Produce the best decisions and highly cohesive groups

produce the best decisions and highly cohesive groups make the
poorest decisions
o Prevention techniques:
 Assign each group member the role of critical evaluator
 Top level exec review already made decisions
 Different groups look over same policies

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 Introduce fresh perspectives
 Assign someone to role of devils advocate
 After reach consensus, have everyone rethink position for flaws
o Group think leads to defective decision making
- Social Loafing: decrease in indiv effort as group size increases
o Occurs when:
 Task is perceived as unimportant, simple, boring
 Group members think their input is not identifiable
 Group members expect co-workers to loaf
o Prevent it by:
 Make each performer identifiable- reduce anonymity
 Make work tasks more important and interesting
 Reward indiv. For contributing to group’s performance
- TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE:
o A group of employee’s w accnt experience need to adapt procedures in
response to changes within their organization. The group decides to hol
each member accountable for a meaningful task and to establish a process
so that everyone openly expresses their opinion. The group was trying to
prevent social loafing and groupthink respectively
Ch. 11- Teams and Teamwork
Objectives:
o Explain how a work group becomes a team
o Describe Tuckerman’s Theory of group/team development
o Reflect on Student Group/Team Development and the nature of team work
o Discuss characteristics and requirements of effective teamwork
- Group: two or more freely interacting individuals, collective norms, collective
goals, common identity
o Interact primarily to share info and make decisions to perform within area
of responsibility
o No need to engage in collective work
o Performance is a summation of group member’s individual contribution
o No positive synergy that would create an overall level of performance that
is greater than the sum of the inputs
- Team: small group with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually
accountable for common purpose, goals, and approach
o Teams measure success by the group’s collective outcomes and products
o Accountability  goes from strictly individual to collective
o Leadership
 Shared activity
 Group develops its own purpose or mission

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 Problem solving is a way of life, not a part-time activity
o Most common size= 8 members... avg is 10, but 8 is most common
GROUP TEAM
GOAL Share information Collective performance
SYNERGY Neutral (sometimes negative) Positive
ACCOUNTABILI
TY
Individual Individual and mutual
SKILLS Random and Varied Complementary
- Evolution of Teams- When does a work group become a team?
o Leadership becomes a shared activity
o Accountability shifts from strictly indiv. To both indiv. and collective
o The group develops its own purpose or mission
o Problem solving becomes a way of life, not a part-time activity
o Effectiveness is measured by the group’s collective outcomes and products
- Tuckman’s Five-Stage Theory of Group/Team Development
o Forming: