This is my first contribution so I don't know if goes to you, or to "all." To introduce myself, I teach organizational communication and am interested in its role in identity construction at both the individual and firm levels.
Anyway, to join your discussion: I agree. In addition, the postmodern perspective is very useful for disruption. Mary Jo Hatch's textbook on organization lays out the relationship of postmodernism to org studies nicely.
Cheers,
Sharon Livesey
-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Hampton [SMTP:
ehampton@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 1998 6:01 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Team cohesion.
Very fine and useful thinking.
I read with special interest the list of things to make a group more
cohesive. I think the list misses a key item: ....(8) ensure the team
includes a disruptive role.
I believe the greatest contribution of a consultant is to provide the
disruptive role in a way that facilitates growth and performance
increases. Just as a catapillar must break thru its cocoon to realize
its potential, teams must break thru norms and stifling peer pressure to
realize its potential.
Teams often press for harmony and cohesion and so facilitate the group
roles of "task" and "harmonizing". However, in so doing, teams minimize
the necessary third role of "disruptive", the questioning of group
thinking and norms. This role prevents things like group shift and
group think. More importantly, it offers the opportunity for improved
performance by causing necessary questioning and challenging (note:
challenging DOES NOT equal confronting/confrontation).
The concept of "frozen groups" offers useful perspective:
The frozen group concept espouses the idea that group norms will hold
performance at a set level. Weak teams may "freeze" due to beliefs that
change in performance will make members look bad or will create the
pressure to perform to the higher standard. Successful teams might
"freeze" due to fear that change will "upset a good thing", i.e.
performance will decline and they will look bad. In both cases, peer
pressure becomes an overly stabilizing force, hence "frozen". This is
the dark side of cohesion.
Phil Crosby, the renowned expert on quality, gave a presentation here
yesterday. One of his warnings was that successful businesses become
very prone to becoming failures because they try to "freeze" operations
to maintain a gained level of success. His example was GM which went
from 52% market share to 32% markets share because, in part and
simplistically, it failed to change - a failure due in part to its
concern about shaking a good thing. So it continued to make cars that
were increasingly out of synch with demand. Similar cases can be made
for IBM or Xerox, prior to their "re-births".
I wrote an article, "Frozen Tank Crews, Cohesion Gone Awry", to
explore, among other things, the fact that successful teams/crews
sometimes fail to train because it destroys the image of success or is
viewed as demeaning. In such teams peer pressure prevents the
"sharpening of the blade" because the prevailing mentality is to project
being "too cool to sweat", certainly too cool to work to grow.
Thanks for the mental stimulation.
Ed
Drive On!
>>> Bradley Kirkman <
brad_kirkman@uncg.edu> 12/03 12:57 PM >>>
Jane Prichard inquired about the role of team cohesion and
team performance and about how to increase group cohesion.
There have been some interesting studies on this
relationship. The bottom line finding was that group
cohesion does NOT relate directly to group performance.
I lifted the following from a basic Organizational Behavior
textbook:
"Studies consistently show that the relationship of
cohesiveness and productivity depends on the
performance-related norms established by the group. If
performance-related norms are high (for example, [the group
believes in and values] high output, quality work,
cooperation with individuals outside the group, etc.), a
cohesive group will be more productive than will a less
cohesive group. But if cohesiveness is high and
performance norms are low, productivity will be low."
So, according to these studies, positive group norms should
be established FIRST, BEFORE attempts are made to make the
group more cohesive. As you can see, making a group with
bad work habits more cohesive would result in everyone
buying into and valuing bad work habits (i.e., making it
less productive).
How do you make a group more cohesive? Back to the
textbook...
"...(1) Make the group smaller. (2) Encourage agreement
with group goals. (3) Increase the time members spend
together. (4) Increase the status of the group and the
perceived difficulty of attaining membership in the group.
(5) Stimulate competition with other groups. (6) Give
rewards to the group rather than to members. (7) Physically
isolate the group."
Since these antecedents to group cohesiveness are taken
from a textbook, they have to be weighed against real world
business and organizational considerations. I mean,
really, is it feasible to physically isolate every group?
Might stimulating competition hurt the overall focus on
organizational goals?
You should review the original two articles that the
textbook author used to discuss the relationship between
cohesion and productivity.
They are:
Summers, L., Coffelt, & Horton, R.E. 1988. Work group
cohesion. Psychological Reports, October, pp.
627-636.
and
Mullen, B., & Cooper, C. 1994. The relation between group
cohesiveness and performance: An integration.
Psychological Bulletin, March, pp. 210-217.
I hope this quick information helps!
Bradley L. Kirkman
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Greensboro