CH-13-14 Teams and Team Building – Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 13 to 14 Chapter 13 Teams and Team Building Chapter Overview This chapter discusses the issues related to teams and team building. The first part of the chapter addresses the organizational context for teams. It presents various organizational designs and their effects. The next section explores teamwork. It discusses the life cycle of a team, ingredients of effective teams and potential team problems. The final section of the chapter deals with team building. Chapter Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, students should understand: 1. Organizational context for teams 2. The nature of teams 3. Life cycle of a team 4. Teamwork and the characteristics of mature teams 5. Process consultation and team-building skills 6. Self-managing teams Discussion and Project Ideas Teamwork and team building do not replace traditional methods in organizational behavior, but they are important instruments for developing the human organization. Some exercises which help to demonstrate the points emphasized in this chapter follow. • Throughout the semester or quarter, various work groups have been formed as a result of tasks that have been assigned. Ask these groups to go through a “team building” process by applying the steps in the book as follows: o Steps 1 and 2: Identification of a problem and data collection—one member of the group interviews the other members (privately) and asks the following questions:  What do you see as the major strengths of our group?  What do you see as the major weaknesses of our group?  If you could change two things concerning the operation of our group, what would you change? o Step 3: Data feedback and confrontation—the interviewer passes back to the group a written summary of the interview responses. The group agrees among itself on major issues. o Step 4: Problem-solving experiences—the group takes each problem, one at a time, and develops a concrete plan of action with responsibilities for carrying out actions and follow-up assigned to specific persons. o Step 5: The group meets at some later date to evaluate progress. Steps 1 and 2 may be assigned as homework. The other meeting may take place in class or could also be assigned as outside work. When the task is completed, discuss the differences and similarities between this mini-process and comprehensive team building efforts. • Using intact work groups from previous class projects, ask the members of all groups to answer the following questionnaire: ================================================================= 1. In general, the performance of our group is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 low average high _________________________________________________________________________ 2. I would rate the human relations within our group as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 low average high _________________________________________________________________________ 3. The personal enjoyment that I get from working within this group is: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Almost non-existent moderate great _________________________________________________________________________ 4. In rank order, the persons who make the most positive contribution. _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ================================================================= After the questionnaire is completed, have the group summarize the results and discuss them among themselves. Ask each group to state two specific actions for improving its group processes at the end of the exercise. Lecture Outline Introduction • Organizations are the grand strategies created to bring order out of chaos when people work together. o They provide the skeletal structure that helps create predictable relationships among people, technology, jobs, and resources. o Whenever people join in a common effort, organization must be used to get productive results. Organizational Context for Teams Classical Concepts • Efficiency and integration of efforts are achieved through division of work—creating levels of authority, and functional units—and delegation—assigning duties, authority, and responsibility to others. o The result is an operating hierarchy consisting of multiple levels of authority. • Classic organizational structures are essentially mechanistic in their attempts to get people to act as efficiently and predictably as machines. o People are specialized into many activities that are directed by layers of supervision. o Each higher level has more power and influence until the top is reached, where central direction of the whole organization takes place. o Work is carefully scheduled, tasks are specified, roles are defined strictly, and most formal communication flows along the lines of hierarchy. • Classical structure provides much task support through such things as specialized assistance, appropriate resources, security, and fairly dependable work conditions. o On the other hand, although classical structure is strong in task support, it is weak in psychological support. o What is needed is an organizational system that provides both task support and psychological support. • New viewpoints have led to a decline in the use of structure and authority in modern organizations: o Many organizations have reduced the number of levels in their hierarchy through downsizing and the elimination of some middle-management positions. o Others have attempted to eliminate the rigid barriers between functional units (known as “silos”) by focusing on the creation of “boundaryless” organizations without artificial internal walls. o The modern approach is to be more flexible with organizational systems, changing them rapidly according to the needs of their environment. o Horizontal relations between chains of command are more important for effectiveness than was formerly realized.  The pace and complexity of work today make horizontal communication and flexible structures more necessary. • Modern organizations are more flexible, organic, and open. o Tasks and roles are less rigidly defined, allowing people to adjust them to situational requirements. o Communication is more multidirectional. o Communication consists more of information and advice and joint problem solving rather than instructions and decisions. o Authority and influence flow more directly from the person who has the ability to handle the problem at hand. o Decision making is more decentralized, being shared by several levels and different functions. o The organization also is more open to its environment. • Organic forms work better if the environment is dynamic, requiring frequent changes within the organization. o They also work better when the tasks are not defined well enough to become routine. o Because many younger employees desire autonomy, openness, variety, change, and opportunities to try new approaches, an organic form is often a better match for them. • Teams are more likely to be used within an organic form of organization, because they provide the flexibility that modern organizations require. Matrix Organization • One development to meet changing organizational needs is matrix organization. o It is an overlay of one type of organization on another so that two chains of command are directing individual employees. o It is used especially for large specialized projects that temporarily require large numbers of technical people with different skills to work in project teams. • The effect of matrix structure is to separate some of the organization’s activities into projects that then compete for allocations of people and resources. o Employee are assigned to a project team for its limited life or as long as their specialty is needed on the project. • In spite of its complexity, matrix organization is used for a number of reasons. o Its teams focus on a single project, permitting better planning and control to meet budgets and deadlines. o Especially on repetitive projects, the members gain valuable experience and the team develops a strong identity. o Since the structure is more open and flexible (organic) than a traditional hierarchy, it can better handle the changes that occur in complex projects. o Its distribution of authority and status also is better aligned with employee desires for increased autonomy. • The matrix organizational process, when applied on a large scale across internal organizational boundaries, creates cross-functional