SBenegaL

Category: Work Teams

  • Empowerment in Teams

    In the last byte, we looked at how diversity and creativity influence the group settings. In today’s byte, we talk about empowerment.

    In order to ensure that teams manage themselves (self-manage) it would also be important to empower them. While team work builds the spirit of a team and helps the team members achieve more than they could individually do, if empowered it the right skills they could achieve more. Here are a list of four such skills that help empower the team members and there by the teams.

    1. Competence Skills – these refer to the skills that deal with the strength – the mastery and experience in one’s chosen discipline and profession. This is like the bed rock on which other skills and the team’s performance could be built up.
    2. Negotiation Skills – this helps the individual team members negotiate with their friends and foes on various aspects to be able to actively achieve what they intend.
    3. Cooperative Skills – this deals with the individual’s ability to motivate his/her colleagues to work on increasing the gains for everyone in the team – this behavior is usually encouraging, helping etc to bring about the sought end.
    4. Communications Skills – this is an essential skill that allows the team member to express self and also reflect and think. It is this expression that allows people to express and understand others.

  • Diversity and Creativity in Teams

    In the last byte, we looked at the social benefits of work groups. Today’s byte, we shall briefly discuss about the role of diversity and creativity in teams.

    We understand that teams are united by their purpose – this is like the shared goal towards which the team-members work, however this doesn’t imply that the team members should be similar or they should all follow a strict defined way to doing things. We are hinting here at the role of similarity (a component of diversity) and creativity in teams.

    Dissimilarity amongst team members have varied affects on the team and the individuals involved in terms of the employee’s commitment, turnover intentions, beliefs, self-esteem etc. While the dissimilarity also helps in enhancing the creativity given that the same aspects is observed by team members from diverse opinions. This means that creativity could be looked at in a team context and not just the individual context; there could be a process that could help tap the creativity of individuals and solve the work-team challenges.

    The creativity aspect in work teams could not just arise for the dissimilarities in the social context, but also the prior experience of the team members. This is also one of the reasons why diversity based on the team composition varying in experience levels and the domains could actually benefit the teams in solving challenging problems.

  • Work Teams – Need

    In the last byte, we continued our discussion on task and maintenance functions. In today’s byte, we look at the need for work teams in organizations.

    Work teams generally refer to task oriented groups but the usage and context could change. These teams don’t just give an important or valuable contribution to the organization, but also give satisfaction to the members involved in the team.

    Groups themselves could be seen in different coordination styles, the use of a sports analogy here could be useful here. Some teams are like baseball teams where there is a set responsibility, while other could be like football where there is coordination and that drives the action, yet other are like doubles tennis teams where there is flexibility in the responsibilities but all roles are primary for the completion of the tasks. It is important to also note that while every type of team may have a useful role in the organization, the individual expertise couldn’t be overlooked. It is important to make use of the expertise and allow the individual shine at the right time, and in the right context.

    The need for teams itself need not be questioned, where individuals fail – teams have succeeded. Teams are generally preferred when the task is complicated, complex, inter-related, and voluminous and a single individual might not be able to handle it.

  • Individual in a group setting

    In the last byte, we looked at how group cohesion and social loafing influence group behavior. In today’s byte, we look at how the aspect of loss of individuality in groups and see how this affects group behavior.

    We had defined “loss of individuality” as a social process in which individual group members lose self-awareness and its accompanying sense of accountability, inhibition, and responsibility for individual behavior. It is also called “deindividuation”.

    You would notice that individual group members wouldn’t have a sense of accountability/inhibition or responsibility for their behavior – this could have potentially catastrophic influence. People could engage in morally reprehensible acts and sometimes even violence. Research has noted that – loosening of normal ego control mechanisms in an individual could also lead to a prosocial behavior and one expect heroic acts even in dangerous situations. There could also be the other dimension of a negative impact also seen due to such behavior – in mob scenarios.

    What is important it to note that – a group that successfully develops into a mature group may not encounter the issues with the loss of individual identity? What is important is the way the culture of a group gets established.

  • Group Cohesion and Social Loafing

    In the last byte, we looked at Norms of Behavior in a group setting. In today’s byte we look at Group Cohesion and Social Loafing aspects.

    Groups’ tasks in some cases create an identity – the bondage amongst the group members. In many cases, group cohesion can enhance job satisfaction as there are people in the group who appreciate the work each one of the member does – also this increases organization productivity. Groups with high cohesion are able to control and manage their membership better than those with lower cohesion. We shall get back to the discussion on cohesion when we deal with well-developed groups later in the series.

    Social Loafing – also called “free riding” could occur when one or more group members rely on the efforts of theirs in the group and fail to contribute their own time, effort etc into the group activities. Such behavior could create a heavy baggage that the group tries to drag along and could limit its achievements. 

    One of the sources of such free-riding is due to the design of the task itself and its associated incentives – if the individual efforts are not detectible in the action of the group, it could encourage such behavior!

  • Work Teams and Groups 3

    In the last byte, we looked at the four aspects of behavior that are important in a group setting. In today’s byte we discuss group norms of behavior.

    Norms of Behavior: are lie standards that are used in looking at the behavior of its individual members. These could be written or unwritten, they could even be verbal or nor-verbal, and in some case they could even be implicit or explicit in other cases. In general this specifies what the group members should do and what the group members should not do.

    These norms could evolve informally (just by observation of other group members) or explicitly through training. It could even be unconscious within a group; these could have been developed in repose to a challenge that the group faces (think of fire-fighters here!).

    Norms could exist in any aspect of work-life. They play a curial role! – One such is the Performance Norms. Performance norms are the most important group norms from the organization’s perspective.

  • Work Teams and Groups 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on work teams and groups. In today’s byte, we continue this discussion and understand some of the aspects of group behavior further.

    There are 4 important topics that are extremely relevant to the functioning of the group. We shall define these in the current byte.

    1. Norms of Behavior: These refer to the standards that a work group uses to evaluate the behavior of its members
    2. Group Cohesion: Refers to the “interpersonal glue” that makes members of the group stick together
    3. Social Loafing: Refers to the failure of group members to contribute personal time, effort, thoughts or other resources to the group
    4. Loss of Individuality: Refers to the social process in which individual group members lose self-awareness and its accompanying sense of accountability, inhibition and responsibility for individual behavior.
    We shall discuss these in greater detail in the next few bytes.

  • Work Teams and Groups

    In the last byte, we looked at how communication technology is playing a role in work-place communication. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on work teams and groups.

    Let’s begin with simple definitions of these two terms:

    1. Group – could be two or more people with common interests, objectives, and continuing interactions
    2. Work teams – could be a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common mission, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable


    From the above definition it would be interesting to note – all work teams are groups, but all groups are not work teams.

    It would also be good to understand an ideal benchmark – the following table highlights some characteristics: