Chapter 4 Team and Group
Table of Contents
1. Team Characteristics
1.1 Norms
1.2 Roles
1.3 Cohesion
1.4 Social-loafing
2. Dynamics
2.1 Stages
2.2 Punctuated Equilibrium Paradigm
3. Current Issues and Challenges
3.1 Virtual
3.2 Diversity
3.3 External Leadership and Self-Managing Teams
3.4 Justice
1. Team Characteristics
1.1 Group Norms
Group norms are present in almost all aspects of our lives, whether it’s at work, at home or just
in society. They are informal standards of behavior that groups develop to standardize members’
behavior (Hackman, 1976). At work it might be normal to have lunch as a group most days or
have strictly formal team meetings that are led by management. Norms at home might be as
simple as what time the family eats dinner or what after work or school activities consist of.
Societal norms can be simple like walking on the right side of the walkway or they can be more
polarizing like what is happening during COVID-19. Prior to the crisis, the social norm was to
not where protective masks out in public and if you did, you would get some puzzled looks.
Currently, a month into the crisis here in Minnesota, it is becoming the norm to wear masks in
public and you get those same puzzled looks if you don’t wear one. We will see if there is a new
norm regarding masks once society goes “back to normal.”
It is important to understand why group norms develop and how they are enforced because the
norms of a team can influence the team’s performance and they can be developed and changed
by the manager (Feldman, 1984).
Group norms are enforced:
1. To help the group survive by not discussing topics that might cause issues in the
group or give another group an advantage. An example of this might be not discussing
salaries with the group. Ultimately the group wants to protect itself from interference and
by enforcing norms, the group sets up boundaries of what behavior is appropriate
(Dentler & Erikson, 1959). If group members keep defying the norm, they are likely
going to be rejected by the group if they are poor performers as opposed to high
performers. Groups tend to keep members around who are high performers even if they
defy group norms (Hollander, 1958, 1964).
2. To make members’ behavior predictable. This can be anything from meeting
structure to how the bill is split at lunch. The team can focus on the tasks at hand easier
because a lot of the member’s behavior is predictable (Hackman, 1976; Shaw, 1981).
This can lead to a more efficient team. This is also where non-formal roles might get
established like a note-taker for meetings or someone who eases the tension and bridges
gaps.
3. To avoid interpersonal problems. This is all about keeping the piece within the team.
Examples of this might be not discussing romantic involvement or not socializing at
group member’s homes so different tastes or income does not interfere with the group
(Feldman, 1984).
4. To express the central values of the group. The central values of a group should be
applied if there is something that goes against those values. It is important to remember
that the central values of a group can change. An example of this can be the use of drugs.
They are illegal and have been for some time but recently there is more of an emphasis
on the quantity and type of drug when they are sentencing someone (Feldman, 1984).
Group norms can develop:
1. Through statements from management. This can be anything from lateness, personal
phone calls, or dress code. The objective of these norms is to create predictability and can
also help establish the central values of the group (Feldman, 1984). I’ve experienced
norms being developed first had at my previous employer. The norm was changed from
everyone dressing as business casual to a “dress for your day” policy so people could
dress more casually depending on their schedule. Management also got everyone sit-tostand desks and really encouraged people to stand for part of their day. These two
examples illustrate how a manager can change the norms of the group.
2. Through critical events. These events can develop new norms because the event
might have been caused by a weakness in the group and the new norm may be a way to
strengthen that weakness. At my previous job, we had a few people quite around the
same time which caused us to bring in two contract workers. We developed a norm with
the contract workers to all meet informally when everyone got to work in the morning to
discuss tasks, priorities, what we are focusing on these tasks, etc. This opened
communication on our team and increased productivity, so we continued the morning
meetings once we got new full-time employees in those roles.
3. Through primacy. This is what you do first is developed into the norm. An example of
this might be if the first meeting between management and subordinates is formal, the
expectation (norm) going forward is that those meetings will be formal (Feldman, 1984).
Something just about all students’ experience is sitting in the same seat in class, even
though seats are not assigned.
