Chapter 7: Group and teams Flashcards
group
Two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal.
Formal Work Groups
Groups that are established by organizations to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals.
informal groups
groups that emerge naturally in response to the interest of organizational group members
what are the stages of group development
1) forming
2) Storming
3) norming
4) preforming
5) adjourning
forming
orient “by testing the waters” - what are we doing/purpose
storming
conflict emerges, confrontation and criticism determine whether or not they get along and sort roles is an issue. Problems are likely to happen earlier than later.
norming
members resolve the issues that provoked the storming and develop consensus (compromise is necessary)
preforming
devote energy to task
adjourning
rites and rituals that affirm the group’s previous successful development are common (like work parties)
punctuate equilibrium
A model of group development that describes how groups with deadlines are affected by their first meetings and crucial midpoint transitions.
phase 1
first meeting, this is critical to set the agenda for what will happen in the remainder of this phase.
- the first meeting end up dominating the first half of the group life
midpoint transition
the halfway point of the deadline marks the change in the group approach and how the group manages the change is critical for the group to show progress - may seek advice and even do a different approach.
- answering questions
- assessing strengths and weaknesses
phase 2
concludes with final meeting that reveals a burst of activity and concern for how outsiders will evaluate the product.
additive tasks
this is when the group performance is dependent on the sum of the performance of individual group members
disjunctive tasks
when the group performance is dependent on the BEST GROUP MEMBER
Process losses
group performance difficulties stemming from the problems of motivating and coordinating larger groups
Conjunctive tasks
when the group is limited by the poorest performer
summary of the two
for additive and disjunctive tasks, larger groups might perform better up to a point but at increasing costs to the efficiency of individual members.
purely conjunctive groups should decrease as group size increases
social norms
collective expectations that members of social units have regarding the behaviour of each other.
Typical Norms EXAMPLES
dress norms
reward allocations
performaance norms
what are roles
positions in groups that have a set of expected behaviours attached to them
role ambiguity
the lack of clarity of job goals or methods
elements that lead to ambiguity
organizational - “fail to provide the bigger picture”
role sender - unclear focus
the focus person - the expectation that are clearly developed and sent might not be fully digested by the FOCAL person
role conflict
a condition of being faced with incompatible role expectations
