Decision
Theory within the Global Marketplace
Module
6: Managing Group Dynamics in a Decision Environment: Part 1
MGT672
Table of ContentsTools
Module Introduction
Readings
Required
â¢
Chapter 10 inJudgment in Managerial Decision Making
â¢
Buchanan, J. (2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap)..ebscohost.com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=82511121&site=ehost-live”>Think different?.
Conference Board Review,49(4), 52-58.
Recommended
â¢
Bénabou. (2013)..ebscohost.com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=87109937&site=ehost-live”>Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets.Review of
Economic Studies,80(2), 429-462.
â¢
Sims, R., & Sauser, W. (2013)..ebscohost.com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=94484553&site=ehost-live”>Toward a better understanding of the relationships among
received wisdom, groupthink, and organizational ethical culture.Journal of
Management Policy and Practice,
14(4),
75-90.
For Your Success
Module 6 provides an overview of
group dynamics and the impact that groups have on decision-making.
As always, make sure you log in
frequently, check your messages and the announcements, and read your text and
other readings early in the week. This weekâs Ace my homework – Write my paper – Online assignment help tutors – Discussion Question asks you to
consider if youâve experienced any groupthink in your experience as a group
member or group leader seeking to solve a problem in your organization.
Finally, there is a 30-point quiz this week, covering Modules 5 and 6. I need help writing my essay – research paper
note that these quizzes will help prepare you to take the midterm and final
exams.
Learning Outcomes
1
Evaluate group dynamics in
decision-making.
2
Assess group behaviors in
decision-making.
3
Evaluate group decision-making
processes.
1. Overview of Group Dynamics
Leaders do not work in isolation.
In fact, many leaders work in teams and groups, and the dynamics of working in
these groups can impact the decision-making process. Some leaders, when dealing
with complex organizational problems, will form a group or a team to study the
problem and make a decision (Butterfield, 2013).
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Groups are formed primarily to
share information and to make decisions, thus helping each group member to
enhance his or her individual ability to contribute to the organization.
Conversely, a work team is a group that is formed to provide synergistic
benefit to the organization. While work groups have a goal of sharing
information, work teams have a goal of benefiting from collective performance.
Additionally, groups have neutral to negative synergy with individual
contribution accountability, while teams have positive synergy with individual
and mutual accountability. Therefore, groups may have random and varied skills,
while teams have complementary skills.
This week, we will examine
effective leadership and decision-making in light of the group environment.
Researchers have put forth an extensive effort in order to ascertain how to
establish effective leadership practice within a group setting. Moreover,
studies have also examined the results of failed leadership and provide
recommendations on how to avoid it. For instance, Aboyassin and Abboud (2013)
conducted a study, seeking to explore how ineffective leadership behavior
affects individual and organizational performance within the context of
Jordanian institutions. This study was limited to the manager’s point of view
and suggests that there are similarities with managers in Arab institutions.
However, the researchers caution about generalizing the results of the study to
other Arabian countries. Nevertheless, there were quite a number of practical
implications and useful information that may help curb or even eliminate
ineffective leadership practices which may exist not only in Jordanian
institutions, but also in surrounding territories.
It should be noted that there have
been an extensive amount of studies in American and European regions regarding
ineffective leadership and failed practices. However, effective leadership
concepts have been highly established for quite a number of years and in a wide
array of organizational settings. Effective leadership practices purport more
of a collaborative team or group environment, which helped to undergird the
organizational leader, the organization’s mission, and the necessary steps
required for effective decision-making. Perhaps you have been an eyewitness to
effective leadership within a group setting. Also, you may have had the
opportunity to experience challenges that can exist in a group. As such,
organizational leaders in both Middle East and Western cultures can agree that
the various challenges that can exist within the group setting can be overcome
through effective leadership practices.
Leaders do not work in isolation.
In fact, many leaders work in teams and groups, and the dynamics of working in
these groups can impact the decision-making process. Some leaders, when dealing
with complex organizational problems, will form a group or a team to study the
problem and make a decision (Butterfield, 2013). Groups are formed primarily to
share information and to make decisions, thus helping each group member to
enhance his or her individual ability to contribute to the organization.
Conversely, a work team is a group that is formed to provide synergistic
benefit to the organization. While work groups have a goal of sharing
information, work teams have a goal of benefiting from collective performance.
Additionally, groups have neutral to negative synergy with individual
contribution accountability, while teams have positive synergy with individual
and mutual accountability. Therefore, groups may have random and varied skills,
while teams have complementary skills.
Whether a group comes together on
its own or is brought together through the direction of organizational leaders,
there is a process that all groups go through that is fairly standard. Each
group progresses through five distinct stages. These stages are described by
Greenberg (2011) asforming, storming, norming,performing, andadjourning.
Read more about each stage:
Forming
During the forming stage,
members are getting to know one another. They may be establishing ground rules
for what they may find acceptable or unacceptable. Other than determining the
ground rules, groups at this stage are not typically ready to address a complex
problem.
Storming
The
next stage, storming, can be characterized by a high degree of conflict
(Greenberg, 2011). Typically group members can display some hostility with one
another and individual members may struggle to control the group.
Norming
Once
the conflicts are resolved, the group enters a norming stage, during which
members form relationships with one another and adopt a common set of norms.
Performing
The
performing stage follows this. During this stage, the group actually begins its
work and can accomplish the tasks assigned to it.
Adjourning
The
final stage of the group is that of adjourning. This typically happens when the
task is accomplished and the group is no longer needed.
From
a leadership and management perspective, group factors can impact performance
and worker satisfaction and must be considered in decisions made regarding team
member selection and objectives. Individual performance has been attributed to
role perception, norms, status differences, size of the group, and
cohesiveness. The closer the match between the managerial perception of a
workerâs role and the workerâs understanding of the role, the higher the degree
of performance evaluation and the higher the level of job satisfaction by the
worker.
Group
norms, like organizational culture, can influence favorable or undesirable
behavior, while status inequities among group members can cause frustration and
can impact productivity. Furthermore, reduced job satisfaction can result from
having employees that are higher up the organizational ladder work with
lower-level employees. Additionally, variations in group size can affect
productivity based on the type of responsibilities required by an organization.
Specifically, research has found decreased satisfaction with increasing group
size, while the more cohesive a group, the higher the level of functioning it
exhibits.
Individuals
in most organizations become part of informal and formal groups from which they
respond to organizational objectives. The formation of organizational groups
can have a positive impact on individuals and on the organization as they can
provide a sense of security, status and self-esteem; affiliation for social
needs; power through numbers; and goal achievement of responsibilities that
require more than one person for optimal output.
For
example, a formal group created to address chronic customer service issues may
include representatives from all departments in order to obtain all-inclusive customer
service information, and therefore be quite large. A too-large group might
cause the formation of informal subgroups with different methods of addressing
the issue, thus reducing group cohesiveness and creating dissatisfied workers.
However, group leadership that manages clear and appropriate individual roles
and keeps social loafing to a minimum can leverage the data-gathering benefits
of larger groups without jeopardizing the outcomes. Furthermore, the roles
played by each member of the group may either be satisfying or dissatisfying,
depending on the alignment between management and individual perceptions of the
roles. For example, having senior managers work with lower-level customer
service representatives may be dissatisfying to the senior managers but
motivating to the lower-level customer service representatives. If the group
norms include meeting agreed-upon deadlines and a high level of commitment to
achieving group objectives, it is likely that that group will be
high-performing.
Group
decision-making can be a strong contributor to organizational success. The
experience, knowledge, and perspective that individuals bring to groups can
often promote optimal decisions. Nonetheless, group decision-making can suffer
from time delays, internal conflicts, and pressures of conformity. Leaders and
managers can alleviate negative outcomes of the group decision-making process
by using techniques that work to overcome group conformity pressures and that
limit interpersonal communication during the process by requiring that certain
work and individual contributions be created in advance of the actual
decision-making session.
2. Divergent and Convergent
Thinking
Groups use bothdivergent andconvergent thinking
as they explore problems and make decisions. Divergent thinking was described
by Butterfield (2013) as âthought processes or methods used to generate ideasâ
(p. 78). This thinking is typically spontaneous in nature. Convergent thinking
was differentiated by Butterfield by its âorganized, understandable and
structured formatâ (p. 80).
A group using divergent thinking
processes may use a variety of techniques to generate ideas and solutions, and
to make decisions. One of the most well-known techniques is that ofbrainstorming.
A group uses brainstorming when members list as many ideas as possible.
Everyone typically contributes to this process and every idea is documented and
included. Another divergent thinking technique is groupmind mapping. Mind
mapping was introduced as a decision-making tool in an earlier module. Groups
can use this technique to record each of their ideas. The group could also use
the process of free writing and journal writing to capture thoughts and ideas
that members have. These techniques each require groups to gather as many ideas
as possible from the members.
The group is typically ready to
move on to convergent thinking if it has a set of ideas to consider.
Butterfield suggested that one of the first tasks for the group was to âcullâ
the ideas developed during the divergent thinking process. He suggested that
this be done by using thethree-pile
method of placing each idea into a
Yes, No, or Maybe category. The group must then explore the pros and cons of
each of the ideas generated. In addition, the group may conduct a cost-benefit
analysis and an impact analysis, as it analyzes each of the ideas to move
toward a decision (Butterfield, 2013).
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Check Your Understanding
Ask yourself; is the
statement true or false?
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3. Groupthink and Consensus
Decision-Making
One
of the most common problems of group decision-making is that ofgroupthink. Groupthink
occurs when group members may not express their opinions because they differ
from the majority of the group. It is thought to occur when the group memberâs
desire for harmony outweighs concerns about a good decision (Daft, 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap). If a
leader understands groupthink behavior, it can be prevented.
One of the first symptoms of
groupthink behavior is that of a cohesive group. The group may display a great
deal of harmony and very little conflict. The leadership of groups that
experience groupthink has a tendency to lack the ability to be impartial, and
the group may be experiencing high stress and low self-esteem. Groups engaging
in groupthink behavior display some common characteristics. They often
overestimate their abilities and skills as a group, are close-minded, and
pressure one another to conform to the group. Decision-making leaders must be
ready to identify and address groupthink behavior.
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One effective way of making
decisions at the group level is that ofconsensus
decision-making. The process of consensus
decision-making involves exploring each solution that the group has generated
and finding a common ground. The leader must ensure that each member of the
group has an opportunity to express his or her reactions to the solution, as
well as any objections he or she may have. All group members can express their
support or lack of support for the solution. The leader is responsible for
building consensus with the group on the solution. Often, part of this process
involves discussing with the group what needs to happen before members are able
to reach consensus. This process may be lengthy in nature, so it may not be the
most effective process to use if a quick decision needs to be made.
Conclusion
Whether
you are leading a group locally in Saudi Arabia, a region in the Middle East,
or within the context of a global organization, research has established that
effective leadership within the group environment is vital to success and
efficiency. The various challenges that leaders face within the context of the
group can be overcome if appropriate strategies are put in place. As such,
groups can be highly effective within the context of the organization and have
proven to assist the organization in reaching its goals, objectives, and
overall mission.
