Human Resource Management: Leading Teams
Lecture by Prof. G. Grote, D-MTEC, ETH Zurich, Spring 2017
Lecture by Prof. G. Grote, D-MTEC, ETH Zurich, Spring 2017
Set of flashcards Details
| Flashcards | 56 |
|---|---|
| Language | Deutsch |
| Category | Psychology |
| Level | University |
| Created / Updated | 27.05.2017 / 09.05.2021 |
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Whate are advantages of teams?
• Developing ideas
• Discovering and compensating individual errors
• Promoting systems view
• Supporting shared task orientation
• Offering reciprocal support
• Alleviating individual work load
Disadvantages of teams
• Friction
• Conformity
• Levelling of individual performance
• Diffusion of responsibility
• Devaluation of other groups
Name some psychological group phenomena
- Social comparison theory
- Need of assessment of ourselves
- We favor comparisons with people similar to ourselves
- Bystander-effect
- The more people are present the less likely individuals are to take initiatives => diffusion of responsibility
- Conformity
- As soon as three or more group members express an opinion that is different from the opinion of another single member, there is a strong tendency for that member to adapt his/her opinion.
- Pressure to conform can lead to a change in the publicly expressed opinion without necessarily changing the privately held conviction
- Group think
Phases of team developmen?
- Forming (Orientation phase):
- All new
- insecurity
- Test behaviors
- Search for acceptable behaviors
- Storming (Conflict phase):
- Fight for roles/positions ("Hackordnung")
- Power struggles
- Norming (Organisation phase):
- Agreeing on team rules and cooperation forms
- Developing a sense of belonging together
- Performing (Performance phase):
- Constructive task distribution and flexible role behavior
- Energy is focused on task completion and goal attainment
Prerequisites for good team work
Common task
– Complexity higher than individual competencies
– Clear performance criteria
– Collective decision competence
– Positive goal coupling
Group composition
– Adequate group size
– Different perspectives on the task
– Shared language
Team processes
– Development of group rules
– Support for team development (form, storm, norm, perform)
– Handling conflicts between individual and collective autonomy
– Explicit moderation of critical team meetings
Describe the team input-process-output model
Types of diversity
- Demographic diversity: differences in observable attributes such as age, gender
- Psychological diversity: differences in underlying attributes such as abilities, personality, attitudes, values
Why is diversity growing on relevance?
- Demographic change (e.g. problems in recruiting personnel)
- Globalization of business (international supply chain relationships and mergers/acquisitions/international cooperations)
- Increasing service orientation (e.g. responding to special needs in regional markets and of particular target groups)
- New concepts of organization (increasing mix of functions/professions in work teams)
- Diversity management: Increasing heterogenity in the organization in order to increase team and organizational performance
Does diversity improve performance?
- Positive relationship between age/gender diversity and firm performance especially in innovation-focused firms
- Mixed results on relationship between team diversity and team performance
Diversity of knowledge, what about teams making decisions?
- Team decisions assumed to be better than individual decisions due to more knowledge and different perspectives
- However, team research shows
- Team decisions are rarely better than individual decisions
- Available knowledge pool is rarely fully used
- Possible reason: Inadequate management of information sharing
Measures to improve information sharing
- Leadership style – Mostly particpatory leadership, directive leadership only if leader has crucial information
- Expert roles – Assign expert roles and promote knowledge about specific expertise
- Diversity of opinions – Promote conflict as part of constructive dialogue
- Moderation – Introduce „Advocatus Diaboli“ and clear structure in discussion
Instruments for managing diversity
- Measures aimed at changing individual attitudes and behaviors towards diversity
- training
- feedback on behavior
- directly experiencing other cultures (national, socio-ecomomic differences etc.)
- building minority networks
- Selection and training for intercultural management
Benchmarking HRM: Characteristics of HRM in successful companies?
1. Employment security
2. Selective hiring
3. Self-managed teams and decentralization
4. High compensation contingent on organizational performance
5. Extensive training
6. Reduction of status differences
7. Sharing Information
MbO: How to make it work?
• Coherent company strategy
• Building individual capabilities for achieving
difficult goals (job design, personnel
development)
• Sufficient control over goal achievement by
workers themselves (transparency, predictability,
means of influence)
• Supportive leadership instead of command-andcontrol
• Systematic and participative goal agreement and
performance measurement
• Rules for handling conflicts
Methods for Personnel Selection
1. Biographical Data
2. Psychometric Tests
3. Work Samples
4. Assessment Centers
5. Job Interviews
Characteristics of effective teams
• Goals are clear and accepted
• Individual and team goals melt together
• Responsibilities are clear and change depending on
situational demands
• Leadership is seen as a shared responsibility
• Conflicts are dealt with
• Team learns and develops
• Contributions are recognized and valued
• Communication is open and engaged
• Group processes are reflected upon and discussed
