Slide 8.

FACULTY OF BUSINESS, ACCOUNTING & MANAGEMENT

MANAGING ORGANISATION
MGT3553

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Part 3
Groups, leadership and
management

Chapter 8
Working in groups and teams

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Importance and significance

of groups
A group is any number of people who:
– interact with one another;
– are psychologically aware of one another;
– perceive themselves to be a group.

Schein

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Group characteristics: Adair

A collection of people who share most of the
following characteristics:
– A definable membership
– Group consciousness
– Sense of shared purpose
– Interdependence
– Interaction
– Ability to act in a unitary manner

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Slide 8.5

Differences between
a team and a group

Figure 8.1 Differences between a team and a group

Source: Belbin, R. M. Beyond the Team, Butterworth–Heinemann (2000). Copyright © 2000. Reproduced with permission from Belbin, www.belbin.com.

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Teams are more than groups

‘A group of people working towards common
goals and objectives and sharing responsibility
for the outcomes. Team building is the process of
selecting and grouping team members effectively
and developing good working relationships and
practices enabling the team to steer and develop
the work and reach their goals’.

The Chartered Management Institute

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Formal and informal groups

Formal groups Informal groups
• Are created to achieve specific • They are based on personal
organisational objectives and are relationships and membership
concerned with the co-ordination can cut across the formal
of work activities structure of the organisation
• Group members have defined • Serve to satisfy the
roles and the nature of work tasks psychological and social needs
to be undertaken is a predominant of group members not related
feature of the group necessarily to the tasks to be
• Goals are identified by undertaken
management and rules and • They appoint their own leader
norms established who resolves conflict and
• Tend to be relatively permanent, reflects the attitudes and
although there may be a change values of the group
in the membership of the team

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Informal groups within

an organisation

Figure 8.2 Examples of informal groups within the formal structure of an organisation

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Major functions of informal

groups: Lysons
• The perpetuation of the informal group
culture
• The maintenance of a communication
system
• The implementation of social control
• The provision of interest and fun in work
life

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Slide 8.10

Reasons for formation

of groups or teams
• Certain tasks can be performed through the
combined efforts of a number of individuals working
together.
• Collusion between members, e.g. to share unpopular
tasks and aid creativity and initiative.
• Companionship, mutual understanding and support.
• Provide a sense of belonging, identity and status.
• Provide guidelines on generally acceptable
behaviour.
• Offer protection for its membership.

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Group cohesiveness and performance

Figure 8.4 Factors contributing to group cohesiveness and performance

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Membership factors
• Size of the group
– Ideal size appears to be up to 12 members.
• Compatibility of members
– Shared attitudes and values help promote
cohesiveness.
• Permanence
– Cohesiveness develops better if changes
occur slowly.

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Slide 8.13

Work environment factors

• Nature of the task
– Similarity of tasks or problems
• Physical setting
– Physical proximity
• Communications
– Ease of communication
• Technology
– Nature of technology, task and skills

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Organisational factors
• Management and leadership
– The importance of fostering mutual trust
• HRM policies and procedures
– Equity and fairness
• Success
– As a positive motivator
• External threat
– May cause internal cohesiveness

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Slide 8.15

Group development and

maturity factors: Tuckman
• Forming
– Initial formation: the ‘polite’ stage
• Storming
– Testing the group: power struggles and conflict
• Norming
– Consolidating: standards and guidelines are set
• Performing
– The effective operating stage
• Adjourning
– Disbanding once the task is complete

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Slide 8.16

Creative leadership and

group development: Rickards and Moger

A leader can influence effective team

development by:
– building a platform of understanding;
– creating a shared vision;
– a creative climate;
– a commitment to idea ownership;
– resilience to setbacks;
– developing networking skills;
– learning from experience.

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Slide 8.17

Social identity theory

Figure 8.5 Processes of social and self-categorisation

Source: Guirdham, M. Interactive Behaviour at Work, third edition, Financial Times Prentice Hall (2002), p. 119. Reproduced with permission of Pearson Education Ltd.