teams. o These are teams that draw their members from more than one specialty area and often several. Teamwork • Individual employees perform operating tasks, but the vast majority of them work in regular small groups where their efforts must fit together like the pieces of a picture puzzle. o Where their work is interdependent, they act as a task team and seek to develop a cooperative state called teamwork. • A task team is a cooperative small group in regular contact that is engaged in coordinated action. o The frequency of team members’ interaction and the team’s ongoing existence make a task team clearly different from either a short-term decision-making group (committee) or a project team in a matrix structure. • Ways in which teams differ from ordinary groups or committees are portrayed in Figure 13.1. • Just calling a group a team does not change its basic character or effectiveness; months or even years may be needed for a team to achieve high-performance status. • When the members of a task team know their objectives, contribute responsibly and enthusiastically to the task, and support one another, they are exhibiting teamwork. Life Cycle of a Team • When a number of individuals begin to work at interdependent jobs or on a special project, they often pass through several stages as they learn to work together as a team (Figure 13.2). o These stages of team development are not rigidly followed but they do represent a broad pattern that may be observed and predicted in many settings across the team’s time together. • The typical stages in a team’s evolution can be described as follows: o Forming—members share and exchange basic personal information, start to get to know and accept one another, ask questions about their assignment and objectives, and begin turning their attention toward the group’s tasks.  An aura of courtesy prevails, uncertainty is in the air, and interactions are often cautious. o Storming—members compete for status, jockey for positions of relative control, and argue about appropriate directions for the group.  External pressures interfere with the group, and tensions rise between individuals as they assert themselves and disagree about initial actions. o Norming—the group begins moving together in a cooperative fashion, and a tentative balance among competing forces is struck.  Group norms emerge to guide individual behavior, role clarity emerges, cooperative feelings are increasingly evident, and a sense of cohesion becomes apparent. o Performing—the group matures and learns to handle complex challenges.  Functional roles are performed and fluidly exchanged as needed, and tasks are efficiently accomplished. o Adjourning—even the most successful groups, committees, and project teams disband sooner or later.  Their breakup is called adjournment, which requires dissolving intense social relations and returning to permanent assignments or moving on to other jobs.  The adjournment stage is becoming more frequent with the advent of flexible organizations, which feature temporary groups. • Advising new teams of these likely stages can helpful to group members and their leaders. o Awareness by all team members can help them better understand what is happening and work through the issues involved. o Groups are always different; consequently, not all groups will clearly experience all the stages of the life cycle. o Some groups may be temporarily stuck in a certain stage, and others may find themselves reverting to an earlier stage from time to time. Potential Team Problems • Effective teams in action have members who are committed to the organization’s success; share common values regarding product quality, safety, and customer satisfaction; and share the responsibility for completing a project on schedule. • However many different problems can arise within groups. o One study examined the experiences of 245 team developers.  The respondents reported experiencing problems with goal clarity, communications, role issues, problem solving and decision making, conflict management, and numerous other issues. • Two particularly troublesome team problems involve changing team membership and social loafing. • Changing Composition o Teamwork grows slowly, but on occasion it declines quickly. o Rarely does a team’s composition remain constant from the beginning to the end of its task life. o Most teams must learn to manage their internal turnover. They do this by engaging in three important types of action:  They anticipate and accept that turnover within the team will happen and come to grips with that likelihood.  They develop a plan for managing team turnover right from the start.  They think through how best to integrate new members. • Social Loafing o Experimentation with team activities may lead to charges of partiality from other employees. o The combination of individual efforts may not result in improved overall performance. o When some employees think their contributions to a group cannot be measured they may lessen their output and engage in social loafing (the free-rider effect). o Causes of social loafing include a:  Perception of unfair division of labor  Low achievement motivation  Belief that co-workers are lazy  Perception of a meaningless or largely ‘invisible’ task  Feeling of being able to hide in a crowd and not be singled out for blame  Member believes others intend to withhold their efforts and thus he or she would be foolish not to do the same—the sucker effect. o The impact of social loafing extends beyond simply the heavier workload on responsible team members.  Colleagues may experience anger toward the low performer, feel moments of empathy, or complain to their peers or to their supervisor.  Co-workers may express expectations for improvement to the loafer, attempt to train the individual, or offer pep talks. o Since an improperly managed team can result in numerous problems, an effective manager needs to apply a contingency framework to determine whether to use a team approach. • Lack of Trust o Five major impediment to the creation of cohesive teams have been identified by one consultant:  Inattentiveness to team results  Failure to hold individuals accountable to their goals  A lack of commitment to group effort  Reluctance to engage in debate and conflict  Absence of trust • Other Problems o Numerous mannerisms, personality quirks, and behaviors may be exhibited in team settings that often detract from performance and cohesiveness. o Distractions may include splitting hairs, non-stop talking, side conversations, put-downs, uncontrolled anger, interrupting, and doodling during discussions. Ingredients of Effective Teams • Many studies have been conducted in an attempt to isolate the factors that contribute most directly to team success. Common items identified include: o Careful composition o Information sharing o Clear direction and measurable goals for accountability o Sufficient resources o Integration and coordination o Flexibility and innovativeness o Stimulation of openness to learning • Supportive Environment o Teamwork is most likely to develop when management builds a supportive environment for it. Creating such an environment involves:  Encouraging members to think like a team  Developing member tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty  Providing adequate time for meetings  Setting up physical spaces conducive to creative interaction (sometimes called “playgrounds”)  Demonstrating faith in members’ capacity to achieve • Skills and Role Clarity o Team members must be reasonably qualified to perform their jobs, as well as have the desire to cooperate. o Beyond these requirements, members can work together as a team only after all the members of the group know the roles of all others with whom they will be interacting. o When this understanding exists, members can act immediately as a team on the basis of the requirements of that situation, without waiting for someone to give an order. • Superordinate Goals o A major responsibility of managers is to try to keep the team members oriented toward their overall task.  Sometimes, unfortunately, an organization’s policies, record-keeping requirements, and reward systems may fragment individual efforts and discourage teamwork. o Supervisors might consider the creation of a superordinate goal, which is a higher goal that integrates the efforts of two or more persons.  Superordinate goals can be attained only if all parties carry their weight.  