Assignment and Test
Questions
Small Group Dynamics and Team Building
True False:
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False
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False
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False
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False
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False
True
False
True
False
True
False
True
False
True
False
True
False
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False
Multiple-Choice:
Matching the Columns:
Please
match the following leadership tasks/style with the appropriate stage that teams go
through.
1.
Forming
a) Celebrate accomplishments
2.
Storming
b) Task focused leadership
3.
Norming
c) Concern for both the task and the relationships
4.
Performing
d) Rotating leadership
5.
Midpoint transition
e) Explicitly
con organization or change direction
6.
After action review
f) No leadership needed
Answers:
1-b; 2-c; 3-d; 4-f; 5-e; 6-a.
Summary
Some
suggestions for making your group effective, include:
·
Assigning roles to team members such as
leader, facilitator, note-taker, timekeeper, etc.
·
Rotate roles.
·
Designate a time at the end of each
meeting to discuss team process.
·
Select one meeting every critical time
period to review how team members feel about the team’s operation.
·
Do not wait until a crisis occurs to pay
attention to group processes.
Every
team member matters. Each of you is a member of the team and can make a
difference. Do not expect the person designated as the leader (or any other
authority figure) to handle all the dynamics in the team. They cannot. Each of
you has to take responsibility for managing yourselves, each other, and the team’s
dynamics. Working together with awareness and positive intent is the surest way to
create and sustain effective team dynamics.
Gersick,
Connie J. G.
-“Time
and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group
Development.”
Munter,
Mary and Netzley, Michael.
-
Guide to Meetings.
Tuckman,
Bruce W
-“Stages
of small-group development revisited.” Group & Organization
Studies.
1977 Dec. 2 (4): p. 419-427
Forming
stage: Characterized by discussion about group purpose, deciding who can make decisions,
and making sure all the appropriate people are in the group. The group’s core
tasks are to clarify their purpose, determine their relationships, and decide how than
plan to work together to accomplish the mission.
Groupthink:
Homogenous thinking patterns that characterize rigid groups and that display an illusion
of invulnerability, collective efforts to rationalize every thing the group does as
morally right, stereotypical views of outsiders, and self-appointed “mind
guards” who discourage members in the group from expressing dissent or disagreement.
Identity
groups: Those groups in which members share biology, culture, history, and/or social
experience which group members’ value; common identity categories in organizations
today include gender, ethnicity/race, generation, and region.
Idiosyncracy
credits: The right to be different; the individual has earned to right to be heard
respectfully by being a “good and competent team” player up until that point.
Minority
influence: A single member of the group having a different perspective on some issue and
trying to persuade other members of the group to consider that perspective.
Norming
stage: Characterized by more clarity about who is doing what and how, and increased
agreement on work methods/interaction patterns/routines; group stabilizes, spending less
time on group process issues and more time on task output.
Norms:
Informal and acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by its
members and that inform team members about what they can and cannot do.
Organizational
groups: Groups in which members have shared organizational experience via task, function,
and/or hierarchical level.
Performing
stage: Characterized by high energy and accomplishment; at this stage some groups will
reexamine their operating methods or refine their methods so that the jobs are done
efficiently.
Stakeholders:
The people who care about, and use the outputs from a team.
Storming
stage: Characterized by challenging the authority structure that emerged in the first
stage, conflict (sometimes overt, sometimes covert), and probing the group’s
tolerance for deviant behavior. Tasks include clarifying roles and expectations and
maximizing participation of all members.
Learning Objectives:
·
Maximizing team functioning via
identification of task-related components
·
Maximizing team functioning via
recognizing and managing process-related components
Question
1: I’m on a task force to plan the sales of a new product. I sometimes
feel I cannot speak as just a member of the team because people seem to see me as a
representative of the sales department. I am also the only man on the team and
sometimes I think the women look to me to provide the ‘man’s view’ of the
product – as if I’m representing all men. What’s going on here?
