
o Member’s preference for teamwork
 Work Design:
o Autonomy
o Skill Variety
o Task Identity
o Task Significance
 Process:
o Common purpose
o Specific Goal
o Team efficacy: have confidence; team believes they can succeed. Helped by cohesiveness
o Managed level of conflict
o Accountability

Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness can be increased by the following: make the group smaller, encourage agreement with group
goals, increase the time members spend together, increase the status of the group and the perceived difficulty of
attaining membership in the group, stimulate competition with other groups, give rewards to the group rather
than to individual members, and physically isolate the group.
Factors influencing:
 Threat and competition: External for survival, internal competition
 Success: Groups are more attractive when successful
 Member diversity: Diverse groups might have more difficulty to stay cohesive
 Size: Bigger groups have more difficulty
  Toughness of initiation: Tougher to get into should be more attractive

With social loafing, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Consequence of cohesiveness:
 More participation in group activities; members want to remain, friendly and supportive communication
 More Conformity: well equipped to supply information, reward, punishment
 More success: Productivity similar for all members, tend to achieve their goals

W7 Stress

Model of stress episode:

 Stressor: Environmental events or conditions that have the potential to induce stress. Personality
determines extent to which a stressor induces stress. Biggest contributor personality traits are:
 Locus of control: external more likely to feel anxious
 Type A: encounter more stressful situations, more likely to exhibit adverse physiological
reactions because of hostility and repressed anger in response to stress, strong need to control
environment.
 Negative affectivity: particularly in response to demands of a heavy workload. They have
predisposition to perceive stressors and have hypersensitivity to stressors.
 Stress: Psychological reaction to the demands inherent in a stressor that has the potential to make a
person feel anxious or tense. Not intrinsically bad, moderate stress can provide stimulation
 Stress Reaction: behavioral, psychological and physiological consequence of stress. Can be passive or
active. Typical reaction is either:
 Anxiety reduction (confronts stress)
 Direct confrontation of stressor

Individuals strategies to reduce stress include implementing time management techniques,

increasing physical exercise, relaxation training, and expanding the social support network.

Most common source of stress: workplace. General stressors:

 Interpersonal conflicts
 Work-family conflict
 Job insecurity and change
 Role ambiguity
 Sexual harassment

Managerial stressors:
 Role overload: having to perform to many tasks in short time
 Heavy responsibility

Operative stressors:
 Poor physical working conditions
 Poor job design: simple, not challenging enough.

Burnout:
 Syndrome made of emotional exhaustion, cynicism and low self-efficacy.
 Process: emotional exhaustion -> cynicism -> depersonalization -> low self-efficacy -> low personal
accomplishments
  Most common among ppl who entered jobs with high ideas

W7 /CH 6.5 Trust

Trust: Psychological state that exists when you agree to make yourself vulnerable to another because you have
positive expectations about how things are going to turn out. Determined by:
 Integrity
 Competence
 Consistency
 Loyalty
 Openness
 Procedural Justice
 Interactional Justice
How to build trust:
 Build social capital:
o Maintain integrity in organization
o Build support for transparency
o Set information free
 Build team trust:
o Be a team player
o Be fair
o Show consistency with team
o Be trustworthy
o Work on continuous improvement

W8 Conflict Management and Negotiations

Conflict
Dual Concern Theory: concerns ppl use for conflict resolution
 Cooperativeness: Degree to which one tries to satisfy the other person’s concerns
 Assertiveness: Degree to which one tries to satisfy own concerns
  Forcing: Imposing one’s will on the other party.
 Collaborating/Problem solving: Trying to reach an agreement that satisfies both one’s own and the other
party’s aspirations as much as possible. In collaborating, the intention of the parties is to solve the
problem by clarifying differences rather than by accommodating various points of view.
 Avoiding: Ignoring or minimizing the importance of the issues creating the conflict.
 Yielding: Accepting and incorporating the will of the other party.
 Compromising: Balancing concern for oneself with concern for the other party in order to reach a
solution.

Conflict Mgmg Style Issue Relationship Relative Power Time Urgency

FORCING Important Not Important High Hugh
Collaborating Important Important Low to High Low/Moderate
Avoiding Not Important Not Important Low to High Low to High
Accommodating Not Important Important Low Low to High
Compromising NFG for initial strategy; implies giving something up

Conflict: Process that begins when one party perceives that another has or is about to negatively affect something
he cares for. Conflict must be perceived by the parties to it; if no one is aware of a conflict, then it is generally
agreed that no conflict exists.