Such goals serve to focus attention, unify efforts, and stimulate more cohesiveness within teams. o Superordinate goals are an example of a shared mental model in teamwork.  It is important that teams have a common understanding of the nature of their task as well as what it will take to accomplish that task.  This requires a strong ethic of collaboration, empathy, solidarity, and candid communication, as well as an explicit or implicit “helping” norm among the members. • Trust o The presence of trust is essential to most effective teams, and it begins with a group’s manager demonstrating honesty, integrity, openness and willingness to let team members exert their influence. o Trust can be built by giving frequent praise, keeping promises, showing concern, respecting others, behaving dependably, and sharing information on a timely basis. • Team Rewards o Another element that can stimulate teamwork is the presence of team rewards. o These may be financial, or they may be in the form of recognition. o Rewards are most powerful if they are:  Valued by the team members  Perceived as possible to earn  Administered contingent on the group’s task performance o Innovative (non-financial) rewards for responsible behavior may include the authority to select new group members of the group, make recommendations regarding a new supervisor, or propose discipline for team members. • Empowerment o Member motivation plays a powerful role in team success. o Team members will likely feel more motivated and empowered when they:  Share a sense of potency (have a can-do attitude)  Experience meaningfulness (have a commitment to a worthwhile purpose)  Are given autonomy (have freedom and discretion to control resources and make decisions)  See their impact on results (can assess, monitor, and celebrate their contributions and results) o The interactive combination of these four forces can produce dynamic teams capable of being productive and proactive as well as providing outstanding customer service. • Positive Norms o Teams are strongest when they consciously examine their own behaviors and agree on their own internal requirements for their actions. o Highly effective teams also examine their own processes, and agree to faithfully attend meetings, share responsibility for mutual outcomes, think before speaking and focus on issues and problems instead of personalities. o A powerful norm is to allow and encourage dissent, whereby team members find it acceptable to “agree to disagree”.  Dissent can stimulate a more intense discussion, and this can be formalized through the use of a rotated assignment as devil’s advocate. Team Building • Team building encourages team members to examine how they work together, identify their weaknesses, and develop more effective ways of cooperating. o The goal is to make the team more effective. • Team coaching is vital to team success—especially for new teams. o It involves a leader’s intentional effort and interaction with a team to help its members make appropriate use of their collective resources. • Research has shown that coaching is most effective when it is: o Task-focused o Timely o Recognized as necessary by the team o Oriented toward one of the three unique issues—motivation of members, performance method improvements, or knowledge/skill deficiencies. The Need for Team Building • Not every team needs to engage in team building, nor does even a poor team need to devote constant attention to it. o However, many teams could benefit from at least occasionally re-examining how they operate. • A varieties of clues can be detected that provide evidence when it is more appropriate to devote attention to the team-building process. These signals include: o Interpersonal conflicts among team members, or between the team and its leader o Low degree of team morale or low team cohesiveness o Confusion or disagreement about roles within the team o Large influx of new members o Disagreement over the team’s purpose and tasks o Negative climate within the team, evidenced by criticism and bickering o Stagnation within the team, with members resisting change and new ideas The Process • The team-building follows the pattern shown in Figure 13.4. o A highly participative process is used, with team members providing “data” and then using the data for self-examination. o Often a skilled facilitator may assist the members in diagnosing and addressing their problems. o Data are collected from individual group members by surveys or interviews and then fed back to the entire team for airing and analysis. o While the group works on development of action plans, members are also encouraged to direct equal attention toward the group’s interaction process. Specific Team-Building Issues • Team building usually focuses on one or more specific types of problems identified in the first stage of the developmental process portrayed in Figure 13.4. o If team members seem to be unaware of, or in disagreement about, the purpose of the team, then the focus might best be placed on clarifying the goals and priorities of the team. o When the team is confused about its fit within the larger organizational system, the focus might be on the nature of the organization’s culture, its workplace facilities, its strategic directions, or the reward system. o When there is confusion about work relationships between people and tasks, job functions may need definition, authority relationships might be revisited, and patterns of work flows might require clarification. o When interpersonal conflict seem to dominate the workplace, issues of respect and trust might be explored, listening skills might be reviewed, or various models for understanding interpersonal styles might be introduced. • In effect, the best team-building approach is one that is carefully built upon a database uncovered during the second stage and then tailored to fit the specific team and team problem. Skills Useful in Team-Building • The facilitators who assist the development of effective teams need to apply a broad range of skills, including: o Consultation skills—diagnosing issues, negotiating between conflicting parties, designing programs for change o Interpersonal skills—trust building, coaching, and listening o Research skills—planning and conducting a study and evaluating results o Presentational skills—public speaking and report preparation • Two additional and closely related skills stand out as critical to success—process consultation and feedback. • Process Consultation o Process consultation is a set of activities that help others focus on what is currently happening around them. o The intent of process consultation is straightforward: to help team members perceive, understand, and react constructively to current behavioral events. o Process consultants or team facilitators encourage employees to examine:  Their intended versus their actual roles within the team  The ways in which the team discusses and solves problems  The use and abuse of power and authority  The explicit and implicit communication patterns o Process consultants are helpers, drawing upon several key facilitating behaviors.  They observe team meetings, recording conversational patterns and nonverbal behaviors.  They ask probing questions designed to help others identify problems or examine their own values and beliefs.  If necessary, they confront individuals by asking them to examine their behavior and its consequences or to explore new alternatives.  