Mtg 331 - Group Behavior and Process

GROUP BEHAVIOR AND PROCESSES

MTG/331

How do groups become a high performance team:

Stressing the importance of a clear and elevating goal in performance of an effective team.

Goal clarity is a specific performance objective, phrased in such concrete language that it is

possible to tell, unequivocally, whether or not that performance objective has been attained

challenging and that it makes a difference. Possibly be the most important component of an

effectively functioning team, it appears to be even more critical for a team.

a team member need to understand much more so than co-located teams what goal they are

working towards because they may be working in such different areas, and in some cases in

different countries.

It plays a much stronger role if you know what your ultimate goal is going to be. And that

everyone is working towards the same thing. Further work on the performance of teams and

demonstrates a positive correlation between empowerment and team performance. They define

empowerment as having four dimensions, two of which, potency and impact significantly

overlap the concepts of goal clarity and elevation.

Team structure is a key factor which differentiates successful teams from unsuccessful ones.

Team structure encompasses many aspects such as tools, processes, communications systems,

facilities, and organization of the team. However, the best structure depends on the objectives

and composition of the team.

Teams tend to be very effective in project development tasks. However, the lack of face to face

contact can be a challenge in building agreement. For decision-making teams, having the right

team composition can help to overcome this. Collectivistic teams have higher levels of

collaborative conflict management than individualistic teams, and are motivated more by

outcomes which benefit the entire team.

Research has also shown that highly diverse or heterogeneous teams outperform homogenous

teams in many performance measures, though they take longer to reach consensus. Vitality can

be beneficial for highly diverse teams since it obfuscates potentially divisive demographic

differences.

There are four necessary features of effective team structure, which apply equally to virtual

teams, but become more challenging.

First, team members must have clear roles and accountabilitlies. Lack of visibility may cause

virtual team members to feel less accountable for results, therefore explicit facilitation of

teamwork takes on heightened importance for virtual teams. Temporal coordination mechanisms

such as scheduling deadlines and coordinating the pace of effort are recommended to increase

accountability.

Second, teams required effective communications systems.

Third a effective team should monitor individual performance and provide feedback.

Finally, teams must rely on fact-based decision making, for which information and

communication tools are vital. Teams can adapt decision-making software to facilitate fact-

based problem solving and decision-making. They might also assign one person to ensure

accurate information is clearly communicated.

A critical element in high - performance teams is to create functional diversity among the team.

Conflict of management approach:

Conflict is