Ethics of Teamwork
by
Dr. William J. Frey
Group
Pitfalls: The
Big Three
More Group
Pitfalls
Negotiating
Strategies
Value
Realization
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What is Groupthink?
A situation in which groups
come to agreement at the
expense of critical thinking
Row 1, Col 1
What is Conflict of Effort?
An individual has too many
commitments and has trouble
participating in group work due
to these conflicting commitments.
1,2
What is Expanding the Pie?
Conflicts that arise from situational
constraints can be resolved by
pushing back those constraints
through negotiation or innovation.
1,3
What is value discovery?
“The goal of this activity is to
[identify] the values that are
relevant to, inspire, or inform the
work of a given group.”
1,4
What is Group Polarization?
This phenomenon occurs when
members magnify and exaggerate
non-agreement and convert
it into disagreement
and opposition
2,1
Who are Outliers?
Often mistaken for free riders,
these individuals have trouble
integrating into group
activities because other members
are closely related and share
many experiences and understandings.
2,2
What is Bridging?
Finding a higher order interest
on which both parties agree, and
then constructing a solution that
serves that agreed-upon interest.
2,3
What is value translation?
This phase of the value integration
process focuses on the
operationalization of values (by
developing procedures) and the
implementation of values (by
carrying out these procedures).
2,4
What is Going to Abilene?
A group makes unnecessary
compromises because of a
breakdown in group
communication.
3,1
Who are Free Riders?
These individuals attempt to
benefit from the other members
of the group without contributing
anything themselves.
3,2
What is Nonspecific Compensation?
One side makes a concession
to the other but is compensated
for that concession in some other
way.
3,3
What is value verification?
In this phase of value integration,
groups develop assessment strategies
to confirm that value goals have
been realized.
3,4
How does one avoid groupthink and
going to Abilene?
Designate one member a
devil’s advocate who is
responsible for criticizing
the group’s decision.
4,1
What are Hidden Agendas?
These are good ideas that group
members keep to themselves and
do not share with the rest of
the group.
4,2
What is Logrolling?
Each party lowers their
aspirations on terms that are of
less interest to them, thus trading
off a concession on a less
important item for a concession
from the other on a more important
item.
4,3
What is a value realization
procedure?
This is a sequence of actions
that, carried out in proper
order, facilitate the integration
of a given value into a specific
situation.
4,4
What is a strategy for avoiding
Groupthink?
"The leaders in an organization's
hierarchy, when assigning a policyplanning mission to a group,
should be impartial instead
of stating preferences and
expectations at the outset."
5,1
What is negotiate interests, not
positions?
When caught in a strong
disagreement with another
individual, this strategy often
helps to move things forward.
5,2
What is Cost-Cutting?
One party makes an agreement to
reduce its aspirations on a particular
thing, and the other party agrees to
compensate the party for the specific
costs that reduction in aspirations
involves
5,3
What is a Value?
“A claim about what is
worthwhile, what is good. [This]
is a single word or phrase that
identifies something as being
desirable for human beings.”
5,4
Groupthink by Irving Janis
• Defects in decision-making that contribute
to groupthink (10):
– group fails to consider “enough” alternatives
– group does not identify goals and values of action
– group fails to criticize course favored by majority or by
leader
– groups do not consult experts or get outside view
– groups show “selective bias” regarding information
they in
– groups fail to identify obstacles to implementation of
decision
Schedules and Normal Accidents
• Charles Perrow in his book, Normal Accidents, points out
the dangers of systems that are “tightly coupled” and
exhibit “non-linear causality.”
• Schedules with no flexibility can be described as tightly
coupled.
• Hence a breakdown in one part of the schedule (your boss
asks you to work extra hours) “spills over” into other areas
(you miss class and fall behind).
• In this way, small failures—because they cannot be
isolated—turn into system breakdowns
• Solution: when you set up your schedules at the beginning
of the semester, leave flexibility that can absorb isolated,
unexpected, events.
Negotiation
• In negotiation, you try to find ways of exiting
from a conflict that benefit both parties.
• Gunsalus (The College Administrator’s
Survival Guide) devotes a chapter to
negotiation. She identifies several steps (82-91)
– opening stage, collecting information, identifying
values important to both parties, “horse trading,”
and confirming the agreement.
– one useful suggestion: multiply interests by
“expanding the pie”
Weston on integrating values
• Weston discusses integrating values in A
Practical Companion to Ethics 56-60. His
examples are quite illuminating
– “If both sides (or all sides) are to some extent right,
then we need to try to honor what is right in each of
them. We need to take account of all the important
values at stake, rather than just a few.: 56
– “integrating values calls upon problem-solving skills:
generating new options and reframing problems.
– We are concerned to identify the compatibility of
seemingly incompatible values, to find ways to achieve
or to honor both (all) of them.”57
Value Polarization
• Weston identifies two aspects of value
polarization (Companion, 50-51)
– First, we reduce an issue to a choice between
polar opposites.
– Second, we choose one of these opposites over
the other, labeling it right, the other wrong and
good while the other is bad or evil.
• We respond to value polarization, according
to Weston, by generating more options and
reframing the situation
– Win-win rather than win-lose
Value-Integration
• From:
– M. Flanagan, D. Howe, and H. Nissenbaum, “Embodying Values
in Technology: Theory and Practice,” in Information Technology
and Moral Philosophy, Jeroen van den Hoven & John Weckert,
Eds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 322353.
• “Translation is further divided into operationalization,
which involves defining or articulating values in concrete
terms, and implementation which involves specifying
corresponding design features” [4, pp. 338].
• Ethics of Teamwork transfers this framework from
software development to teamwork
Going to Abilene: The Story
• Four people, a married couple and the
wife’s parents, decide to go to Abilene and
eat at a cafeteria there.
• When they return home after a long hot
ride, they find out that no one really wanted
to go to the cafeteria. It seems the food is
really lousy.
• But each conceded because he or she
(mistakenly) thought this is what the others
wanted.
Sources on Values
• Brincat and Wike, Morality and the
Professional Life: Values at Work,
Prentice-Hall, 2000, 141.
• See also, Victoria S. Wike, “Professional
Engineering Ethical Behavior: A Valuesbased Approach,” Proceedings of the 2001
American Society for Engineering
Education Annual Conference and
Exposition.