They observe a group unobtrusively to gain both information and insight about its inner workings. • Feedback o Team members need feedback so they have useful data on which to base decisions. o Feedback encourages them to understand how they are seen by others within their team and to take self-correcting action. o Any team can use process consultation and feedback for self-development, and many teams can benefit from doing so. o The need for continuous improvement is a cornerstone of total quality management programs, and a focus on teams is a critical structural element of many organizations as they operate in the twenty-first century. Characteristics of Mature Teams • When teams regularly find themselves achieving and even surpassing their goals, they have attained the fourth stage of the team development model. • Many teams have become highly effective, although it seldom happens overnight. • Successful teams typically exhibit several attitudinal and behavioral characteristics that organizations value (Figure 13.6), as well as achieve desirable organizational outcomes. Individual Territories vs. Team Spaces • The use of teams at work has increased at an astounding pace. o As a consequence, one interesting office design issue that arose was the use of physical space for employees. o Specifically, managers needed to decide whether to provide enclosed work cubicles for each employee or to create a more open, landscaped work area with lower, or no, partitions between work spaces. o A basic issue revolved around the desire of some employees for privacy and personal space while they worked. o Many workers felt a need to establish their own employee territories—spaces they could call their own, within which they could control what happens. o Cubicles provide an opportunity for them to have their own territory, design and modify their work layout, and even decorate to their own satisfaction. • Alternatively, a team-based organization may want a layout that encourages easy interaction, an exchange of ideas among employees engaged in related tasks, and a stronger feeling of team identity. o Some firms have accomplished this goal by creating offices designed as activity settings, which include both home-base areas for privacy and bullpen areas for group interaction. o Other organizations have created neighborhoods of offices, which are centers of related individual offices to encourage the formation of social groups. Self-Managing Teams • Self-managing teams are also known as self-reliant or self-directed teams. o They are natural work groups that are given substantial autonomy and in return are asked to control their own behavior and produce significant results. o The combination of empowerment and training to plan, direct, monitor, and control their own activities distinguishes these teams from many others. • Team members learn a wide range of relevant skills; this practice is called multi-skilling. o As a result, members can flexibly float from area to area, and task to task, depending on where they are needed most. o They make joint decisions about work schedules, resource requirements, and the assignment of tasks. o Considerable time is spent in team meetings as members progressively take over many tasks that were formerly their manager’s. • As self-managing teams gain additional experience, these teams may even move beyond operational topics to refine their organization’s mission statement, carve out a new compensation system, or provide input into expansion plans: • Organizations using self-managing teams report several advantages: o Improved flexibility of staff o More efficient operations through the reduced number of job classifications o Lower absenteeism and turnover rates o Higher levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction • Disadvantages of this approach include: o The extended time to implement them o The high training investment as members learn new skills o Early inefficiencies due to job rotation o The inability (or unwillingness) of some employees to adapt to a team structure • Self-managing teams have increased in organizational use for several reasons. o As a formal practice they are not likely to lose organizational support. o They often directly involve 100 percent of the workforce. o They wield substantial authority in many cases. o They are ongoing structures (not devoted to a single issue). • Firms have found that it may take several years for the teams to achieve their full potential. o Cultural values emphasizing individualism can get in the way. o Rigid job classifications protected by labor contracts can be impediments. o Managers can feel threatened by the loss of control and personal job security. • Members of self-managing high-performance teams usually exhibit most of the following characteristics: o Listening intently to discover the ideas and opinions of others o Exploring ideas from outside the group, and integrating alternative points of view and different facts o Acting as “charismatic connectors” who circulate widely and democratically give all team members the chance to contribute o Speaking up by questioning, raising issues, acknowledging errors, and providing explanations to others o Reflecting on what they have seen and heard, while looking for improvement opportunities. • Managers of self-managing teams are encouraged to use the principle of intentionality. o They need to use their analytical ability to sort out which roles are needed at the moment, have the flexibility to shift from role to role at a moment’s notice, be willing to attempt playing even the “uncomfortable” ones, and prepare the team to expect and be receptive to multiple roles. • Successful self-managing teams often require that their leaders (whether internal or external to them) play boundary-spanning roles. o These are the abilities to interact with a variety of other groups in order to help the team succeed. • Boundary spanners keep communication channels open and active by constantly sharing information with other units in the organization and with people at other levels. • Boundary spanners often have little or no authority, and so their task is best accomplished through skills such as: o Social awareness o Relating to others o Genuine caring for team members o Investigating problems o Obtaining external support o Influencing the team o Persuading Virtual Teams • Information technology has had a powerful effect on individual behavior in organizations, and its effect is equally strong on social networks at the team level. • Technology has allowed the emergence of virtual teams—groups of individuals from around the globe that meet through the use of technological aids without all of their members being present in the same location. o These teams can be either dramatic successes or dismal failures. o They often go through a development process parallel to that of other teams. • The explosion in the use of virtual teams came about due to several compelling reasons. o For example, the global marketplace has created a demand for placing employees near their customers. o Also, the most highly qualified team members may be located thousands of miles from each other, and the costs and time constraints of travel to a central location would be prohibitive. • Unique problems can arise, too. o Widely differing time zones cause difficulties in setting up meeting times. o Language differences across cultural borders can cause communication problems. o Over-reliance on written messages results in the loss of many nonverbal cues from facial expressions and gestures. o There can also be the belief that virtual team projects are not as visible or important as local ones. • To overcome the inherent problems of individualistic behavior, feelings of isolation, lack of trust, and the extra coordination needed in virtual teams, managers can use one or more approaches to substitute for daily face-to-face interaction with their employees. o These devices include:  Clarified goals and definition of major issues  Conduct of a few short face-to-face meetings at the initiation of a project to humanize fellow team members  Temporary on-location projects among virtual team members  Explicit definition of role expectations  Identification of potential problems likely to arise  Frequent use of email and video-conferencing to encourage information exchange and collaboration Chapter 14 Managing Change Chapter Overview This chapter describes the nature, cost, and benefits of change and provides practical strategies to build support for constructive change. First, the nature of work change and responses to change are discussed, followed by the cost and benefits of change. The next section deals with resistance to change, its nature and effects, types of resistance, and possible benefits of resistance, followed by the process of implementing change successfully. The final section deals with understanding organizational development. Chapter Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, students should understand: 1. The nature of change 2. Costs and benefits of change 3. Resistance to change 4. Basic frameworks for interpreting change 5. Role of transformational leadership in change 6. Practices to build support for change 7. Meaning and characteristics of OD Discussion and Project Ideas Change is a major upsetting factor in organizational behavior. Always present in a dynamic world, it is aggravated by the fact that workers often have change pushed upon them, rather than participating in its introduction. The objective of this chapter and the next one is to help students perceive the role of change in organizational behavior. Some exercises that will help illustrate the points emphasized in the chapter are as follows: • Locate an organization in town which has undergone a major reorganization within the last 5 years. After securing permission, have three or four students interview managers in the organization and report their results back to class. Have them focus on the following questions and issues. o What was done to prepare the employees for the change? o Did the employees participate in planning the change? o What were the immediate psychological and social results of the change? o In retrospect, how effective has the change been? o In retrospect, what might have been done differently? • Before starting this chapter, suggest to the class that you might eliminate a term paper requirement and include an additional test. Ask students to write down and discuss their immediate reactions in small groups. Discuss the reactions to change in a large group setting. Afterward, assure them that no changes will be made. • Have students scan newspapers and other periodicals for examples of resistance to change and present them to class. Discuss how the situations might have been avoided. • Have the students form groups of four or five and develop plans for implementing a major organizational change. The subject for the change should be a situation close to home so that the students are knowledgeable of the situation. It could be changes in the university such as: o Changing from a quarter to a semester system o Changing grading procedures o Changing methods of billing students for tuition • A simple exercise to show the resistance to change can be students seating. o How many of your students sit in the same seat every single class? Have your students get up and physically move to another desk. How many people just moved one desk? Who actually moved from the front to the back of the class, to the other side of the room? o Now have the students discuss the best layout of the desks in the class? Should they remain the same, a circle, a semi-circle, etc.? Are the students more open to the change since? o This simple exercise can show how people resist change and are more open to change if they involved in the change. Lecture Outline Introduction • The following are the three facts of life about change: o It is everywhere. o It is constant. o Its pace is accelerating. • A person learns to meet change by being adaptive. o Each hour of the day offers people new experiences and challenges. • To survive, organizations need to decide not whether to change, but when and how to make it occur most successfully. o When managers use their most logical arguments and persuasive skills to support a change, they frequently discover that employees remain unconvinced of the need for it. Change at Work The Nature of Change • Change is any alteration occurring in the work environment that affects the ways in which employees must act. o These changes may be planned or unplanned, catastrophic or evolutionary, positive or negative, strong or weak, slow or rapid, and stimulated either internally or externally. o Regardless of their source, nature, origin, pace, or strength, changes can have profound effects on their recipients. • A safe generalization is that the whole organization tends to be affected by change in any part of it. o Change is a human as well as a technical problem. • Changes may lead to pressures and conflicts that eventually cause a breakdown somewhere in the organization. • Organizations tend to achieve an equilibrium in their social structure—a state of relative balance between opposing forces. o This equilibrium is established when people develop a relatively stable set of relations with their environment. • On the one hand, the manager’s role is to introduce continual organizational changes so as to bring about a better fit between the firm and its evolving environment. o Here, the manager’s role is to be proactive—anticipating events, initiating change, and taking control of the organization’s destiny. • On the other hand, part of the manager’s role is to restore and maintain the group equilibrium and personal adjustment that change upsets. o In this role, the manager is more reactive—responding to events, adapting to change, and tempering the consequences of change. • A wide variety of forces may bring about dramatic changes that touch the entire core of the organization. o Many of these have become much more common as the economy, competition, and pace of technological change have become more volatile. o Examples include hostile takeovers of firms, leveraged buyouts and subsequent organizational restructuring, acts of public violence and terrorism, and natural disasters like oil spills and gas leaks. • Crises, whether positive or negative, demand that managers help guide employees through the emotional shock that accompanies them, thereby bringing the organization to a new equilibrium. Responses to Change • Work change is complicated by the fact that it does not produce a direct adjustment. o Instead, it operates through each employee’s attitudes, to produce a response that is conditioned by feelings toward the change. o This relationship was illustrated in a series of classical experiments—the Hawthorne studies, conducted by F. J. Roethlisberger and his associates. • How Individual Attitudes Affect Response to Change o Roethlisberger explained that each change is interpreted by individuals according to their attitudes.  The way that people feel about a change is one factor that determines how they will respond to it.  These feelings are not the result of chance; they are caused.  One cause is personal history, which refers to people’s biological processes, their backgrounds (e.g., family, job, etc.), and all their social experiences away from work (Figure 14.1).  A second cause is the work environment itself. o Feelings are not a matter of logic.  They are neither logical nor illogical, but entirely apart from logic.  They are nonlogical.  For that reason, logic alone is an ineffective means of trying to modify feelings because it does not get at them directly. • The Hawthorne Effect o The Hawthorne effect means that the mere observation of a group—or more precisely, the perception of being observed and one’s interpretation of its significance—tends to change the group. o When people are observed, or believe that someone cares about them, they act differently. o These changes usually are unintended and not even recognized by the members themselves. • Group Response to Change o People interpret change individually and have their own probable response to it. o However, they often show their attachment to the group by joining with other group members in some uniform response to the change. o This uniformity makes possible such seemingly illogical actions as walkouts when obviously only a few people actually want to walk out. • Homeostasis o In trying to maintain equilibrium, a group is often inclined to return to its perceived best way of life whenever any change occurs. o Each pressure, therefore, elicits a counterpressure within the group. o The net result is a self-correcting mechanism by which energies are called up to restore balance whenever change threatens. o This self-correcting characteristic of organizations is called homeostasis—that is, people act to establish a steady state of need fulfillment and to protect themselves from disturbance of that balance. Costs and Benefits • All changes are likely to have some costs. o These costs usually must be paid in order to gain the benefits of proposed changes. • Because of the costs associated with change, proposals for change are not always desirable. o They require careful analysis to determine usefulness. o The organizational goal should always be to produce benefits greater than costs. • A parallel cost-benefit analysis is appropriate at the individual level, when persons desire to make an intentional (planned) change, whether it occurs in their behavior, thoughts, feelings, or perceptions. • In a determination of benefits and costs, all types must be considered. o To examine only economic benefits and costs is useless, because even if a net economic benefit accrues, the social or psychological costs may be too large. o Although it is not very practical to reduce psychological and social costs to numbers, they must nevertheless be included in the decision-making process. o Almost any change, for example, involves