The Importance of Work Groups Within an Organization
Question:
Write an Essay on Organisational Behaviour.
Working groups are social groups within an organisation and they are functionally and intrinsically interconnected within the workplace among the co-workers. Working groups have their internal values and standards and these standards must be in accordance with the organisational standards and code of practices. If the work groups’ practices go contrary to organisational practices, it indicates value conflict (Benne & Sheats, 2016, p.45). In a working group, employees have different roles to perform. Within a workplace, work groups are designated with different work roles (Coccia, 2014, p.252). Within the task roles, workgroup focus mainly on completing group goals like opinion seeker, coordinator, elaborator, information seeker and recorder. Some of the co-workers within the organisation have the group-building role, encourager, harmonizer, compromiser, gatekeeper, standard setter and follower. Some of the co-workers have self-centred roles, like blocker, aggressor, dominator and help-seeker and recognition seeker. This essay is unstructured and in the following paragraphs, work groups management strategies, issues and theoretical perspective of workgroups and productivity is discussed. The aim of the essay is to explore the concept of skilful management of work groups in order to make them productive.
This essay sheds light on managing work groups within the organisations. The leaders and managers need to be efficient to manage the work groups and it provides the employees to get the opportunity for professional development. The thesis statement of the study is to underpin the concept of work groups within the organisation to be productive. In this essay, theoretical understanding of organisational behaviour in the perspective of work groups and employees productivity is explained. The role of leadership in managing the work groups is explained in this essay. In addition, work group related issues within the workplace are described from the perspective of organisational behaviour and management. In the following sections, strategies to solve the issues of work groups and employees productivity are discussed.
In a workplace, forming a team or work group needs to go through recognisable stages so that the co-workers can go forward with a common goal. The team leaders or managers set objectives for the work groups and Tuckman’s theory about ‘Developmental Sequence in Small Group’ helps a work group to create bonding between team members. In the ‘forming’ stage, team members are polite and positive; hence, the leaders play the dominant role. Group members in this stage do not have a clear understanding about roles and responsibilities. In ‘storming’ stage, group members try to push hard against the boundaries and members work in different ways; however, this can create unforeseen issues within the workplace (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977, p.421). In ‘norming stage’, the team members start to resolve the differences of other members and appreciate their strengths. In this stage, leaders do not need to push hard to socialise and communicate to other working groups. The group members respect the authority as a leader and they start to provide feedback. Employees develop a stronger commitment to the team to work hard. In the ‘performing’ stage, group members work hard to achieve the goals set by the leaders and they follow leaders’ structure and process (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977, p.420). The leaders can delegate the work and concentrate to develop the team members. It can be deduced from these stages of Tuckman that in the performing stage, new members’ joining and leaving cannot disrupt the work performance of the group. In order to reach the stage of performing, group members have to follow a routine and close relationship with the group members.
Tuckman’s Developmental Sequence: A Framework for Understanding Work Group Dynamics
In a workplace, emotional is the special ability to recognise and control the emotion and emotion of other group members. Emotional intelligence includes three skills, harnessing emotions to apply in tasks, emotional awareness and problem-solving attitudes (Christina et al. 2014, p.165). Team leaders and members of a team can discern between the various feeling of human mind using emotional information in order to guide behaviour and thinking of others. In a work group, the members of the team need to have the ability to manage the emotion as it includes regulating the emotion of one and to cheering up other group members as well. It can be deduced from emotional intelligence concept that employees in a workplace must have a greater mental health, emotional security, leadership skill, job performance and general intelligence and personality traits.
Social-cognitive theory speaks about psychology, communication and education of a person’s knowledge that can be associated with others the social interaction. Social cognitive theory avers that when an individual observes a person performing his/her behaviour, this individual remembers the sequence of events and this can lead to the subsequent behaviour. People cannot learn new behaviour within a team solely by trying them through failing and succeeding, however, the behaviour is dependent on the replication of action (Mesmer-Magnus et al. 2017, p.508). It can be deduced from the theory that causal structure, cognitive factors, behaviours and other environmental factors can influence the group members within an organisation bidirectional. Organisational complexity, managerial ability and assigned performance can serve as influencing factors within a work group to impact on productivity.
The success of an organisation lies in the factor of employees’ ability to perform in a group. In the external world, the organisations are now facing extreme competition and leaders now encourage the employees to be creative and make a healthy workplace relationship with fellow group members. Collaboration in the workplace is effective and group work is necessary when the employees work on a project (Salanova et al. 2014, p.435). While working in a group, absence of group identity is an issue, members might not feel mutually accountable to each other. It is the responsibility of the leaders to inform members about organisational objectives and the people might face lack of commitment to achieve the objectives. Poor collaboration can bring conflict between member’s personal goal and team goal. As stated by Escartin et al. (2013, p.186), during the meetings, the silence of one team members, false consensus and failure to address the issue of the organisation can bring problem for the organisation in working as a group. The leaders of the organisations need to have the ability to resolve the conflict; however, their inability to do so, can heighten the tension. In this situation, the team members can indulge in personal attacks and aggressive gestures. Moreover, the group members may fail to complete the tasks within the deadline and the team members may not be supportive, therefore, lack of participation is another issue from the team members’ side.
