MGMT1135 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Reward System, Mental Models, Social Loafing
Week 8 - Creativity & Teams
Creativity (PROCESS and OUTCOME)
1. Definition: Production of high quality, original and elegant solutions to problems.
2. Implications: A form of performance.It may occur at individual, group or organization
levels.
3. Continuously finding and solving problems and offering new solutions.
a. Iterative process - reflection, action, seeking, feedback
b. Bisociative process - divergent and convergent thinking.
4. Process models
Identification of a problem or opportunity, gathering information, generating ideas,
evaluation of these ideas
Identification of a problem
- Complex, solved in multiple ways
Asking the right question
Creativity as an outcome-
- Production of novel (unique compared to available ideas) and useful (add value) ideas
- Fluency (# ideas generated), Flexibility (# categories), Originality (unique)
What creativity is not
1. Creativity is the process of forming something
2. Innovation is the implementation or production of something new
3. Personality trait - not quality of personality, arises from particular behaviour
4. Art
5. Intelligence - contributes to creativity, however no significant relationship
Teams
1. Definition:
a. A unit of interdependent individuals with complementary skills committed to a
common purpose, set of performance goals and common expectations for
which they hold themselves accountable.
2. Usage:
a. Increase productivity and profits
b. More cooperation
c. Better deal with changes and respond to challenges
Differences of Groups and Teams
Types of Teams
1. Functional - Same functional department
2. Cross-functional - Different functional departments
3. Problem-solving - 5-12 employees from same department to discuss and improve
4. Self-managed - rotate leadership and hold themselves mutually responsible for goals
5. Virtual - use computer technology to tie together physically dispered members
6. Multi-team systems- two or more interdependent teams sharing goals.
Factors affecting team effectiveness
Contextual Factors
Composition
Processes
Adequate resources
Abilities of members
Common purpose
Leadership and structure
Personality
Specific goals
Climate of trust
Allocating roles
Team efficacy
Performance evaluation
Diversity
Team identity
Reward system
Cultural differences
Team cohesion
Sizes of teams
Mental models
Member preference
Conflict levels
Social loafing
Team Context
1. Adequate resources
a. Teams rely on resources.
b. Scarcity of resources directly reduce ability to perform job effectively
2. Leadership and structure
a. Can’t function if they can’t agree on who is to do what
b. Ensure members share workload.
c. Leadership is especially important
3. Climate of trust
a. Trust each other and exhibit trust in leaders
b. When trust each other, willing to take risks and commit to goals and decisions.
4. Performance evaluations and rewards
a. Individual performance may not be as strong as high-performance teams
b. Focusing on hybrid systems - recognize individual members for their
contributions and reward entire group for positive outcomes.
Team Composition
- Job-relevant characteristics
- Personality characteristics
- Diversity
- Separation
- Differences in values, beliefs or attitudes
- Variety
- Differences in source of relevant knowledge or experience
- Disparity
- Differences in proportion of socially valued asset
