Unit 3
Team Processes
Interpersonal communication refers to sharing or expression of feelings, information, and knowledge, skills among two or more persons. Interpersonal communication in an organization plays a very important role in employee job satisfaction, communication of organization tasks, motivation of employees, collaboration and business success.
Commonly used interpersonal communication in an organization may be in the form of client meetings, project discussions, employee performance reports, internal personal communication, etc.
- A group is defined as a number of individuals who come together to achieve a particular task or goal.
- Group dynamics refers to the attitudinal and behavioral characteristics of a group. It consists of various groups and a lot depends on how groups form, their configuration and process and most importantly how they function.
Importance of Group Dynamism:
1. The group influences the thinking of its members by the interactions of other members in the group.
2. A group performs better with a good leader as compared to a group with weak leader.
3. If the group consists of positive thinkers then its output is more than the double every time.
4. Group dynamism can give job satisfaction to the members.
5. It can also bring team spirit among the members.
6. The attitude, perceptions, and ideas of members depend on group dynamism.
Classification of groups
1. Formal and Informal Groups:
Formal Groups:
- They carry out specific tasks to attain organizational goals.
- They have clearly defined authority-responsibility relationships, communication channels, rules and regulations to govern the behavior of members.
Informal Groups:
These groups are created by the members voluntarily depending upon factors like interests, same experiences, same ideology or other factors. There are no formal relationships, all the mebers in the group share equal status. Informal groups are created naturally since human being wants to socialise and wants to be accepted by others for informal talks.
2. Primary and Secondary Groups:
- Primary groups are formed to promote common interests and goals. Members share common values and largely affect each other’s behaviors. Friendship and social needs are the basis for forming these groups.
- In Secondary groups members do not actively interact with each other. They have loose inter-personal relationships and no common goals to share. Professional bodies, business organizations etc. are some examples of secondary groups.
3. Small and Large Groups:
- Small groups are formed with few members. Members closely interact with each other.
- In Large groups, members have weak inter-personal interactions and do not actively communicate or interact with each other.
Reason for group formation
(A) From Members Point of View:
1. Companionship:
Relationships give an individual recognition. The need for relationship with other people is one of the strongest human drives.
2. Identity:
Workers get more identified in small groups and so small groups tend to enjoy high morale as compared to large groups.
3. Information:
The informal group to which a member belongs is a source of communication or information to him. A piece of information available to one member will nearly reach all the members in a short span of time. An individual comes to know about what is happening in an organization even if he has been on leave or is otherwise away.
4. Security:
By joining a group, a person feels stronger, has lesser self-doubts and is more resistant to threats. A person always derives reassurance from interacting with others and being part of a group.
5. Esteem:
The members will feel good about themselves by virtue of the group’s power, prestige and social standing. They will get opportunities for recognition and praise that are not available outside the group.
(B) From Organization’s Point of View:
Informal group satisfies some of the social and psychological needs of its members. It is useful from the organization’s point of view. In fact, the findings of many social researchers suggest that informal groups are essential for the organizational stability.
1. Lightening of Responsibility:
A cooperate group can always be entrusted with some responsibility which will lighten the manager’s mental burden to some extent.
2. Filling the Gaps:
An enlightened group can also fill in gaps in management’s abilities. Sometimes, a subordinate can help the superior to grasp over the problem.
3. Restraining the Authority:
It helps to keep checks and balances on the manager’s excessive use of authority. A manager is not allowed to cross his limits.
4. Proper and Careful Planning:
A manager will be very careful in planning and other jobs for the fear of the presence of the group.
5. Information:
The informal group to which a member belongs is a source of communication or information to him. A piece of information available to one member will nearly reach all the members in a short span of time. An individual comes to know about what is happening in an organization even if he has been on leave or is otherwise away.
Group cohesiveness
- Cohesiveness is the degree to which the group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in the groups.
- It is the degree of closeness that the members feel within the groups.
- It is understood as the extent of liking each member has towards others in the group and how far everyone wants to remain as a member of the group.
Group cohesiveness has only positive consequences.
These positive outcomes are:
1. More Participation
2. More Conformity
3. More success
4. More communication
Meaning and Concept:
- A team is a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.
- It is made up of two or more people who work together to achieve a common goal.
- Teams offer an alternative to a vertical chain-of-command and are a much more inclusive approach to business organization.
- Effective teams can lead to an increase in employee motivation and business productivity.
Ingredients for creating effective teams:
- Ideal Size and Membership.
- Fairness in Decision-Making.
- Accountability.
- Purpose and Goals.
- Roles & Responsibilities.
- Information Sharing.
- Meeting Skills and Practices.
- Decision Making.
- Participation.
- Accepted Leadership.
- Excellent Communication.
Types of Team
Executive Team
It is a management team that draws up plans for activities and then directs these activities.
Command Team
It combines instructions and coordinate action among management.
Project Teams
It is used only for a defined period of time, Concretely definable purpose often becomes known as a project team. This category of teams includes negotiation, compassion and design team subtypes.
Advisory Teams
It makes suggestions about a final product. They would examine the products produced and make suggestions about how to improve the quality of the items being made.
Work Teams
They are responsible for the actual act of creating tangible products and services.
Action Teams
They are highly specialized and coordinated teams whose actions are intensely focused on producing a product or service.
Sports Teams
It is a group of people which play sports, often team sports together. Members include all players as well as support members such as a team manager or coach.
Virtual Teams
It is a group of people who work interdependently and with shared purpose across space, time, and organizational boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate.
In this, team members can be located across a country or across the world, rarely meet face-to-face, and include members from different cultures.