4. From carry-over behaviors from past situations. All we have as professionals is our
experience and norms from past jobs is often carried over to new jobs. When going into a
new job, it is important to carry-over more conservative norms until the new norms are
established. For example, if your current job has a very informal culture and often has
happy hour at the office, it’s best not to expect those same norms in a new job. You
should carry over the conservative norms you’ve learned and go with those until the new
norms are established.
1.2 Team Roles
Team roles are simply used and understood to create the strongest team. As we know every
person has a different skill level they bring to a team, for example you may be the person that
can complete a task while another co-worker is the one that has great attention to detail. In order
for your team to be effective your team needs to be balanced, you don’t want your team to have
too many people that come up with ideas and none that can delegate the work. Because you need
to have a balanced team you need to evaluate each person to identify what their natural role is.
Below is the roles that have been defined to build a strong team (Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1:
(Belbin, R. M. 1993)
The nine roles can be broken down into three categories.
Action oriented:
1. Shapers – They are extraverts and question assumptions
2. Implementers – Are self-discipline and get things done (can be reluctant to change)
3. Completer-Finisher- Great attention to detail
People Oriented:
1. Coordinators- Guide, listen and delegate
2. Team Workers – Support coworkers and can negotiate
3. Resource investigator – Develop outside contacts
Thought oriented:
1. Plants – Inverted but come up with ideas and solutions
2. Monitor evaluators – Boldly assess the team’s options
3. Specialists – Know what they are doing and maintain professional standards
Knowing what role is the most natural for you will allow you to be high performing for the team.
I personally like this because it takes the pressure off each team member by allowing them to
focus strictly on the role they are the most comfortable/natural with.
1.3 Group Cohesion:
A group characteristic that is often analyzed and discussed is cohesion. There is debate around
whether a cohesive group is higher performing and more efficient but before discussing that, we
must first go through the types of workflow which impact cohesion level and the three
components that make up cohesion.
The types of workflow are:
1. Pooled – Individual work is done and pooled to the group level.
Lower Cohesion
2. Sequential – Work passes from one person to the other but not back and
forth.
3. Reciprocal – Similar to sequential, but work can be passed back and forth.
Higher Cohesion
4. Intensive – Workflows between all members.
As you can see above, the type of workflow in your business greatly determine the level of
cohesion possible. The greater the interaction level, the higher level of cohesion the group is
likely to have (Beal & Burke, 2004).
The three components that make up cohesion are (Festinger 1950):
1. Group compatibility – How members of the group get along.
2. Activities of the group – The tasks of the group.
3. Prestige of the group – The pride of the group.
Now that the factors of cohesion and the type of workflow are established, is a cohesive group
higher performing and more efficient? Cohesion can increase performance and efficiency but
there is a fine line when analyzing cohesion levels. For example, a group of close friends in a
group might be a very cohesive unit, but does that mean they are the most productive and
efficient? I would say no. If a group is put together at work and everyone does their job and
performs, that will gradually make them a more cohesive unit. The focus should primarily be put
on group member individual’s performance and not on whether that person will help form a
cohesive group. If the performance of the group is there, the cohesiveness with gradually form as
everyone continues to work together.
1.4 Social Loafing
Social loafing is when someone exerts less effort when working in a group versus alone. This is
something I think most of us have done at some point while working in a group especially when
the group size is larger. So what are some of the factors that cause social loafing? The first factor
that causes social loafing in a group is lack of being identified, meaning if you don’t have to put
your name on it the more likely you are to loaf. The second factor is when you can neither be
praised or blamed for the amount of effort you put into something the more likely you are to loaf.
So now that we know what factors lead to social loafing lets takes a look at some factors that
reduce social loafing.
1. More challenging task: People perceive that that there contributions cannot be easily
duplicated they wouldn’t loaf even if they are not identifiable. When the task is more
challenging they believe that it there time to shine. In other words people like to
believe that they are intelligent and this is one way to prove it.
2. Have your own unique sub task: People believe that there contribution was valuable
and not duplicated be others then their performance would not be hindered.