some psychological loss because of the strain it imposes on people as they try to adjust. o Psychological costs also are called psychic costs because they affect a person’s inner self, the psyche. • Knowledge of individual differences helps predict that people will react in different and widely varying ways to change. o Some will perceive only the benefits, while others see only what it costs them. o Others will react fearfully at first, even though all the effects are actually positive for them. o Others will appear initially to embrace the change but then gradually let their real feelings emerge. • In some cases, the psychic costs of change can be so severe that they affect the psychological and even physical health of employees. o The tolerance level for change within a group of employees can range from relatively high for one person to relatively low for another. o Whenever that level is exceeded, stressful responses develop that can undermine health. o In some instances, there is a sustained series of small or moderate changes over a period of time, producing cumulative effects that finally overload a person’s system; some writers refer to this circumstance as repetitive change syndrome. • Repetitive change syndrome is often caused by a: o Series of organizational initiatives that are started but not completed o Blurring of one program and another o Pandemic of employee cynicism • Although managers can initiate changes, the resulting stress can also slow the pace of change and ultimately cause it to fail. o In other instances, a single major change of high significance overloads a person’s ability to cope with the situation. • The supportive, collegial, and system models of organizational behavior imply that management should: o Consider each substantial change o Try to help each person understand it o Seek to have each person experience a net gain from it Resistance to Change • Resistance to change consists of any employee behaviors designed to discredit, delay, or prevent the implementation of a work change. • Employees resist change because it threatens their needs for security, social interaction, status, competence, or self-esteem. • Other causes of resistance or passivity include: o Organizational cultures that overvalue criticism of new ideas o Employees who mouth support in public but undercut changes behind the scenes o Indecisive managers who suffer from ‘analysis paralysis” o An emphasis on flashy proposals instead of follow through o A “bunker mentality” where employees have learned that organizational crises don’t often prove to be as significant as they are claimed to be, and hence they can be ignored. Nature and Effects • The perceived threat stemming from a change may be real or imagined, intended or unintended, direct or indirect, large or small. o Regardless of the nature of the change, some employees will try to protect themselves from its effects. o Their actions may range from complaints, foot-dragging, and passive resistance to passionate arguments, absenteeism, sabotage, and work slowdown. • All types of employees tend to resist change because of the psychic costs that accompany it. o Managers as well as workers may resist it. • Not all changes are resisted; some are actively sought by employees. o Other changes are so trivial and routine that resistance, if any, is too weak to be evident. • A change is likely to be either a success or a problem, depending on how skillfully it is managed to prevent, minimize, or overcome resistance. • A chain-reaction effect is a situation in which a change, or other condition, that directly affects only one person or a few persons may lead to a direct or indirect reaction from many people, even hundreds or thousands, because of their mutual interest in it. Reasons for Resistance • Employees may resist changes for three broad reasons: o They may feel uncomfortable with the nature of the change itself. o They may resent the method by which change is introduced. o A third reason for resistance revolves around personal factors. • Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, in her book Death and Dying, concluded that individuals when told they had an incurable illness and faced death, go through a series of five stages: o Denial o Anger o Depression o Search for alternative o Eventual acceptance of the prognosis • Many change managers also believe that employees go through a comparable experience, although certainly on a lesser scale, when faced with organizational change (Figure 14.2). Types of Resistance • The three different types of resistance to change are shown in Figure 14.3. o These types work in combination to produce each employee’s total attitude toward a change. • Logical Resistance o This is based on disagreement with the facts, rational reasoning, logic, and science. o This arises from the actual time and effort required to adjust to change, including new job duties that must be learned. o These are true costs borne by the employees. • Psychological Resistance o This is typically based on emotions, sentiments, and attitudes. o This is internally logical from the perspective of the employees’ attitudes and feelings about change. o Employees may fear the unknown, mistrust management’s leadership, or feel that their security and self-esteem are threatened. o Even though management may believe these feelings are not justified, they are very real to employees, and managers must acknowledge, accept, and deal with them. • Sociological Resistance o Sociological resistance also is logical, when it is seen as a product of a challenge to group interests, norms, or values. o Since social values are powerful forces in the individual’s work or social environment, they must be carefully considered. o There are political coalitions, labor union values, and even different community values. o On a small-group level, work friendships and status relationships may be disrupted by changes. o Managers must try to make changes as favorable as possible if they intend to deal successfully with sociological resistance. • Implications of Resistance o All three types of resistance must be anticipated and treated effectively if employees are to accept change cooperatively. o Psychological resistance and sociological resistance are not illogical or irrational; rather they are logical according to a different set of values. o The following are four suggestions to address these types of resistance:  Acknowledging (not denying) employee feelings.  Encouraging employees to mourn what they have lost.  Insisting on an outstanding effort to make the change, while accepting short-term problems.  Breaking overwhelming tasks down into manageable immediate steps. o In a typical operating situation, full support cannot be gained for every change that is made.  People are different and will not give identical support to each change.  What managers seek is a climate in which people trust managers, have a positive feeling toward most changes, and feel secure enough to tolerate other changes.  If management cannot win support, it may need to use authority.  However, if authority is overused, it eventually will become worthless. Possible Benefits of Resistance • Resistance can bring a broad range of benefits, such as the following: o It may encourage management to reexamine its change proposals, thus making modifications to the process of change to be sure they are appropriate. o It also can help identify specific problem areas where a change is likely to cause difficulties, so that management can take corrective action before serious problems develop. • It may encourage management to do a better job of communicating the change, an approach that in the long run should lead to better acceptance. Implementing Change Successfully • Some changes originate within the organization, but many come from the external environment: o Government passes laws, and the organization must comply. o New developments in technology arise, and products must incorporate the changes. o Competitors introduce new services, and the firm must respond. o Customers, labor unions, communities, and others who initiate changes all exert pressure. • Although stable environments mean less change, dynamic environments are now the norm, and they require more change. Transformational Leadership and Change • Management has a key role in initiating and implementing change successfully. o Not only do managers sometimes overlook simple but important details, but they may fail to develop a master strategy for planned change. • An overall plan should address behavioral issues, such as: o Employees’ difficulty in letting go of old methods o The uncertainties inherent in change that cause workers to be fearful o The general need to create an organization that welcomes change. • Transformational leaders are instrumental in this process. o They are managers who initiate bold strategic changes to position the organization for its future. o They articulate a vision and promote it vigorously. o They help employees rise above their narrow focus on their individual jobs or departments to see a broader picture. o They stimulate employees to action and charismatically model the desired behaviors. o They attempt to create learning individuals and learning organizations that will be better prepared for the unknown challenges that lie ahead. • Creating Vision o A vision is a crystallized long-range image or idea of what can and should be accomplished.  It typically stretches people beyond their current capabilities and thinking, ignites passion for accomplishment within them, and excites them to new levels of commitment and enthusiasm.  It may also integrate the shared beliefs and values that serve as a basis for changing an organization’s culture. • Communicating Charisma o Even if employees are intellectually convinced that the vision is desirable, leaders still have two tasks:  To persuade employees that the vision is urgent  To motivate the employees to achieve it o Charisma is a leadership characteristic that can help influence employees to take early and sustained action. o Charismatic leaders are dynamic risk takers who:  Show their depth of expertise and well-deserved self-confidence  Express high performance expectations  Use provocative symbols and language to inspire others o Charismatic leaders can also be warm mentors who treat employees individually and guide them to take action.  In response, employees respect and trust charismatic leaders as they introduce change.  They are willing to exert extra effort and make personal sacrifices.  They exhibit loyalty.  They tend to be more emotionally committed to the vision of such leaders. o Charismatic leaders need to recognize the “emotional vulnerability” that employees experience during change and to allay employees’ fears while stimulating their energy for change. o An important tool that charismatic leaders use involves the art of storytelling.  These are engaging and compelling tales that captivate people, tug at their emotions and heartstrings, and provide useful principles that call followers to action.  Storytelling can be used for a variety of purposes, including dramatic self-introduction of a new leader, fostering collaboration across groups, transmitting essential values, stimulating ethical behavior, or sparking action. • Stimulating Learning o Transformational leaders recognize that the legacy they leave behind is not simply the change itself but an organization that will continue to change. o The critical task is to develop people’s capacity to learn from the experience of change; this process is called double-loop learning.  Its name is derived from the fact that the way a change is handled should not only reflect current information gathered (the first loop) but also prepare the participants to manage future changes even more effectively (the second loop).  Double-loop learners develop the ability to anticipate problems, prevent many situations from arising, and, in particular, challenge their own limiting assumptions and paradigms Three Stages in Change • Behavioral awareness in managing change is aided by viewing change as a three-phase process, initially proposed by social psychologist Kurt Lewin. • However, in reality most change is actually an evolutionary process that is continuous and flowing, with no clear separation between its following phases: o Unfreezing—means that old ideas and practices are cast aside so that new ones can be learned.  It is an easy step to overlook while concentrating on the proposed change itself, but failure to cast aside old attitudes, beliefs, and values, is what often leads to resistance to change. o Changing—step in which new ideas, new methods, and new technologies are learned.  Initially, it can be a time of confusion, disorientation, overload, self-doubt, and even despair.  Fortunately, the changing step usually is also mixed with hope, discovery, and excitement. o Refreezing—means that what has been learned is integrated into actual practice.  Merely knowing a new procedure is not enough to ensure its use.  Successful and repeated on-the-job practice must be the ultimate goal of the refreezing step. Manipulating the Forces • Kurt Lewin, suggested that any organization (as a social system) is a dynamic balance of forces supporting and restraining any existing practice—an equilibrium exists (Figure 14.4). • Change is introduced by a variety of methods, as follows: o Adding new supporting forces o Making recipients more aware of support services o Removing restraining forces o Increasing the actual strength of a supporting force o Helping recipients perceive that the organization is willing to use its reward or coercive power to induce change o Being more persistent in the use of supporting forces until the change is completed o Decreasing the strength of a restraining force o Converting restraining force into a supporting force • At least one of these approaches must be used to change the equilibrium, with greater success likely when more than one is adopted. o The idea is to help change be accepted and integrated into new practices. Building Support for Change • If management follows the model of change process in Figure 14.4, then forces of support need to be built, introduced, strengthened and sustained before, during and after a change. o Manipulation and coercion typically antagonize employees and sabotage the long-term success of the change program; they should be avoided if at all possible. • Use of Group Forces o Effective change focuses not only on the individuals but also on the group itself. o The group is an instrument for bringing strong pressure on its members to change. o The power of a group to stimulate change in its members depends partly on the strength of their attachment to it.  The more attractive the group is to each member, the greater its influence on a group member can be.  Influence is further increased if members with high status in the group support a change. • Providing a Rationale for Change o Capable leadership reinforces a climate of psychological support for change. o The effective leader presents change on the basis of the impersonal requirements of the situation—objective (performance-related) reasons for the change—rather than on personal grounds. o Change is more likely to be successful if the leaders introducing it become champions for it—persons who voice their own strong confidence and high expectations of success.  Managerial and employee expectations of change may be as important as the technology of change.  Creating positive expectations of change is a demonstration of the powerful self-fulfilling prophecy. o Expectations alone are not powerful enough to induce or discourage significant change.  The process really works when expectations tend to get translated into specific managerial behaviors that increase or decrease the likelihood of change.  By believing that change will work, the manager acts to fulfill that belief.  This belief is transferred to employees, who buy into the probability of success and change their behaviors accordingly. • Participation o Participation encourages employees to discuss, to communicate, to make suggestions and to become interested in change. o It encourages commitment and engagement rather than mere compliance with change. o As participation increases, resistance to change tends to decrease. o Employees need to participate in change before it occurs, not after. • Shared Rewards o Another way to build employee support for change is to ensure sufficient rewards for employees in the change situation. o Rewards say to employees, “We care. We want you as well as us to benefit from this change.”  Rewards also give employees a sense that progress accompanies a change.  