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Slide 8.18

Characteristics of an
effective work group
• A belief in shared aims and objectives
• A sense of belonging to the group
• Acceptance of group values and norms
• A feeling of mutual trust and dependency
• Full participation and consensus in decisions
• A free flow of information and communication
• Open expression of feelings and disagreements
• Conflict resolution within the group
• Low levels of staff turnover, absenteeism, etc.

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Slide 8.19

Virtual teams
• A collection of people who are geographically
separated but still work together closely.
• The primary interaction among members is by
some electronic information and communication
process.
• Virtual teams can comprise people with different
knowledge and be diverse.
• They require good leadership.

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Slide 8.20

Leadership and motivation

of the virtual team: Garrett
• Say hello
• Build trust
• Recruit with care
• Do not rely on email
• Encourage dissent
• Use technology thoughtfully
• Measure outcomes
• Use virtual teams to go where the talent is and work
more efficiently
• Do not say virtual teams ‘aren’t quite the real thing’

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Role structure of the

organisation
• The roles that an individual plays with a
group is influenced by a combination of:
– Situational factors – requirements of the task,
style of leadership.
– Personal factors – such as values, attitudes,
motivation and ability, etc.
• Role sets – the range of associations or
contacts with whom an individual has
meaningful interaction.

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Role set

Figure 8.6 Representation of a possible role set in the work situation

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Role conflict
A number of factors can have an impact
on the successful performance of
individuals in their roles:
– Role incompatibility
– Role ambiguity
– Role overload
– Role underload

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Slide 8.24

Role relationships and conflicts

Figure 8.7 Role relationships and conflicts

Source: based on Miner, J. B. Management Theory, Macmillan (1971), p. 47.

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Slide 8.25

Individual team roles: Belbin

A team role is a pattern of behaviour,
characteristic of the way in which one
team member interacts with another
whose performance serves to facilitate the
progress of the team as a whole. Strength
in any one role is commonly associated
with particular ‘allowable’ weaknesses.

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Slide 8.26

Belbin’s nine team roles

• Plant • Team worker
• Resource • Implementer
investigator • Completer
• Co-ordinator • Specialist
• Shaper
• Monitor–evaluator

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Slide 8.27

The plant
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Creative • Ignores details
• Imaginative • Too preoccupied to
• Unorthodox communicate
• Solves difficult effectively
problems

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Slide 8.28

The resource investigator

Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Extrovert • Over-optimistic
• Enthusiastic • Loses interest
• Communicative once enthusiasm
• Explores has passed
opportunities
• Develops contacts
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Slide 8.29

The co-ordinator
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Mature • Can be seen as
• Confident manipulative
• A good • Delegates
chairperson personal work
• Clarifies goals
• Promotes
decision- making
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Slide 8.30

The shaper
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Challenging • Can provoke
• Dynamic others
• Thrives on • Hurts other’s
pressure feelings
• Has the drive and
courage to
overcome
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The monitor–evaluator
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Sober, strategic • Lacks drive and
and discerning ability to inspire
• Sees all options others
• Judges accurately • Overly critical

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Slide 8.32

The teamworker
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Co-operative • Indecisive in
• Mild crunch situations
• Perceptive and • Can be easily
diplomatic influenced
• Listens
• Builds
• Averts friction Mullins, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 11e © Pearson Education Limited 2016
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The implementer
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Disciplined • Somewhat
• Reliable inflexible
• Conservative and • Slow to respond to
efficient new possibilities
• Turns ideas into
practical actions
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The completer
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Painstaking • Inclined to worry
• Conscientious unduly
• Anxious • Reluctant to
• Searches out delegate
errors and • Can be a nit-picker
omissions
• Delivers on time
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Slide 8.35

The specialist
Team role Allowable
contribution weaknesses
• Single-minded • Contributes on
• Self-sharing only
• Dedicated a narrow front
• Provides • Dwells on
knowledge and technicalities
skills in rare supply • Overlooks the ‘big
picture’
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Slide 8.36

Critical assessment of Belbin: Aritzeta

et al.

