Week 7 Flashcards
(45 cards)
What is a group?
Two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal
What is a formal vs an informal group
Formal groups are established organizations to facilitate the achievement of org’l goals. Intentionally designed with these people with these capabilities
Informal groups emerge naturally in response to common interests of the org’l members. not everyone is assigned. Naturally emerged towards it. ( ex: soccer team recreation)
Why form groups?
Means versus ends and personal characteristics
1. Means: why join a neighborhood watch? It’s a means to police an entire neighborhood.
2. Ends: End in itself. Ex: group work can lead to friendships
3. Personal characteristics: similar people are attracted to each other. The opposite also attracts, bringing together diverse people that have complementary skills.
What is the stage model of group development?
- Forming: Getting acquainted, and learning about each other.
- Storming: Conflict emerges. Fight battles, trying to determine goals and agree on priorities. sorting out roles and responsibilities is often at issue
- Norming: understand difficulties, feel more comfortable, more structured, and more peaceful. Norms are agreed on and the group becomes more cohesive
- Performing: State of maturity, working on the task and completing it.
- Adjourning: Group disperses, goodbye
What are the 4 practical learnings from the stage model?
- A good tool for monitoring and troubleshooting how groups are developing
- Especially helpful for new groups to understand the process of developing together ( Know specifically what to work on.)
- Well-acquainted task forces and committees can short-circuit these stages when they have a problem to work out
( People who have been on many committees allow them to short-circuit because they got experience . ) - Storming and Norming may not be necessary for some organizational settings that are highly structured ( More bureaucratic means more rules. So, storming and norming may be decreased, not necessary. )
What is the punctuated equilibrium model?
* concept is correct , but mid point is not always exactly halfway.
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 to midpoint of existence (precedence is set)
Midpoint: Halfway before doing group and performance, there is a midpoint. Groups have a sense of emergency, gotta get this together. All teams agree that they have to start showing some progress. Can be the day before, weeks before, etc.
phase
Phase 2: Decisions and approaches are played out
What are the practical Learnings from the Punctuated Equilibrium Model
- Prepare carefully for the first meeting (carefully select group members)
- As long as people are working, do not look for radical progress during phase 1
- Manage the midpoint transition carefully(Recognize there will be a point in time, where we know time is running out, gotta put it together. )
4.Be sure that adequate resources are available prior to phase 2 (Recognize there could tangible stumbling blocks that can be reduced. )
5.Resist deadline changes
What are the 4 most important components leading to affective group structuring.
- Size
- Diversity
- Norms/rules
- Roles
Explain size from group structure
What is the ultimate group size?
Size & satisfaction | Size & performance
Depends on the task:
- Additive task
- Disjunctive task
- Conjunctive task
Explain additive task from the size in group structure
Group performance is dependent on the sum of the performance of individual group members
Ex: construction of the building. Estimate the speed of construction by adding the efforts of the individual substrates. (plumers, heating experts, etc). Performance increase as group size goes up.
Explain disjunctive task from the size in group structure
Group performance is dependent on the performance of the best group member
Ex: research team. Potential performance goes up as group size goes up. In an attempt to find the best group members that can answer those difficult qs.
Explain conjunctive task from the size in group structure
Group performance is limited by the performance of the poorest group member
Limited by its weakest member. Try to make the group as small as possible, to decrease the probability of having the weakest link.
What are the disadvantages of a large size in group structure?
They suffer from process losses:
Performance difficulties that result from the problems of motivating and coordinating larger groups
Actual performance= potential performance - process losses (something you suffer in motivating and coordinating large groups)
1. Communication problems
2. Conflict resolution
3. Stress management
4. Diversity management
Explain diversity of group membership from group structure
Diverse groups might take longer to do their forming, storming and norming
Diverse groups sometimes perform better when the task requires cognitive, creativity-demanding tasks and problem solving rather than routine work
Harder to agree, the more diversity there is between group members.
But diversity is good for creativity-demanding tasks
Explain norms from group structure
Norms are Collective expectations that members of social units have regarding the behavior of each other
Rules: Formal usually stated. A rule defines boundaries of what’s acceptable and expected.
- Dress norms
- Rewards allocation norms
- Performance norms
- Social interaction
Explain reward allocation norms from group structure (norm)
- Equity: people are rewarded according to their input ( how much effort, and performance).
- Equality: Reward everyone equally. Pay range.
- Reciprocity: Reward people the way they would reward you. Norm/culture, ‘’he gets rewarded bc of what he does for so and so’’ Your judgment.
- Social responsability
Explain performance norms from group structure (norm)
Ex: What happens when you reach this level of sales?
Are not spoken but are still expected. Acceptable from one group to the next
Explain social interaction from group structure (norm)
Ex:
- Expectations of acceptable behavior at a conference.
Going out for drinks with co-workers
Explain roles from group structure
Positions in a group that have a set of expected behaviours attached to them
key issues:
- Role ambiguity
- Role conflict
- Status Effect
What’s the difference between job specification and job description?
Job specification: what it is you need to have to qualify for the job
Job description: what tasks and responsibilities you will do in the job you apply?
Explain role ambiguity, a key issue from roles (group structure)
Lack of clarity on the goals or methods of the job
Unclear expectations
Explain role conflict, a key issue from roles (group structure)
Groupmates or individuals are facing incompatible job expectations. Experiencing dissonance. Conflict between roles (you told me this one my role, but it isn’t)
Explain status effects a key issue from roles (group structure)
Status barriers that inhibit the flow of communication. You are flaunting your status and it shuts down effective communication (you are intimidating, making people feel like they are of higher status)
Leads to
- job dissatisfaction
- Lower organizational commitment
- Increased turnover
- Increased stress reactions
What is group cohesiveness?
The degree to which a group is especially attractive to its members.