Types of conflict:
 Functional: Support the goal of the group and improves performance
 Dysfunctional: If a group is unable to achieve its goal because of a conflict, the it is dysfunctional

Process conflict relates to how the work gets done. Intense arguments about who should do what
becomes dysfunctional when it creates uncertainty about task roles, increases the time to
complete tasks, and leads to members working at cross purposes.

Conflict functionality:
  Cognitive: Task oriented, occurs because of difference in perspective and judgment.
 Affective: Emotional and aimed at people rather than issues, tend to be dysfunctional

Sources of conflict:
 Communication: Misunderstandings and noise in the communication channels
 Structural conflicts: result of workplace requirement rather than personality:
o Group Size, specialization and composition: Conflicts more likely when group is large, young, and
heavy turnaround
o Ambiguity in defining responsibilities for actions. Increases fighting over control of resources
o Reward system: One member gains at another’s expense, or unfair evaluations
o Leadership style: manager tightly controls and oversees work of employees
o Diversity of goals: groups that seek divergent targets (ex: sales and products)
o Group dependency: if one can gain at another’s expense
 Personal Variables:
o Personality: People high in disagreeableness, neuroticism, or self-monitoring are prone to tangle
with other people more often, and to react poorly when conflict occurs
o Emotions
o Values

Individuals conflict management:

 Problem Solving: Request face to face meeting, identify problem and resolve through discussion
 Overarching goals: Create goals that require both parties to work together
 Smoothing: Play down differences while emphasizing common interests
 Compromising: Each party gives up something of value to reach an accord
 Avoidance: Withdraw from, or suppress conflict

Management conflict resolution:

 Expansion of resources: If resource scarcity was at the source of conflict
 Authoritative command: Use formal authority
 Altering human variable: Behavioral change techniques, alter human relations
 Altering structural variables:: Job redesign, transfers, creation of coordinating positions

3rd party interventions:

 Mediation: Neutral 3rd party that facilitates negotiated solutions by using reasoning and persuasion and
suggests alternatives. Parties must be motivated to barging and resolve the conflict
 Arbitration: 3rd party with authority to dictate agreement. Can be voluntary or compulsory. Always results
in settlement, but if one party feels cheeped out, subsequent conflicts are to be expected
 Conciliation: Trusted 3rd party that provides communication link. Used extensively in labor, family and
community disputes
 Consultation: Skilled and impartial 3rd party that facilitates problem solving. Does not try to resolve issue,
focused on improving relationship between parties.

Culture and Conflict resolution

 Collectivistic cultures: see people as deeply embedded in social situations. More likely to seek to preserve
relationships and promote the good of the group a whole
 Individualistic cultures see people as autonomous.

cultural differences in negotiation: Chinese draw out negotiations

3 desired outcomes of conflict:

 Agreement
 Stronger relationship
  Leaning

While the human relations approach accepted conflict, the interactionist approach encourages
conflict on the grounds that a harmonious group is prone to becoming static and nonresponsive to
needs for change and innovation

Traditional view = malfunction in group

Negotiation

Negotiation: Process in which 2+ parties exchange goods or services and try to agree on exchange rate (negotiating
= bargaining)
 Always involve 2 parties
 Conflict of needs and desires between parties
 Parties negotiate by choice and prefer to search for agreement rather than fighting
 Expectation of give/get
 Involves management of tangibles and resolution of intangibles

In negotiations, people have:

 Issues: items that are specifically placed on the bargaining table for discussion
 Positions: Individual stances on the issues
 Interests: Underlying concerns that are affected by negotiation resolution
Negotiators who recognizes the underlying interests of themselves and other party may have more flexibility in
achieving resolution

Bargaining:
 Distributive bargaining: Negotiation that seeks to divide up a fixed amount of resources; a win-lose/zero
sum condition
o Focus on trying to get the opponent to agree to a specific target point
o Good to make the first offer, and make it aggressive because:
 Shows power
 Anchoring bias: tendency for people to fixate on initial information
o Also good to reveal deadlines: speeds concessions from counterparts
o 4 strategies:
 Push for settlement near opponent’s resistance point
 Get other party to change their resistance point
 If settlement range is negative, modify own resistance point if other won’t change theirs
 Convince other party that settlement is the best possible
 Integrative bargaining: seeks win/win settlement; goals are not mutually exclusive
o 4 steps:
 Identify and define the problem
 Understand problem (interests and needs)
 Generate alternative solutions
 Evaluate alternatives and select best one
 Compromising is no good: reduces pressure to generate creative alternatives

