Chapter 5 – Performance and Productivity Integrated model of successful team performance: expertise, engagement, execution – high level Flow An integrated model of successful team performance serves two purposes: - Description: the interpretation of events that assists with an accurate analysis of a situation - Prescription: recommendations on ways to improve a problematic situation Expertise: Ability Engagement: Motivation Execution: Strategy Perspective norms: what should be done Prospective norms: What should be avoided Goal contagion: form of a norm setting in which people adopt a goal held by others 5 crucial KSA skills for team members: 1. Conflict resolution 2. Collaborative problem solving 3. Communication 4. Goal setting and performance management 5. Planning and task coordination Choking under pressure: occurs when a person’s performance declines despite incentive for optimal performance Social Facilitation- predictable enhancement in performance in the presence of others Social inhibition- person becomes concerned with discrepancies between their performance and standards of excellence. FLOW: optimal performance- a psychological state in which a person is highly engaged in a task so interested they lose track of time and the process of engaging the task is its own reinforcement. ** Engagement is critical for flow Free Riding- people’s motivations often diminish in a team, especially the larger the team grows, the less likely it is that any one person will work as hard as they can. 3 main causes of free riding: 1. Diffusion on responsibility 2. Reduced sense of self-efficacy 3. Sucker aversion Team Performance Criteria Performance criteria are the factors used to evaluate the success or failure of a team effort Productivity: the productivity criterion asks whether the team’s output meets the standards of those who have to use it – the end user. Cohesion- the process that keep members of a team united Learning- teams should represent growth and development opportunities for the individual needs of the members. Integration: important for teams to understand the organization’s goals to work effectively towards them. Team Performance Equation AP (actual productivity) = PP (potential productivity) + S (synergy) – T (performance threats) Potential productivity of a team depends on 3 sub factors 1. Task demands 2. The resources available to the team 3. Team process Chapter 2 – Designing the Team Task – Is the goal clearly defined? The Task- teams that plan or develop performance strategies usually perform better - Pre planning (planning b4 actually performing task) - On-line planning (planning during task itself) IS the goal clearly defined? - Mission statement - Common errors - Team goals should be o Clear and simple o Specify ends but not means - High performance orientation VS high learning orientation Focus: Tactical teams, problem solving teams, creative teams Tactical Teams: directive, highly focused tasks, role clarity, well defined operation, accuracy Threat: Role ambiguity, lack of training standards, common barriers Problem solving: focus on issues, separate people from problem, consider facts not opinions, conduct thorough investigation, suspend judgement Threat: failure to stick to facts, fixate on solutions, succumb to political pressures, confirmatory information search Creative: explore possibilities and alternatives Threats: production blocking, uneven participation Types of interdependence – pooled, sequential, reciprocal Demonstrable vs nondemonstrable tasks How big should the team be? - Teams should be fewer than 10 in number - Large teams can have a number of negative effects - Advantages to smaller, even understaffed, teams Effects of time pressure: capacity vs capability and AFM model People - Skills – technical, task management, interpersonal Diversity advantages and challenges Advantages: - Improved team performance - Expanded talent pool - Multiple viewpoints - Decision making - Competitive advantage Challenges: - Unconscious homogeneity - Surface vs deep-level diversity - Perceived vs actual diversity - Faultiness - How much diversity? - Conflict - Solos and tokens Processes - Team norms Team structure- how clearly the group’s processes are articulated by team leaders and how closely they are adhered to by team members Team norms: - Norms are critical for team and organizational performance - Norm development and enforcement - Norm violation and consequences - Changing norms Types of coaching Team coaching- there are 3 distinct figures involved in coaching 1. The functions that coaching serves for a team 2. The specific times in the task performance process when coaching is most likely to have intended effects 3. The conditions under which coaching is likely to facilitate performance Types: Educational- focuses on ability, knowledge, and skill Motivational- focuses on how to enhance involvement Consultative- focuses on how to best integrate members’ strength and abilities Chapter 4 – Team Identity Emotion and Development Group entitativity The degree to which people perceive themselves (and others) to be a unified, single team or collective Group identity – fusion, multiple identities, common identity and common bonds Group Identity- the extent