Emotional Intelligence and Work Group Management
The team members within an organisation must work harmoniously in order to be productive. Just being in a team will not bring productivity, motivation, team work, leadership and direction to the work is needed. The work groups must have a direction to work for objectives set by the leaders. According to Boekhorst (2015, p.250), it is reasonable to expect that employees must have a certain level of autonomy to prioritise the works appropriately. The leaders can give appropriate training for the employees to make the employees suitable on the basis of organisational requirement. Insufficient training can lead to error and work groups can become anxious. Additionally, group members need to maintain the work-life balance as, after working life, the employees must have a personal life. If the members of a team are facing the pressure where they have to sacrifice their personal space, productivity issue can arise from this as well. Moreover, the team leaders must have realistic expectation from the team and motivate the team in every situation. Motivation in a workplace is of two types, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivations are money, praise, fame, bonus, recognition and rewards whereas, intrinsic motivations are interests, pride, curiosity, emotion and achievement (Tanabe et al. 2015, p.45).
One of the main advantages of working in a group is that it can help to raise the output of the work. If the work group works harmoniously using their skills and quality, the organisation can move farther. This can guarantee the productivity without compromising the communication (Wood et al. 2016, p.45). On the other side, equal participation is needed within a group; however, some of the employees work hard, whereas, some work less. This inequality can create an issue within a group as some of the people work hard, however, the whole team gets acknowledged for the outcome of the work. In addition, when the team works hard to get a better result, it increases the resources alongside (Frederick, 2014, p.654). The total ability of the team increases with enhancing the experiences of the members. Skills, experiences, individual working, team working and leadership can increase the organisational resources. On the other side, as pointed out by (Boekhorst, 2015, p.245), intrinsic conflict within a group can bring conflict. The team leaders must communicate well to increase the sense of trust and friendship between members. Disagreement on a certain issue is acceptable; however, if it continues longer, it can difficult to accept this within a team. Furthermore, team working helps members to learn new things always and when people share their experiences in a team, it helps other to rich with knowledge.
Work in a group provides an option to learn from each member and it is better than theoretical knowledge. Each one of the employees has the opportunity to know new methods of working. If the group is large, people may come up with new innovative ideas and this may help the team to complete the work successfully. Within a work group, exchanging information helps the team to gain knowledge and group can come out of the illusion. On the other side, the employees within a team may have the individual thinking and if the team member turns out to be rigid and does not want to listen to others, this can create a disadvantage for the team (Kalliath et al. 2013, p.67). Each suggestion and idea might be refused from the rigid member and decision-making ability of the team members must be good enough to understand the demand of the team. In this regard, some of the employees within a team are lazy and they avoid the work deliberately. It may take some time for the leader to identify the lazy team members and the team members try to motivate the members to make them part of the team.
Social-Cognitive Theory and Work Group Dynamics
In order to make the work group productive, the leaders cannot let this responsibility vested upon the members. Leaders need to be clear and specific when they preach any solution to the members and it is the responsibility of the leaders to be expressive to understand the issue of the team members. If the verbal expression is not enough, the leaders can take the motivational strategies and express the organisation’s expectation (Chumg et al. 2016, p.436). It is needed to be specific from the leaders’ side about what they want from the members. The leaders can take the strategy of supporting the innovation of the members of the group. Innovation within a group in working can resolve the boredom of the employees and it can bring the outcome of the work. In addition, putting the employees within a group needs simply a discussion about the success factors to achieve the objectives. If the members do the work using their own version, it is needed to teach them how to work. As stated by Hogg and Terry (2014, p.23), supporting innovation helps to remain innovative and flexible within a team and it can also bring creativity to a group. Ideas can flow with the team easily if the leaders communicate effectively. In order to make the bond within the group, the management can take the strategy of intranet software where members can chat and share their feelings. It will allow the team members to be productive and they can see others’ productivity as well. This strategy can increase the communication within the team and it can also increase the motivation of the employees. The team leaders can take the employees out for an informal meeting where the members can have lunch together and these informal meetings can make the bonding deeper and it can increase the trust of the members. Idle sitting cannot increase the bonding of the members; therefore, team leaders have to take some strategy in order to increase the work groups’ motivation, communication that can lead to productivity. As opined by Simmonds et al. (2015, p.22), the management team of Intel organisation encourages the regular breaks as well as informal brainstorming sessions in order to celebrate any success of the team.