Employees appreciate a pay increase or promotion, but they also appreciate emotional support, training in new skills, and recognition from management. • Employee Security o Security during a change is essential. o Many employers guarantee workers protection from reduced earnings when new technology, new methods, and new compensation programs are introduced. o Others offer retraining and delay installation of labor-saving equipment until normal labor turnover can absorb displaced workers. o Seniority rights, opportunities for advancement, and other benefits are safeguarded when a change is made. o Grievance systems give employees a feeling of security that benefits will be protected and differences about them fairly resolved. • Communication and Education o Communication is essential in gaining support for change. o Even though a change will affect only one or two in a work group of ten persons, all of them must be informed clearly and regularly about the change in order to feel secure and to maintain group cooperation. • Stimulating Employee Readiness o Change is more likely to be accepted if the people affected by it recognize a need for it before it occurs. o This awareness may happen naturally, as when a crisis, threat, or sudden new competition emerges, or it can be induced by management through sharing operating information with employees. o One of the more powerful ways, however, occurs when workers discover for themselves that a situation requires improvement. • Working with the Total System o Resistance to change can be reduced by a broader understanding of employee attitudes and natural reactions to change. o Management’s role is to help employees recognize the need for each change and to invite them to participate in it and gain from it. o It is essential for managers to take a broader systems-oriented perspective on change to identify the complex relationships involved. Understanding Organization Development • Organizational Development (OD) is the systematic application of behavioral science knowledge at various levels (group, intergroup, and total organization) to bring about planned change. o OD helps managers recognize that organizations are not just a collection of individuals but systems with dynamic interpersonal relationships holding them together. o OD relies on a systems orientation, causal models, and a set of key assumptions to guide it. Foundations of OD • Systems Orientation o Change is so abundant in modern society that organizations need all their parts working together in order to solve the problems—and capitalize on the opportunities—that are brought about by change.  Some organizations have grown so large that maintaining coordinated effort among their parts is difficult.  OD is concerned with the interplay of structure, technology, and people.  It is concerned with the behavior of employees in different groups, departments, and locations.  Emphasis is on the manner in which the parts relate, and not just on the parts themselves. • Understanding Causality o One contribution of the systems orientation is to help managers view their organizational processes in terms of a model with three types of variables o They are causal, intervening, and end-result variables (Figure 14.6). o The causal variables are the ones that management can change most directly; they include:  Organizational structure  Controls  Policies  Training  A broad range of leadership behaviors  OD efforts o Intervening variables are those immediately affected by the causal variables; they include:  Employee attitudes  Perceptions  Motivation  Skilled behaviors  Teamwork  Intergroup relationship o The end-result variables represent the multitude of objectives sought by management. They usually include:  Improved productivity  Increased sales  Lower costs  More loyal customers  Higher earnings • Assumptions Underlying Organization Development o OD practitioners make a set of assumptions that guide their actions.  Sometimes these assumptions are implicit and need to be examined to enable double-loop learning. o A wide range of assumptions can be made, but certain ones are relatively common at the individual, group, and organizational level.  A sample of them is summarized in Figure 14.7. Characteristics of Organization Development • Although some of the characteristics of organization development differ substantially from traditional change efforts, OD has begun to have an impact on the way organizational change programs are designed and presented. • Humanistic Values o OD programs are typically based on humanistic values, which are positive beliefs about the potential and desire for growth among employees. o To be effective and self-renewing, an organization needs employees who want to expand their skills and increase their contributions. o The best climate for such growth is one that stresses collaboration, open communications, interpersonal trust, shared power, and constructive confrontation. • Use of a Change Agent o OD programs generally use one or more change agents, whose role is to stimulate, facilitate, and coordinate change. o The change agent usually acts as a catalyst, sparking change within the system while remaining somewhat independent of it.  Although change agents may be either external or internal to the organization; they are usually consultants from outside the organization. o Advantages of using external change agents are that they are more objective and have diverse experiences.  They are also able to operate independently without ties to the hierarchy and politics of the firm. o To offset their limited familiarity with the organization, external change agents usually are paired with an internal coordinator from the human resources department.  These two then work with line management.  The result is a three-way relationship that draws on the strengths of each component for balance. • Problem Solving o OD trains participants to identify and solve problems that are important to them. o The approach commonly used to improve problem-solving skills is to have employees:  Identify system problems  Gather data about problems  Take corrective action  Assess progress  Make ongoing adjustments o This cyclical process of using research to guide action, which generates new data as the basis for new actions, is known as action research, or action science. Interventions at Many Levels • OD recognizes that problems may occur at the individual, interpersonal, group, intergroup, and total organization level. o An overall OD strategy is then developed with one or more interventions, which are structured activities designed to help individuals or groups improve their work effectiveness. • Interventions are often classified by their emphasis on individuals (such as career planning) or groups (such as team building). o Another way to view interventions is to look at whether they focus on what people are doing or on how they are doing it. • An example of an OD intervention process that has gained considerable popularity is appreciative inquiry. o This approach turns employee attention away from a negative focus on problems, missteps, deficiencies, shortcomings, and blaming. o It asks individuals and groups to respond to these questions:  What is working for us already?  What are we doing well that we can build upon?  What do we value most around here?  What are our hopes and dreams for this organization (or work unit)? • Appreciative inquiry recognizes that people are energized by success and like to publicly celebrate their achievements. The Organizational Development Process • OD is a complex process. o Design and implementation may take a year or more, and the process may continue indefinitely. • OD tries to move the organization from where it is now (requiring diagnosis) to where it should be (by action interventions). • Although there are many different approaches to OD, a typical complete program includes most of the steps shown in Figure 14.8. • A firm that applies only two or three steps is likely to be disappointed with the results; however the whole process can produce quite favorable results. • When OD is used effectively to manage major change processes, it produces a wide range of potential benefits: o Increased quality and productivity o Higher job satisfaction and teamwork o Reduced absenteeism and turnover o Smoother relationship (less conflict) • However, some difficulties are also reported in some OD efforts: o Major time requirements for implementation and related expenses o Delayed payoffs—sometimes in years o Difficult to clearly evaluate results of OD program o Incompatibility with existing culture Instructor Manual for Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work John W. Newstrom 9780078112829, 9781259254420