3. Making people identifiable: If people know that their name will be on the work or
they will be known for a certain part of a project they will not loaf.
4. Recognition and/or blame for individual accomplishments: If you have a
performance review after the completion of the project it is unlikely someone will loaf.
Social loafing is really all about making sure every team member is held accountable for his/her
portion of the project. Also make sure the task are challenging enough for everyone that is
working on the project.
2. Dynamic of Groups and Teams
2.1 Stages of Group Development
Almost every group is going to go through the stages of group development which will
ultimately make them a better group moving forward. The four stages are:
1. Forming: In this stage, group members will begin to develop relationships. There is
going to be hesitant participation (Corsini, 1957) which is normal with people you don’t
know too well, and the group will develop its structure and limits. When groups in the
workplace are formed, the group tends to form around outside roles (Modlin and Faris,
1956). For example, if the group is made up of lower level employees and one manager,
the manager is likely going to take the lead role in the group. This stage is seen in just
about all groups which is normal as you must get to know the people in the group before
sharing ideas and voicing opinions.
2. Storming: This stage is where the conflict is going to happen. Typically, after you get
to know your group members in the forming stage, there is going to be some conflict as
you start working through the task or assignment. There is going to be some
defensiveness, competition and jealousy throughout the group (Abrahams, 1949). This
stage is seen in most groups and is ultimately a very important step in group development
because it give people an opportunity to work through differences and it also lets group
members see that they can voice their opinions or concerns in the group. I recently started
a new job and am going through this storming stage of our group’s development. I am
noticing myself being competitive with tasks and wanting my ideas to outshine my
coworkers. This has helped our team grow into a more cohesive unit since we are voicing
our opinions and talking out differences.
3. Norming: Following the storming stage, the norming stage of group development is
where the group develops a family like structure where group members can discuss
personal problems. The conflicts from the storming stage are going to be resolved and the
group is going to start focusing on integration (Tuckman, 1965).
4. Performing: The final stage of group development is where the group will begin to
work as a group and there is an emphasis on task achievement. Everyone in the group has
their role and the energy is towards the task (Schroder and Harvey, 1963).
2.2 Punctuated Equilibrium Paradigm
Punctuated Equilibrium is long periods of stability with short burst of fundamental change. There
is three main components.
The Deep structure: Is the part that the units and activity patterns will be organized. This can be
thought of as the design and the rules of the game (Table 3).
Equilibrium period: Consist of staying consistent and following through with your choices.
During this period things are stable and the deep structure isn’t changed (Table 4).
Revolutionary period: When the systems deep structure comes apart (Table 5).
An example would be during the Equilibrium period you move the hockey net sideways and
during the Revolutionary period you remove the hockey net completely dismantles the game.
(The Academy of Management Review, Jan 1991)
(The Academy of Management Review, Jan 1991)
(The Academy of Management Review, Jan 1991)
3. Current Issues and Challenges
3. 1 Virtual Team
When working on a virtual team, a helpful tool that can be used to diminish conflict is a temporal
coordination mechanism (Ocker et al., 1995-96; McGrath, 1991). This is essentially a project
plan that has deadlines, guidance, who is responsible for what tasks, meeting schedule, etc.
Having a project plan or something similar can help everyone see the plan of action and it should
eliminate some conflict that could arise without the plan. I have experience managing projects
with people from different divisions and some of those people would be working remote or in
different buildings. The project plan we developed had the laid-out project with due dates, who
was responsible for what, guidance where necessary, and this was all walked through in a kickoff meeting. After the kick-off meeting, when everyone was aware of what is going on, we sent
out weekly or bi-weekly meetings to touch base with certain groups to see how everything was
going. Having frequent meetings to touch base in smaller groups give more people the
opportunity to voice concerns or specific questions.
A virtual team can be harder to adjust to depending on the occupation, however. Teaching, for
example, is a very challenging job to have during this quarantine. They are limited to video
chatting with some students, but it is hard to make the same impact virtually. Teachers that are
very motivating to the entire staff and in the classroom are unable to make that same impact and
they are relying on the kids to be online to do their work. A lot of students don’t have anyone
there to motivate them to do the work which is normally where the teachers can make a big
difference.