How to negotiate:
  Develop strategy: do research, write goals, possible outcomes. Assess other party’s goals; what will they
ask for, what interests are important for them, what terms might they settle on. Consider target and
resistance, as well as BATNA. Do not underestimate what other party might be willing to give up.
o Target point; what each party wants to achieve
o Resistance point: lowest acceptable outcome
o Aspiration range: Area between these 2 points
o Bargaining zone: exists when there is overlap between parties’ aspiration ranges
 Define ground rules: Who will do negotiating, where, time constraints, process in case of impass. Also
parties exchange their initial proposals or demands
 Clarification and Justification: After both positions are exchanged, both parties explain, clarify and justify
demands
 Bargaining and Problem Solving:
o Separate people from the problem; work on issues at hand
o Focus on interests, not positions
o Attempt to achieve mutual gains
o Use objective criteria to achieve fair solution
 Closure and Implementation: Finalize agreement that has been worked out

Differences in negotiation effectiveness:

 Personality traits: NFG if you are
o Extraverted: tend to share too much information
o Agreeable: Too focused on finding ways to cooperate
 Moods/Emotions
o Party in a position of power that shows anger generates concessions; weaker party
demonstrating anger has adverse effect
o Positive moods lead to more integrative agreements
 Gender
o Negotiations favor men. Men are stereotypes tough and women nice. If women act nice they
lose, if they act tough they violate gender stereotype
o Managerial women demonstrate less confidence and are less satisfied with their performance

W9 Leadership (CH11)
Leaders: Establish direction by developing a vision of the future, align people by communicating vision and
inspiring people to overcome hurdles

Managers: Implement vision and strategy provided by leaders, coordinate staff, handle day to day.

Theories on leadership:
 Trait: Focus on personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders form non-leaders. Are
there born leaders; what traits are important?
 Behavior: Do successful leaders behave a certain way; can the behaviors be learnt?
o Ohio Studies: Beginning with more than a thousand dimensions, the studies narrowed the list to
two that substantially accounted for most of the leadership behavior
 Initiation structure: extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his role and
those of employees in order to attain goals; it includes behavior that attempts to
organize work, work relationships, and goals
 Consideration: extent to which a leader’s job relationships are characterized by mutual
trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. A leader high in
 consideration helps employees with personal problems, is friendly and approachable,
treats all employees as equals, and expresses appreciation and support.
o Michigan Study: Came up with 2 behavioral dimensions:
 Employee oriented: emphasizes relations by taking personal interests in the needs of
employees
 Production oriented: Emphasizes technical aspect of the job; focus on task
accomplishment
 Contingency/Situational: Theories that propose leadership effectiveness is dependent on the situation.
What do successful leaders depend on?
o Fiedler contingency model:
 Assumes Leadership style is fixed; only way to improve effectiveness is to change the
leader to fit the situation or change situation to fit leader.
 Created “least preferred coworker” (LCP) questionnaire to determine if leader
interested in relation or productivity/task
 After filling questionnaire, match leader with situation. 3 Contingency dimensions:
 Leader-member relations. The degree of confidence, trust, and respect
members have for their leader.
 Task structure. The degree to which job assignments are procedurized (that is,
structured or unstructured).
 Position power. The degree of influence a leader has over power-based
activities such as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.
 task-oriented leaders perform best in situations of high and low control, while
relationship-oriented leaders perform best in moderate control situations
o Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership
 Regardless of what the leader does, effectiveness depends on the actions
of his or her followers.
 Successful leadership achieved by selecting the right style contingent to the follower’s
readiness
 4 scenarios about followers:
 Unable and unwilling: TELLING/directing – provide clear direction
 Unable and Willing: SELLING/Coaching – mgr compensated for lack of ability
 Able and unwilling: PARTICIPATING/Supporting and supportive style
 Able and Willing: DELEGATING – nothing to do here
o Path-Goal theory
 The path-goal theory assumes leaders are flexible and can display
different leadership behavior depending on the situation.
 Effective leader clarifies follower’s path to their goals
 Linked to expectancy theory:
 Goal: determine outcome subordinate wants
 Reward individuals when they perform
 Performance: let followers know what they need to receive reward (path)
 Identifies 4 leadership styles that can be used to motivate:
 Directive Leader: lets followers what to expect, best when tasks are
ambiguous
 Supportive Leader: Friendly and shows concerns for needs of followers. Best
when followers are under stress.
 Participative leader: Consults with followers and uses their suggestions. Best
when individuals need to buy in decision
 Achievement oriented leader: Sets challenging goals and expects followers to
perform at their highest level. Less effective with shit staff.
o Tannenbaum & Schmidt leadership theory
3 Forces impact:
 Forces of the Manager:
o Value System
o Confidence in subordinated
o Leadership inclinations
o Feeling of security
 Forces in subordinates:
o Need for independence
o Readiness to assume responsibility
o Tolerance for ambiguity
o Identify with organization’s problems and needs
o Knowledge and experience
 Forces in situation
o Type of organization
o Group effectiveness
o Nature of problem
o Time Pressure