Answer
1: In addition to task teams, organizations have at least two types of
“groups” that interact: identity groups and organizational groups.
Identity groups are those in which members have shared biology, culture, history, and/or
social experience which group members value. Common identity categories
organizations today include gender, ethnicity/race, generation, and region.
Organizational groups are groups in which members have shared organizational experience
via task, function and/or hierarchy. In your case you are in the organization group
“sales” and in the social identity group “men”. If you also have
a different viewpoint from the other members of the team you would be in the minority
position based on gender (in this group), function, and perspective.
Intergroup
theory recognizes that interactions in organizations are simultaneously interpersonal,
group and intergroup interactions. So your actions and ideas in the team
reflect who you are as an individual, as a man, as a member of that task team and as a
representative member of the organizational group called sales.
One
way to manage the discomfort of not being about to be ‘just an individual’ is to
make clear statements about when you are contributing an idea based on your experience in
sales, when you are being a team member, when you are using your gender for reference, and
when you are contributing as an individual. When you are explicit about all those
dynamics and perspectives in the team it increases every other team member’s
awareness of the intergroup dynamics.
Question 2: What about the team leaders? What role-responsibility
does the team leader play?
Answer 2: Harvard professor Richard Hackman
talks about something he calls the “leader attribution error”. When things
go well on a team the leader gets accolades. When teams crash, literally or
figuratively, team leaders are blamed. There is a tendency to attribute a
disproportionate respect and responsibility for team performance to the team leader.
Because of this tendency people are prone to ignore the context, team members’
behavior and attendant consequences, and the power of team design. Team leaders can
and do make a difference on teams when they are doing the right thing at the right time
for the team. These conditions include:
·
Before the team starts – influencing
team design to maximize effectiveness and inoculate the team from dysfunctional team
processes.
·
When the team starts – motivating
team members to put forth their best efforts in pursuit of the goal.
·
At the midpoint transition –
reminding the team of its goals and consulting with members and other stakeholders about
strategies and resources for achieving the goal.
·
At the end – facilitating the
after-action performance review of team effectiveness and making sure each member receives
positive and constructive feedback about the impact of their behaviors on team
performance.
Question
3: (This is a fuller answer to the information provided in the summary).
Our team meetings are too frequent, too long, and too boring. Would you
give some tips for effective team meetings?
Answer 3: Mary Munter and Michael Netzley’s
in their booklet “Guide to Meetings” provide wonderful and practical suggestions
for improving team meetings. A few suggestions include:
·
Set an explicit goal and agenda for each
and every meeting. Make sure someone on the team is thinking about why you are
meeting. If you cannot think of a really good reason to actually have a meeting
(rather than communicate through some other vehicle) do not have a meeting.
·
Include every member of the team at every
meeting. If it is a team task with the right people on the team, then every member
needs to be there. If you cannot get them all together for the meeting (even if
through telephone-video conferencing) then either reschedule the meeting or decide whether
that person is truly committed to the team and its task. You need everyone who needs
to make the decisions and do the tasks of the team present in order not to waste time
repeating and redoing things previously discussed in meetings.
·
Designate a scribe who records
everyone’s contributions, a timer who enforces group norms for
starting-ending-limiting air time, a minutes writer who communicates decisions and action
commitments between meetings, and a facilitator who manages the agenda and maximizes
member participation == and rotate these team task roles.
·
Decide on decision-making norms for the
meeting – discussion only (no decisions), brainstorming-idea generation (no
decisions), advice seeking (influence but not decision), expert-executive decision making
(with input from others), voting (majority rules decision), consensus (integrative
agreement every one can live with), unanimity (decision with every one fully committed)
etc.
·
End the meeting on time and by
summarizing action items with dates and people.
·
Follow up the meeting with minutes.
·
Start the next meeting with
accountability. Have each team member report any progress they have made on their
action items from previous meetings.