The people in the project
Terese Stenfors-Hayes
Agenda and objectives
• Agenda: Creating and managing a project
team.
– Conflict management, motivation, group
dynamics and some leadership theories
• Objective: Basic understanding of theories
for the topics above.
Project manager vs.
functional/traditional manager
• Limited time
• Only one objective
• Given competencies
within the group
• Greater risks
• Rapid changes
• Greater risk of failure
• No formal staff
responsibility
• Several objectives to
prioritise between
• Staff needs competence
development
• Greater distance to
employees
• Greater formal power
• Needs to obey the rules
and regulations of the
organisation
The manager’s different roles
(Mintzberg)
• Interpersonal
– Team leader, ambassador and ceremonial leader
• Informative
– Listener, information giver and spokes person
• Decision making
– Visionary, problem solver, resurce allocator
and negotiator
Leadership
• The team paradox
• Great person theory
– Something you are born with
• Great opportunity theory
– Something you can learn
• Ask what the leader does instead of who he is
• The more complex a project, the more formal the
style of management should be
• The more technically uncertain a project, the more
flexible the style of management should be
Leadership styles (Lewin &
Lippit)
• Authoritative
• Democratic
• Laissez-faire
Assumptions about humans
(Schein)
• Rational-economic assumptions
– Related to theory X (McGregor)
• Social assumptions
• Self-actualisation assumptions
– Maslow, theory Y (McGregor)
• The complicated human
Power (French & Raven)
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Legitimate
Reward
Coercive
Expert
Referent
How to create a team
Four important aspects
• Task
• People
• Context
• Process
Task
• What type of task is it?
– Tactical
– Problem solving
– Creative
• Autonomy?
• Subjective or objective solution?
• Task design for individuals
People
• Number?
• Competency?
– Technical
– Communicative
– Problem solving
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Roles?
Diversity?
Status system?
Norms?
Unity?
Cohesiveness?
Trust?
Context
• Resurces
• Leadership and structure
• Feedback and rewards
Process
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Aim
Objective
Confidence
Conflict management
Responsibility
Communication
Openness
Why work in groups? (Schein)
• Affiliation needs
• Sense of identity and maintaining our selfesteem
• Establishing and testing social reality
• Reducing insecurity, anxiety and sense of
powerlessness
• Problem-solving, task-accomplishing
mechanism
Why is it so difficult?
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The work is so temporary
Everyone is used to his/her ways
Geographical diversity
Size
Cultural diversity
Lack of time
Group development
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Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning
Characteristics of effective work
groups (Mullins 2002)
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A belief in shared aims and objectives
A sense of commitment to the group
Acceptance of group values and norms
A feeling of mutual trust and dependency
Full participation by all members and decision making by
consensus
Free flow of information and communications
The open expression of feelings and disagreements
The resolution of conflict by the members themselves
A lower level of staff turnover, absenteeism, accidents,
errors and complaints
Belbin’s 9 team roles
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Specialist
Monitor/evaluator
Plant
Teamworker
Completer/finisher
Shaper
Coordinator
Implementer
Resource investigator
Social Loafing
• Ways to avoid it:
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Individual results
Fun jobs
Reward and evaluate individuals
Participation in goal creation
Etc…
• …is only a problem when intrinsic
motivation is low
Groupthink (Janis 1972)
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The group feels invulnerable
Warnings are rationalised away
Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality
Opposers are ridiculed and stereotyped
Group pressure on opposers is high
Silence is taken as consent (a false sense of group
unanimity)
• Members censor themselves not to deviate from norms
• The group is protected from information or individuals
who would disrupt consensus
Why do we argue (Lee)?
• Communication problems
• Structural design
• Personal differences
Types of conflics
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Relationship conflicts
Task conflicts
Process conflicts
Conflicts can change from one type to
another.
• And in most cases the conflict is
unnecessary
Dealing with conflicts
• Five ways:
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Accomodation
Confrontation
Compromise
Collaboration
Avoiding
Avoiding or changing conflicts
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Strengthen the group identity
Acknowledge individual achievements
Good environment and surroundings
Identify a common goal
Practice conflict management
Separate people, tasks and other issues
Why is motivation important?
• To increase employee’s interest in taking an active
responsiblity for work tasks and stated goals
• To decrease the number of conflicts, complaints,
absence and staff turnover
• To increase ability to handle change and
misfortune
• To increase chances to meet business objectives
and improve results
Kill motivation
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Unfair treatment
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Too much or too little to do
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Little participation
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Favouring
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Unrealistic goals
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Uncertainty for the future
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Faulty expectations
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Broken promises
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Unclear work tasks, rules and goals
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Threats
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Lack of challenges
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Bureaucracy
Weak connection between reward
and achievement
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Lack of trust for management
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Failing communication
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Scandals and doubtful ethics
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Limited responsibilities
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Too much control and supervision
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No feeling of control
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Internal politics
Creating motivation
• The daily work
• Leadership
• Personal development
• Social relations
• Status and image
• Respect and recognition
• Support for own ideas and initiatives
• ”Speed” of work
• Salary and benefits
• New things happening at the workplace
A motivating manager…
(Insight Lab AB 2003)
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Self insight and a clear idea
Interest in other people
Active leadership
Clear delegation
Social relations and feeling of togetherness
Support employee’s personal development
Have a vision and be continuously improving
Hackman and Oldman’s work
design model
How is it implemented?
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Combine tasks
Publish results
Let people work in teams
Empower
Open feedback channels
Goals
•Goals are a motivating force
• Specific goals lead to increased performance
• Difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher output than easy goals
• Participation in setting the goals might motivate further
• Set goals only, not the route to achieve it
•Private and organisational goals might collide
•Goals should be:
–Few
–Realistic
–Agreed
–Measured
–Explicit
–Specific, time restricted, not relative, positive
•Goals need to be part of a vision
•MBO is a motivational program based on goal setting
Employee recognition
• Using different ways to reward behaviour and publicly recognize both
individual and group accomplishment
• Can be almost anything…
– A note…
– A picture…
– A thank you…
• Rewarding behavior with recognition immediately leads to its
repetition
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To maximize motivation potential, publicly communicate who and
why is being recognized
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Recognizing employee’s superior performance often costs little
Employee involvement
• A participative process to encourage increased
commitment to the organization's success
• Involve workers in decisions that will affect them
• Increase their autonomy and control over their work lives
• Include techniques with a common core:
– Employee participation
– Participative management
– Workplace democracy
– Empowerment
– Employee ownership
Reward programmes
• Based on what an individual values
• Timely and clearly linked to a behaviour
– –always or sometimes
• Who, why should be publicly and clearly
stated
Always evaluate!
• Learn for next time, both from mistakes and
successes!
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Evaluate the group
Conflict Management
How motivational strategies worked
The work task
The work process
Communication
Etc.
Recommended reading
• Essentials of Organizational Behavior
– Stephen Robbins