Work Teams
Work teams are continuing work units responsible for producing goods or providing services for the organization. Their membership is typically stable, usually full-time, and well-defined. These teams are traditionally directed by a supervisor who mandates what work is done, who does it, and in what manner is it executed.
Self-Managed Team
They allow their members to make a greater contribution at work and constitute a significant competitive advantage for the organization.
Parallel Teams
They pull together people from different work units or jobs to perform functions that the regular organization is not equipped to perform well.
Management Teams
They are responsible for the coordination and direction of a division within an institution or organization during various assigned projects and functional, operational and/or strategic tasks and initiatives.
Difference between group and team
Decision making refers to making the right choice out of the various alternative choices available. In an organizational operation, decision making is a vital task since the success of an organization depends on the decision taken. One wrong decision can ruin the organization and if the correct decision is taken, it can take the organization towards the route of success. There are various steps involved in decision making which may be enumerated as under:
- Identification: This step refers to recognizing the problem that the organization is currently encountering. It can be low sales, high employee turnover, and poor productivity and so on.
- Gather Relevant Information: This step recalls for the analysis of the processes which are important to the problem. It may be internal analysis or external.
- Identify the alternatives: In this step, the possible solutions need to be identified. There may be various ways of solving the problem which needs to be identified.
4. Choose among alternatives: All the identified solutions needs to be evaluated to determine or choose the most convenient solution which can be implemented in the best manner with low cost but with high productivity.
5. Take Action: The selected solution needs to be implemented at this stage. This is the real time work which needs practical applicability of the selected solution.
6. Feedback: In this step, the decision taken as regards the selected solution needs to be reviewed to check its efficiency. The decision take was really fruitful or not.
Concept:
It is a disagreement between two or more members or groups of an organization about resources or work activities that have different statuses, goals, values or perceptions.
Types:
1. Individual conflict:
Individual conflict is probably the most difficult type to analyze non-satisfaction of needs frustrates an individual and leads to behavior that negatively affects job performance.
2. Group level conflict:
They may be classified as:–
- Intragroup conflict: It arises when there are differences over an issue that crops up between the members of the group.
- Intergroup conflict: Every group conflict with every other group that interacts with it. They differ in goals, power, prestige, work activities, resource allocation, reward systems etc.
3. Organizational conflict:
They are assumed between two organizations or between a business organization and the government. Such conflicts may turn into hierarchical conflicts, line and staff conflicts, management versus shop floor conflicts, union versus union conflicts etc.
Stages of Conflict:
1. Latent conflict:
It provides the necessary antecedent conditions for conflict in organization.
Four basic types of latent conflicts are:
a. Competition for scarce resources,
b. Drive for autonomy,
c. Divergence of subunit goals, and
d. Role conflict.
2. Perceived conflict:
It is due to the misunderstanding of each other’s true position. It can be resolved by improving communication between the parties.
3. Felt conflict:
It arises only after the differences become personalized or internalized (felt).
4. Manifest conflict:
This is the stage for open conflict. It takes the form of open aggression, sabotage, apathy, withdrawal etc.
5. Conflict aftermath:
It is merely suppressed but not resolved, the latent condition of conflict may be aggravated and explode in a more serious and violent form at a later stage.
Resolution of Organizational Conflicts:
(1) Preventive measures include:
(a) Development of effective leadership,
(b) Participative decision-making,
(c) Two-way communication system,
(d) Improvement in interpersonal relationship, and
(e) Revision for facilities and opportunities to develop informal groups.
(2) Curative measures:
The following steps must be taken in resolving a conflict which has already arisen:
(a) Dig full details of the conflict and note the stage of conflict. More efforts are required to resolve a conflict of advanced stage.
(b) Issues involved in the conflict should be analyzed and understood. Conflict may be due to facts, goals, methods or values.
Nature and concept:
- Power refers to a capacity that one has to influence the behavior of the other, so that the other acts in accordance with one’s wishes. It is, therefore, a capacity or potential one can have but not impose it.
- Dependency is the key to power.
- It is created by importance, scarcity, non substitutability.
Ethics of Power & Politics:
Ethical issues emerge when the use of power stretches into the realm of political behavior. It is in this context that a manager must stop and seriously consider the ethical issues involved in every action.
These are:
1. Criterion of utilitarian outcomes
The behavior results in optimization of satisfaction of people inside and outside the organization, that is, it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
2. Criterion of individual rights
The behavior respects the rules of justice, that is, it treats people equitably and fairly as opposed to, arbitrary.
3. Criterion, of distributive justice
The behavior respects the rules of justice, that is, it treats people equitably and fairly as opposed to, arbitrarily.
Types of Power:
- Coercive Power- It involves the usage of threat to make people do what one desires. It basically forces people to submit to one’s demand for the fear of losing something.
2. Reward Power- It uses rewards, perks, new projects or training opportunities, better roles and monetary benefits to influence people.
3. Legitimate Power- It emanates from an official position held by someone, be it in an organization, beurocracy or government etc. The duration of this power is short lived as well as, the scope of the power is small as it is strictly defined by the position held.
4. Expert Power- It owes its genesis to the skills and expertise possessed by an individual, which is of higher quality and not easily available. It is very person specific and skills can be enhanced with time.
5. Referent Power- It is wielded by celebrities and film stars as they have huge masses, who like them, identify with them and follow them.
References:
- Organizational behavior by Stephen P. Robbin & Seema Sanghi- pearson
2. Organizational behavior by L.M. Prasad-S Chand & sons
3. Organization behavior: managing people and organization by Gregory moorehead – Biztantra