Personality traits that have impact on leadership:

 Big five (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience)
o extraversion is the most important trait of effective leaders
o Unlike agreeableness and emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness to experience also
showed strong relationships to leadership,
 Locus of control
 Self-esteem
 Self monitoring
 Risk taking
 Narcissism
 Machiavellianism
 Core self-Evaluation
 Proactive Personality
 Type A and Type B personalities

Inspirational Leadership:
 Charismatic leaders: inspire followers with words, ideas and behaviors
 level 5 leaders: fiercely ambitious and driven, but their ambition is directed toward their company rather
than themselves. have four basic leadership qualities—individual capability, team skills, managerial
competence, and the ability to stimulate others to high performance
 Transformational leaders: Inspire followers to transcend their self-interests
 Transactional leaders: Clarify roles and task requirements, guide in direction of goals
 Visionary Leaders: create and articulate a realistic, credible, attractive vision of the future for an
organization or organizational unit, that grows out of and improves upon the present.

Testing is useful for identifying and selecting leaders.

Contemporary leadership roles:

 Mentoring
 Self Leadership
 Team Leadership
 Online Leadership
 Leading with authority
Manager’s role as per:
 Henri Fayol (1916): Plan, organize, coordinate, control
 Henry Mintzberg (1975): Interpersonal, informational and decisional roles

Contemporary issues in leadership:

 Authentic leadership
 Moral leadership
 Gender leadership

W10 Change

Why change: Organizations are systems that interface with I/O from the environment; changes in the environment
forces change. Forces of change:
 External:
o Competition
o Economics
o Regulation
o Technology
 Internal:
o Conflict
o Productivity
o Turnover

Most studies source of innovation: Structural Variables

Knowledge Management: process of organizing and distributing an organizations collective

wisdom so the right information gets to the right people at the right time.

What an organization can change:

 Purpose: Mission objectives
 Technology: CAPEX in equipment
 Structure: Organizational design
 Tasks: change job designs
 People: Change recruiting practices, train
 Culture: Clarify core values
 Strategy
 Objective: Set modify performance targets

Lwein’s 3 step to change (and Kotter’s 8 steps):

 Unfreeze: recognize that current state is unsatisfactory
o Establish sense of urgency
o Create Guiding Coalition
o Develop clear shared vision
o Communicate vision
 Change: Implement plan that moves org. to more satisfactory state
 o Empower people to act on the vision
o Create short term wins
o Consolidate and build on gains
 Refreeze: Consolidate change as enduring part of the organization
o Institutionalize the change

Approaches to change:
 Action Research: Based on collection/analysis of data
o Diagnosis: Change agent gathers information about topic
o Analysis: Change agent organizes information into primary concern, problems and possible
actions
o Feedback: Change agent brings finding to employees; they help develop action
o Action: Employees and change agent carry out specific actions
o Evaluation: Action plan’s effectiveness using data gathered as a benchmark
 Appreciative Inquiry: Rather than looking for problem to fix, focuses on positive. Seek to identify strengths
of the company and build upon them to improve performance
o Discovery: Employees identify strengths of the organization
o Dreaming: Employees speculate on possible futures
o Design: Participants focus on finding a common vision
o Action: Suggestion of an action plan

Resistance to change:
 Individual:
o Self interest
o Misunderstanding; lack of trust
o Different assessment
o Low tolerance for change
 Organization:
o Structural inertia
o Group inertia
o Limited focus of change
o Threat to expertise
o Threat to establish power relationships
o Threat to establish resource allocaitons

Managers that grew with organization tend to adopt gradual rather than radical change; change is a threat to their
status/position.

Tactics to overcome resistance:

 Implicate stakeholders early (Participation/Involvement)
 Education/communication
 Develop positive relationships
 Implement change fairly
 Select people who accept change
 2 tactics not recommended
o Manipulation and co-optation
o Explicit and implicit coercion

How to create a culture for change:

 Stimulating innovation
o Individual Creativity: production of novel but potentially useful ideas
 o Ideas champions: ppl who see the kernel of an innovative idea
o External communication: helps importing external information
o Internal communication: Decentralization, informality and lack of beurocracy
o Resources and reward: See innovation as an investment rather than cost
 Creating a learning organization
o Vision/Support: Leader to establish vision where learning is key and clearly communicate it
o Culture: Learning organization culture – information sharing, risk taking, experimentation
o Learning systems/Dynamics: Employees are challenged to think, solve problems, make decisions
o Knowledge management/infrastructure: Have infrastructure to acquire, code, store and
distribute knowledge and information