3.2 Diversity in Teams:
Diversity is the differences between people and any attribute. They can be anyone of the
following: Age, Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Religion. So as you can imagine diversity in teams
at the workplace is a pretty common thing. One of the biggest problem is accurately studying
team diversity and the effect it has on the team. So they created the Categorization-Elaboration
Model to help identify why they have had such inconsistent finding (Figure 1).
Figure 1:
(Journal of Applied Psychology, 2004)
The three factors that determine social categorization are:
1. Comparative fit: Categorization creates subgroups with high group similarity and high
group differences.
2. Cognitive accessibility: The ease with which the social categorization implies, this is
something as simple as male or female.
3. Normative fit: Does this make sense to the group members.
So diverse groups tend to perform better when they have heterogeneous information and have
pro-diversity beliefs.
3.3 External Leadership and Self-Managing Teams
There are several ways an external leader can make an impact on self-managing teams. It is
important to know those ways in case you are the external leader of a group or if you are a part
of the self-managing team because you can recognize when they are trying to make an impact
and analyze their efforts.
The external leader can make an impact to the team by:
1. Preparing the team: They can analyze the working environment for any disruptive
events in the future and try to prepare the team for those events. An example is if the
external leader knows a lot of work is coming to the group, they can analyze the
resources and make the decision on how to prepare the team. This can be viewed as
positive is the team is receptive to the help or negative if the team thinks the preparation
is unnecessary especially if they do not know the purpose (Morgeson, 2005).
2. Coaching the team: This involves interactions that are directly trying to manipulate
the groups actions. This can also be viewed as negative especially if the coaching is only
identifying problems (Wageman, 2001).
3. Leader sense making: The external leader may identify important events and wants to
interpret these events to the group (Zaccaro, 2001). This can also be viewed as negative if
the group thinks the leader is trying to spin the news to make them feel a certain way. In
my previous role at TCF Bank, we merged with another mid-size bank which was very
big news. Our external leader sat with our group and explained it from his point-of-view
even though he didn’t know the status of his role. I had a positive take-away from this
experience because he gave us the platform to ask whatever questions we had.
A major factor that can determine how the self-managing team views the external leader’s
effectiveness is the level of disruptive event. If the event isn’t very disruptive, the self-managing
teams are going to view the leader as less effective because there is probably a good change that
the team could have handled that event without interference. The more disruptive the event, the
higher the team views the leader’s effectiveness (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2:
A very disruptive event that is currently happening is COVID-19. There are examples of external
leadership who has not had great communication regarding working from home and the plan
going forward. This is an example that has a very negative effect on people and it will be
interesting to see the fallout once everything is back to “normal” because a lot of relationships
need to be rebuilt.
3.4 Justice:
There is two types of structural interdependence in teams, task interdependence and outcome
interdependence. Task interdependence requires multiple people to cooperate to complete the
work and outcome interdependence shares rewards or consequences as a team (Wageman, 2001).
In my organization we always use task interdependence because our management believes that a
team performs better than an individual. However we never use outcome interdependence as we
are all held accountable individually.
Procedural justice is the fairness of decision-making processes (Leventhal, 1980; Thibaut &
Walker, 1975). This is a justice I seen work against the company when working in the shop
because the decisions on how we made parts was controlled by the Programmers not the
Machinists. The Machinist had a very good idea on what would be the most effective way to
complete the task but the decision-making process was already determined which caused tension
between departments.
Procedural justice six rules of fair treatment (Leventhal, 1980):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Consistent across people and time
Based on accurate information
Unbiased
Correctable
Representative of all groups’ concerns
Ethical
Distributive Justice is the fairness of decision outcomes. An example of distributive justice
would be allowing employees to complete Self-appraisals, this would increase the perceived
fairness of the evaluation (Gilliland & Langdon, 1998). Involving employees in the decision
making process tends to have a positive effect on their performance.
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