to which people feel their group membership is an important part of who they are. An analysis of group identity considers different situations: Identity fusion – blurring of the self-other barrier Multiple identities- membership to multiple groups Common identity- group bond Common bonds – member bond Relational and collective identity Group potency, collective efficacy Group potency- the collective belief of group members that the group can be effective. -Predicted powers related to team performance Collective efficacy- an individual’s belief that a team can perform successfully -Characteristics of groups with a high sense of collective efficacy: - Set more challenging goals - Persist in the face of difficulty -High likelihood of success Emotions – emotional contagion, vicarious affect, behavioral entrainment Group emotion- affective state that arises from bottom-up and top-down components - Emotional contagion – catch people’s emotions - Vicarious affect – strength of emotion is a function of source likeability - Behavioral entrainment – synchronizing movement Group cohesion – definition and ways to build Group Cohesion – defined as the emotional attraction among group members Ways to build: - Help team build identity - Make it easy for the team to be close together - Focus on similarities among team members - Put a positive spin on the team’s performance - Challenge the team Types of Trust Status – real vs pseudostatus Status- Within moments of forming, members of team size one another up and intuitively take note of one another’s personal qualities that they think are indicative of ability or prestige Real status characteristics: intelligence, background, education Pseudostatus characteristics: sex, age, race, demeanor, size, facial expression Perception of status – most people overestimate group status Status competition – some compete, some opt for lower status 5 Stages of Group/Team Development Chapter 6 – Communication and Collective Intelligence Communication biases - Communication among team members is subject to biases that afflict even those with the best of intensions Absorptive capacity - A person’s ability to transform new knowledge into useable knowledge o Knowledge becomes a strategic resource when leaders engage in: Proactive scanning – mindful and rich search efforts Knowledge adaption – clever improvisational solutions to problems Knowledge augmentation – challenging, changing, and expanding knowledge Information dependence problem - The term describing the fact that team members are dependent on one another for information - The common information effect : refers to the main determinant of how much a given fact influences a group decision is not the fact itself, but how many people happen to be aware of this fact prior to a group discussion Hidden Profiles - A hidden profile is defined as a superior decision alternative, but the superiority of the choice is hidden from group members because each individual member only has a portion of the information supporting the superior alternative choice - Information known to only one, or a few members will often be omitted from group discussion Strategies for overcoming the common information effect Strategies that DO NOT work: Strategies that DO work: Chapter 7 – Team Decision Making Framing, overconfidence, and confirmation biases, decision fatigue Group decision making rules – high level Making choices from 2 or more alternatives 1. Define the problem 2. Identify the decision criteria 3. Allocate weights to the criteria 4. Generate alternatives 5. Rate each alternative on each criterion 6. Compute the optimal decision Decision making pitfalls – 1 (Groupthink), 2 (Escalation of Commitment), 3 (Abilene Paradox), and 4 (Group Polarization) Group think: occurs when team members place decision consensus above all other decision priorities - Overestimation of the group - Closed-mindedness - Pressures toward uniformity Escalation of commitment: under some conditions, teams, will persist with a losing course of action, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. The Abilene paradox: is a form of pluralistic ignorance in which group members adopt a position because they feel other members desire it; team members don’t challenge one another because they want to avoid conflict or achieve consensus Group polarization: is the tendency for group discussion to intensify group opinion, thus producing more extreme judgements that might be obtained by pooling individual’s views separately Ethical Decision Making (pitfall 5) – self interest, conflicts of interest Chapter 9 – Creativity Creative realism- The production of novel and useful ideas – the ability to form new concepts using existing knowledge - Innovation - Structural connectedness: ideas that work with existing products or services Measuring creativity – One common way of evaluative the creativity of a person’s (or team’s) ideas is via 3 indices: - Fluency – how many ideas a person can generate - Flexibility – how many types of ideas a person generates - Originality – the ability to generate unusual solutions and unique answers to problems - Brainstorming Threats to team creativity Enhancing team creativity Nominal group, Delphi, stepladder techniques, etc.
