Teams & Organization

Course Notes Table of Contents

Objectives

To understand the difference between groups and teams
To explain the difference between mechanistic and organic organizations, and to recognize which is better suited to a team environment
Understand the reasons that team environments may be well-suited to a global marketplace
Describe the difference between functional and dysfunctional conflict
Describe how to inject functional conflict within a team setting, and explain some of the different types of functional conflict
Explain the phenomenon of social loafing
Understand the role of individual differences within groups
Explain ways to resolve inter-group conflict

After their growing popularity in the 1980s, teams have rapidly proliferated within companies. The advantages of teams are many, both from a corporate profitability standpoint and a personal empowerment perspective.

Organizational Design and Teams

Teams exist within a "flattened" organizational structure, or one that has had several management layers removed. In a company that is populated by teams, the span of control, or number of individuals reporting to an individual manager, is increased. The number could expand from 1 manager - 7 employees in a traditional organization, to 1 manager supervising 30 employees in a flattened organization. Fewer managers are needed because self-managed work teams usurp many of the traditional managerial functions, such as evaluation, work scheduling, and sometimes even hiring.

Flattened organizational structures are known as the "pizza organization," similar to what exists at Eastman Kodak and Ideo. These companies consist of teams that regroup and disband as needed depending on the work that needs to be accomplished. Organic structures, or ones that have few hierarchical layers, are ones that quickly respond to changing environmental conditions, such as global competition and demand for product innovation. Organic organizations are able to quickly regroup and refocus their attention on matters that are most urgent.

The process of continual adaptation, disassemblage, and reassemblage is characteristic of the "learning" organization, or one in which employees can easily communicate with one another. In "organic," or "flattened" organizations, there is little "filtering" (information massaging) which is typical of a large hierarchical or "mechanistic" organization that has several management layers. In mechanistic organizations innovation is slower because several layers of approval are needed in order to make a decision. Employees are "empowered" in flattened environments because they are allowed to make a certain amount of decisions which were formally relegated to managerial personnel.

Teams and Conflict

The ability to work within a group is paramount in the de-layered, or decentralized environment. To this end, teams walk a fine line between maintaining cohesion (attraction to the group and commitment to its goals), and conformity. The famous Asch experiments demonstrated how easy it was for individuals to be swayed by the majority opinion, and how easily "groupthink," or the tendency to squelch differing opinions in an effort to retain group harmony, can occur.

Websites:

http://www.innovativeteambuilding.co.uk/pages/articles/conflicts.htm
http://www.work911.com/conflict/carticles/orgcon.htm

Exercise: What is Your Conflict Handling Intention?

Organizations do not wish to experience groupthink within teams, yet neither do they wish to have total chaos within the office. A way to initiate "constructive chaos" or functional conflict is through creation of purposeful avenues for employee contribution, or ways to challenge the status quo in a respectful fashion. While the stages of group development model relegates conflict to a specific stage (storming), which groups presumably surmount in the developmental process, the human relations view of conflict states that opposing viewpoints and avenues for expression can be a catalyst for increased production. Furthermore, the interactionist viewpoint states that not only is conflict a positive, but it is a necessary component of team/group functioning.

The most functional way of managing conflict is collaboration, or the desire to obtain a "win-win" solution to a problem. This type of conflict approach assumes that both parties have excellent communication skills, and that they desire to foster a long-term relationship. Dysfunctional ways of handling conflict include avoiding (pretending that the conflict does not exist), and forcing (putting the opposition in a one-down position through aggressive behavior).

Scenario

Norbert is an extrovert. He is gregarious, says what is on his mind, sometimes speaks too quickly, and can always think of a comeback when placed in an argument. His roommate, Donbert (an introvert), is quiet, reserved, shy, and thinks before he speaks. It sometimes takes him a couple of hours to think of a clever comeback following an altercation; often, he feels like the loser in a verbal fistfight.

What type of conflict style is Norbert likely to use?
What conflict management style is Donbert likely to use?

How to create functional conflict, or "functional disruption"

Electronic meetings

In an electronic meeting, employees sit around a horseshoe table, and each types his/her response to the question at hand into the computer. Instantaneously, the answers are displayed onto a central screen at the front of the room.

What are the advantages to this type of system?

What are the disadvantages?

Communication Training

Individuals can more readily provide their input when they are aware of appropriate ways in which to express themselves. Areas in which to educate employees include:

Funneling (asking another person to relay your message to the target)

Objectification (referring to someone in the third person)

Passive Aggression

Conversational Bullying: interrupting

Gossip

Cultural Differences

Devil's Advocate

Often times, the individual who is looking for the angle, who is argumentative, and who is somewhat suspicious of set procedure will be excellent at playing devil's advocate. When someone takes the opposite viewpoint, then both sides of the issue can be examined.

Brainstorming

No idea is too ridiculous
No idea can be criticized

Scenario

What would be your approach to parking at MTSU?

Miscellaneous Group Issues

The optimal group size is 5-7 individuals (odd number for a tie breaker).

Group decision making exercise: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/92/07879670/0787967092.pdf
Which is better: individual or group decision making?

Scenario

Dale, one of your group members, has not contributed anything to your project. He/she is lazy, unproductive, and in general, a hindrance to accomplishing your groups' meetings. How would you handle this situation?

Social loafing: the phenomenon in which group members' are happy to allow other team members to accomplish the work

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Ways to create cohesion:

through Team Building, which sometimes involves danger or risk in an attempt to create lasting team esprit de corps:

Key Adventures: www.keyadventures.co.uk;
Go Carting: www.xtremeindoorkarting.com
Drum Cafe: http://www.drumcafe.com/Video/video.asp

Inter-group conflict

What are two different student organizations on campus that may experience conflict?

Inter-group Development

Seeks to change stereotypes that each group has of the other

Each group meets independently to develop the following lists:

Perceptions of itself

Perceptions of the other group

How it believes the other group perceives it

The groups then share their lists and discuss discrepancies

Other ways to solve Inter-group conflicts include:

Liaison: an intermediary who speaks the language of both groups (e.g., an engineer with an MBA who negotiates between management and the engineering department)

Task forces, or cross functional teams

Examples: Audi (legal, engineering, design and production), and Pillsbury (process engineering, quality systems design engineering, and marketing)
Source: Robbins, 1993

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