Foundation of Group behavior

1- Defining and classifying groups Two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objective. Types of Groups: Formal Group: A designated work group defined by a organization’s structure. The six members of an airline flight crew are a formal group.

Defining and classifying groups Informal groups: A group that is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined; such groups appear in response to the need for social contact. (Group in Mosque, Gym, Park etc) Command group: A group composed of the individuals who report directly to a given manager. Task group: people working together to complete a job Informal groups are natural formations in the work environment that appear in response to the need for social contact. Three employees from different departments who regularly have lunch or coffee together are an informal group. Example of Command Group: A company executive is doing a presentation to a customer and needs to have an engineer and an installation technician present during the presentation. The engineer and technician make up members of the command group. For this type of group, they have multiple tasks to accomplish . Example of Task Group: A temporary grouping of individuals and resources for the accomplishment of a specific objective: a presidentialt ask force to fight drug trafficking.

Defining and classifying groups Friendship Group: people brought together because they share one or more common characteristics.

2-Stages of Group Development: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm ADMISSION TEAM UOL

4-Group Properties: There are five main properties of a group. Roles Norms Status Size Cohesiveness

Group Properties: Roles: a set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit. Role perception: (an individual’s view of how he/she is supposed to act in a given situation) Role expectations:( how others believe a person should act) Role conflicts: (a situation in which two contradictory role expectations are attached with individual) we are all required to play a number of roles, and our behavior varies with each. So different groups impose different role requirements on individuals.

Group Properties: Norms: (Asool) acceptable standards of behavior with in a group that are shared by the group members. (Appreciation, Performance norms, dress code, language etc) Conformity: As a member of a group you desire acceptance by the group thus you are liable to conforming to the group’s norms. Reference Groups: Important groups to which individuals belong or hope to belong and with whose norms individuals are likely to conform Did you ever notice employees don’t criticize their bosses in public? Why not? The answer is norms. All groups have established norms —acceptable standards of behavior shared by their members that express what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances Cricket team player will not speak in the media

Performance norms: how hard to work Appearance norms : dress codes, unspoken rules Social arrangement norms: with whom to eat lunch, friendship on and off the job. Resource allocation norms: assignment of difficult jobs, distribution of resources like pay or equipment

Group Properties: Status: A socially defined position or rank given to group members by others. What determines status? The power a person wields(influence) over others.(Person who controls the resources and outcome of the group) A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals.(Top player in the team) An individual’s personal characteristics: (good looks, intelligence, money, or a friendly personality)

Group Properties: Size: the no of members a group has. impact of size on working: Smaller groups are faster at completing work than larger groups. Individuals perform better in smaller groups. Some times it depends on the nature of the work. Social Loafing: the tendency of an individual to spend less efforts when working collectively then when working individually. Social Loafing: It directly challenges the assumption that the productivity of the group as a whole should at least equal the sum of the productivity of the individuals in it.

Group Properties: Page 291 Cohesiveness: the degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in the group. Cohesiveness affects group productivity. 58 Studies consistently show that the relationship between cohesiveness and productivity depends on the group’s performance-related norms. 59 If norms for quality, output, and cooperation with outsiders, for instance, are high, 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. What can you do to encourage group cohesiveness? (1) Make the group smaller, (2) encourage agreement with group goals, (3) increase the time members spend together, (4) increase the group’s status and the perceived difficulty of attaining membership, (5) stimulate competition with other groups, (6) give rewards to the group rather than to individual members

5- Group Decision Making: Group Vs Individual decision making: Strength of group decision making: groups generate more complete information and knowledge it offers diversity in views. Acceptance of solution Weaknesses of group decision making: Groups take more time to reach a decision There are conformity pressure Group decision can be dominant by one or few. https://www.isixsigma.com/implementation/teams/high-performance-teams-understanding-team-cohesiveness/ Page 294

Group Decision Making: Group Think: a phenomenon in which the norm for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. ( To keep positive image) Symptoms of groupthink: Follow basic assumption although contradiction is there Pressure from members Misgivings Silent…yes

Group Shift: When people are in groups, they make decisions about risk differently from when they are alone. In the group, they are likely to make riskier decisions, as the shared risk makes the individual risk less.

Group Decision Making: Group decision making techniques: Interacting Groups: typical groups in which members interact with each other face to face and rely on verbal and nonverbal interactions. Brainstorming: an idea-generation process that specifically encourages any and all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those alternatives Drawback (production blocking) Nominal group techniques: a group decision making method in which individual members meet face to face to pool their judgment's in a systematic but independent fashion.

Group Decision Making: Members meet as a group, but before any discussion takes place, each independently writes down ideas on the problem. After this silent period, each member presents one idea to the group, no discussion takes place until all ideas have been presented and recorded. The group discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluate them. Each group member silently and independently rank-orders the ideas. The ideas with the highest aggregate determines the final decision. Electronic meeting: a meeting in which members interact on computers allowing for anonymity of comments and aggregation of votes. Up to 50 people sit around a horse shoe- shaped table, having a series of networked laptops. Issues are presented to them and every one can present his view point and vote for the best decision without any hesitation as he will remain anonymous.