• Concerns about the theoretical basis of the

inventory.
• Questions about relationship between personality
and team roles.
• Lack of clear differentiation between the roles.
• Insufficient account taken of the type of task
involved.
• The influence of variable organisational factors.
• Overly reliant on a psychological approach to
teamwork.
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Slide 8.37

Benne and Sheats’ classification

of team-member roles

• Group task roles – select, define and

solve problems.
• Group building and maintenance roles
– the analysis of member functions to
ensure group-centred behaviour.
• Individual roles – directed towards the
satisfaction of personal needs and not
related to either the task or functioning of
the group.
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Slide 8.38

Sociometry
• A method of indicating the feelings of
acceptance or rejection among group members.
• Sociograms:
– Depict the choices, preferences, likes or dislikes
and interactions between individual members.
– Display the structure of the group and record the
observed frequency and/or duration of contacts
among members.

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Example of a
diagrammatic sociogram

Figure 8.8 A simple illustration of a sociogram

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Self-insight and the

Johari window

Figure 8.9 The Johari window

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Social loafing
• Also known as the Ringelmann effect.
• Tendency for individual members of a
group to expend less effort than if they
were working along.
• Total group effort is therefore less than the
expected sum of individual contributions.

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The risky-shift phenomenon

• Instead of taking fewer risks and making
safer or more conservative decisions, the
reverse is often the case.
• Preferences for conformity means that
there is a tendency for groups to make
more risky decisions than the individual
members would.

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Slide 8.43

Groupthink
‘A deterioration of mental efficiency, reality
testing, and moral judgment that results
from in-group pressures’.
Janis

Groupthink results in the propensity for the

group to just drift along, and can be
apparent in any organisational situation
where groups are relied on to make
important decisions.
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Slide 8.44

Brainstorming
Brainstorming or ‘thought showers’ involve
the group adopting a...

‘freewheeling attitude and generating as

many ideas as possible, the more wild or
apparently far-fetched the better’.

Osborn

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Procedures for brainstorming

• It is based on maximum freedom of expression
and informality. Members are encouraged to
elaborate or build on ideas expressed by others.
• The initial emphasis is on the quantity of ideas,
not their quality. No individual ideas are
criticised or rejected in the first stage.
• There needs to be good recording and reporting
of the ideas.

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Slide 8.46

An example of creative thinking

Figure 8.11 An example of creative thinking

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Slide 8.47

Building effective teams

Yukl identifies eight team-building procedures for
managers:
– Emphasise common interests and values.
– Use ceremonies and rituals.
– Use symbols to develop group identification.
– Encourage and facilitate social interaction.
– Tell people about group activities and achievements.
– Conduct process analysis sessions.
– Conduct alignment sessions.
– Increase incentives for mutual co-operation.

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Slide 8.48

Autonomous work groups

Emerge from patterns of work redesign and job
enrichment. Key features include:
– Specific goals are set but the group decides on the
means of achieving them.
– Group members have freedom of choice and
discretion over the planning and execution of work.
– Collectively members have the necessary expertise
to succeed in the task.
– The level of external supervision is reduced.
– Feedback and evaluation are related to the
performance of the group as a whole.

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Slide 8.49

Skills to build
self-managed teams
• Self-management • Strategic planning
• Communication • Shaping
• Leadership successful
• Responsibility meetings
• Supportiveness of • Resolving conflicts
diversity • Enjoyment
• Feedback and
evaluation
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Slide 8.50

The role of team leader

Building successful teams requires effective leadership
with an emphasis on trust, clear communications, full
participation and self-management.

‘The influence and usefulness of team leaders comes,

not from their delivery of traditional supervisory and
control methods, but from their ability to lead from the
front and in training, coaching and counselling their team
members to high standards of performance’.

Gratton
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Assignment

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