Group and Teams

 Group and Teams

A group is a collection of individuals who have regular contact and everyday interaction, mutual influence, the common sense of comradeship, and who work together to achieve a common set of goals.

Characteristics of a Group

  • Interact with two or more people – share ideas, knowledge, and assigning duties
  • Common goals – In here complete the goal within the time period
  • Stable groups structure – consist with the structure
  • Perceive as a group – Willing to work as a bunch

Groups in Organization

  • Functional group

A permanent group was created to complete several organizational purposes within an unclear time limit. Also, this has departmentalization. everyone working toward achieving the goals outlined in the company’s mission statement. Ex: Marketing department, HR department

  • Informal or interest group

Inhere, is created by its own members for purposes that may or may not be related to organizational objectives.

  • Task group

Created by the organization to complete a relatively narrow range of purposes within a confirmed time horizon. After achieving the task members can wound up

Ex: Assignment, new product development

Teams in Organization

A unit of two or more people who interact and organize their work to complete a common goal for which they are committed and hold themselves mutually.

Benefits of Teams

  • It gives more responsibility for task performance to the workers who complete the tasks.
  • Authorize workers by giving them greater authority and decision making freedom.
  • Allow organizations to capitalize on the knowledge and motivation of their workers.
  • Enable the organization to discard its bureaucracy and to promote flexibility and responsiveness.

Types of Teams

  • Problem solving team

This is the most popular team type. These types of teams are usually temporary. A team consists of knowledge workers who gather to solve a problem. Because after solving the problem they disband.

  • Management team

A team mainly consists of managers from various functional areas who organize the work among other teams.

  • Work team

They are responsible for the daily work of the organization. When empowered they are a self-motivated team. They evaluate their own performances.

  • Virtual team

A virtual team is a new type of team that interacts with computers. So, it can be called an online team. Members enter and leave the network as needed. And it may take turns serving as a leader.  Easy communication methods allow managers to build teams based on strengths and weaknesses rather than geography.

  • Cross-functional teams

Mostly in an organization, permanent team members are going to work in partnership with other departments to grab certain events for the company.  For example new product launch.

Here communication among internal departments is vital in order to address the task objectives.

Group Development Process

  • Forming

Here members get together. Identify the interpersonal behavior of the members. For example, they exchange ideas and respect others. In this step, uncertainty is very high.

2. Storming

In this step, members develop group structures such as proper meetings and patterns of interaction such as social media groups. Uncertainty and conflicts are very high. And this has caused a burst of activity to the next step. So this is an important stage and we can develop this.

4. Performing

Group members enact roles. Therefore they put direct effort toward goal achievement and performance.

5. Adjourning

Here, members are involved in completing the task. Finally achieving goals they wound up the group.

Why people join Groups and Teams

  • Because of interpersonal attraction – Peoples are normally attracted to others behavior, attitude and ideas.
  • This consists of group activities – group activities appeal to them. Also this has no individual tasks.
  • This has group goals – the groups’ goals – motivate them to join.
  • People need satisfaction – This fulfills individual’s requirement for association
  • This has instrumental benefits – membership of the group/ team provides other benefits to the individuals.

Group/Team Cohesiveness

The extent to which members are loyal and committed to the group. And also it is the degree of mutual attractiveness within the group.

Intergroup competition, personal attraction, favorable evaluation, agreement on goals, and interaction help to increase cohesiveness. And also they have some factors which lead to reduced cohesiveness. Also, those are large group size, disagreement on goals, intergroup competition, domination, and unpleasant experience.