Leadership matters a lot when it comes to the matter of work groups as it is needed from the leaders to take the initiative in order to help the new members to gel up within the team. Innovation within the work group can come from inspiration and leaders can set the example for the members (Mesmer-Mangus et al. 2017, p.509). The strongest and charismatic leaders must lead the work group setting goals, roles of the team members and set the priorities. The motivation from the leaders makes the employees motivated to achieve the personal best with aligning the strategic goals of the organisation. Leaders’ vision is important as they set the clear idea for the team and the attitude of the team depends on the accomplishing the strategic goals. In order to increase the productivity, the organisations need to hire the right people with particular skills of the employees to help them in meeting the goals. Leaders expect that employees must ask the right questions at an appropriate time and the members who have intrinsic motivation will eventually retain within the organisation. The members must have a tendency of learning always as the practical skills of the employees can encourage other employees to teach something new (Christina et al. 2017, p.170).
Common Issues in Managing Work Groups and Strategies to Address Them
When working in a team, it is necessary that members must have an idea what the management and leaders want from them. The most important benefit that the work group gives is the idea generation as each of the employees have different thought process. In addition, members of the work group may get rigid in taking a decision that can adhere to decision making. Team members may get indulged in repetitive argument rather than provide something new light over the issue as leaders might fail to build up a perfect communication channel for the employees. There is always scope to innovative within a team that employees can tend to brainstorm with the ideas. Working in a team provides the learning experiences for the members and leaders must arrange the scenario for the members, it helps the members become knowledgeable. The leaders need to enhance the communication within the group to engage the people in activities and sharing the information.
Leaders can enhance the chance to the employees to share the workload with the members. When a project runs within an organisation, the project loads can be shared equally. Leaders can work as a support system and leaders must find a sense of belonging that can contribute the job satisfaction to both leaders and members of a team. Hence, in order to work as a group within a workplace, it is needed to take a stand from the side of leaders and management to support the work groups to motivate, communicate, share the workload, increase knowledge and learn something new to increase the productivity. Productivity shows up the end outcome of the team and well-managed group working can avoid irrational decisions and take risk of becoming overwhelmed.
Reference List
Benne, K.D. & Sheats, P., 2016. Functional roles of group members. Journal of social issues, vol.4, no.2, pp.41-49.
Boekhorst, J.A., 2015. The role of authentic leadership in fostering workplace inclusion: A social information processing perspective. Human Resource Management, vol.54, no.2, pp.241-264.
Christina, S., Dainty, A., Daniels, K. & Waterson, P., 2014. How organisational behaviour and attitudes can impact building energy use in the UK retail environment: a theoretical framework. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, vol.10, no.1-2, pp.164-179.
Chumg, H.F., Seaton, J., Cooke, L. & Ding, W.Y., 2016. Factors affecting employees’ knowledge-sharing behaviour in the virtual organisation from the perspectives of well-being and organisational behaviour. Computers in Human Behavior, vol.64, pp.432-448.
Coccia, M., 2014. Structure and organisational behaviour of public research institutions under unstable growth of human resources. International Journal of Services Technology and Management, vol.20, no.4-6, pp. 251-266.
Escartín, J., Ullrich, J., Zapf, D., Schlüter, E. & Van Dick, R., 2013. Individual?and group?level effects of social identification on workplace bullying. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol.22, no.2, pp.182-193.
Frederick, P.R.H., 2014. Organisational Behaviour and its Role in Management of Business. Global Journal of Finance and Management, vol.6, no.6, pp.563-568.
Hogg, M.A. & Terry, D.J. 2014. Social identity processes in organizational contexts. London: Psychology Press.
Kalliath, T., Brough, P., Manimala, M., Siu, O.L. & Parker, S., 2013. Organisational behaviour: a psychological perspective for the Asia Pacific. Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia.
Mesmer-Magnus, J., Mesmer-Magnus, J., Niler, A.A., Niler, A.A., Plummer, G., Plummer, G., Larson, L.E., Larson, L.E., DeChurch, L.A. & DeChurch, L.A., 2017. The cognitive underpinnings of effective teamwork: a continuation. Career Development International, vol.22, no.5, pp.507-519.
Salanova, M., Rodríguez-Sánchez, A.M., Schaufeli, W.B. & Cifre, E., 2014. Flowing together: A longitudinal study of collective efficacy and collective flow among workgroups. The Journal of psychology, vol.148, no.4, pp.435-455.
Simmonds, R., Glogowska, M., McLachlan, S., Cramer, H., Sanders, T., Johnson, R., Kadam, U., Lasserson, D. & Purdy, S., 2015. Unplanned admissions and the organisational management of heart failure: a multicentre ethnographic, qualitative study. BMJ open, vol.5, no.10, p.22.
Tanabe, S.I., Haneda, M. & Nishihara, N., 2015. Workplace productivity and individual thermal satisfaction. Building and Environment, vol.91, pp.42-50.
Tuckman, B.W. & Jensen, M.A.C., 1977. Stages of small-group development revisited. Group & Organization Studies, vol.2, no.4, pp.419-427.
Wood, J.M., Zeffane, R.M., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R., Factor, A., McKeown, T., Schermerhorn, J.R., Hunt, J.G. & Osborn, R.N., 2016. Organisational behaviour: Core concepts and applications. Sydney: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
