Download Chapter 10 - Improving Performance through Empowerment

Chapter 10
Improving Performance Through Empowerment,
Teamwork, and Communication
1
Describe why & how organizations
empower employees.
2
Distinguish among the five types of
teams in the workplace.
Describe the factors that cause
6 conflict in teams and how to
manage conflict.
7 Explain the importance and
process of effective
communication.
Identify the characteristics of an
3
effective team.
8 Compare the different types of
4 Summarize the stages of team
9 Explain external
development.
5
Relate cohesiveness and norms to
effective team performance.
communication.
communication and how
to manage a public crisis.
EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES
Empowerment Giving employees authority and responsibility to make decisions
about their work without traditional managerial approval and control.
Sharing Information and Decision-Making Authority
• Ways to empower employees:
• Keeping them informed about company’s financial performance.
• Giving them broad authority to make workplace decisions that implement a
firm’s vision and its competitive strategy.
Linking Rewards to Company Performance
Employee Stock Ownership Plans
• 10 million workers at 11,500 companies participate.
• Gives employees ownership, motivating them to work
smarter and harder.
• Studies show profits rise an average 14 percent in companies
with ESOPs.
Stock Options
• Right to buy a specified amount of company stock at a given
price within a given time period.
• Being offered more and more to employees at all different
levels.
• Still, one-third of all options go to the top five executives
at a firm.
TEAMS
Team Group of employees who are committed to a common purpose, approach,
and set of performance goals.
• Hold selves mutually responsible and accountable for accomplishing
objectives.
• Ability to work on teams often emphasized during the hiring process.
Work team A group of people with complementary skills who are committed to
a common purpose.
• Two-thirds of U.S. firms currently use them.
Work team A group of people with complementary skills
who are committed to a common purpose.
Problem-solving team A temporary combination of
workers who gather to solve a specific problem and
then disband.
Self-managed team A work team empowered with the
authority to decide how its members complete their daily tasks.
Cross-functional team A team made up of members from different functions,
such as production, marketing, and finance.
Virtual team Group of geographically or organizationally dispersed co-workers
who use a combination of telecommunications and information technologies to
accomplish an organizational task.
TEAM CHARACTERISTICS
Team Size
• Can range widely, but most have fewer than 12 members.
• Research says ideal size is often six or seven members.
Team Level and Team Diversity
Team level Average level of ability, experience, personality, or any other factor
on a team.
Team diversity Variances or differences in ability, experience, personality, or any
other factor on a team.
Stages of Team Development
Forming
• Orientation period during which team members get to know
each other and find out what behaviors are acceptable to
the group.
Storming
• Members clarify their roles and expectations; conflicts occur.
Norming
• Members resolve differences among them, accept each other, and reach broad
agreement about the roles of the team leader and other participants.
Performing
• Members focus on solving problems and accomplishing tasks at the performing
stage.
Adjourning
• Team disbands at the adjourning stage after members have completed
their assigned task or solved the problem.
Team Cohesiveness and Norms
Team cohesiveness Extent to which team members feel attracted to the team
and motivated to remain part of it.
• Typically increases when members interact frequently, share common
attitudes and goals, and enjoy being together.
• Cohesive teams quickly achieve high levels of performance and consistently
perform better.
Team norm Informal standard of conduct shared by team members that guides
their behavior.
• Can be positive or negative.
Team Conflict
Conflict Antagonistic interaction in which one party
attempts to thwart the intentions or goals of another.
• Cognitive conflict focuses on problem-related differences
of opinion
• Reconciling these differences strongly improves team
performance.
• Affective conflict refers to the emotional reactions that
can occur when disagreements become personal rather
than professional.
• Strongly decreases team performance.
• Team leaders should facilitate good communication so that teammates
respect each other and work cooperatively.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE
COMMUNICATION
Communication Meaningful exchange of information through messages.
• Managers spend 80 percent of their time in direct communication with others.
• Company recruiters rate effective communication as the most important skill
they’re looking for in hiring new college graduates.
Find out more about Effective Communication.
The Process of Communication
• Sender encodes a message and sends it through a communication carrier, or
channel.
• Audience receives and decodes the message, interpreting its meaning.
• Audience encodes feedback.
• Sender uses feedback to determine whether the audience has correctly
interpreted the intended meaning of the message.
• Noise is any interference that influences the transmission of messages and
feedback.
• All communication occurs in a situational or cultural context.
• Communication in low-context cultures tends to
rely on explicit written and verbal messages.
• U.S., Switzerland, Germany, Austria
• Communication in high-context cultures depends
not only on the message itself but also on the
conditions that surround it, including nonverbal cues,
past and present experiences, and personal
relationships between the parties.
• Japan, Latin America, India
Basic Forms of Communication
Listening Receiving a message and interpreting its intended meaning by grasping
the facts and feelings it convey.
• Common listening behaviors:
• Cynical listening Receiver of a message feels that the sender is trying to gain
some advantage from the communication.
• Offensive listening Receiver tries to catch the speaker in a mistake or
contradiction.
• Polite listening Receiver listens mechanically to be polite rather than to
communicate.
• Active listening Requires involvement with the information and empathy
with the speaker’s situation; the basis for effective communication.
Grapevine Internal information channel that transmits information from
unofficial source.
EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION: CRISIS
MANAGEMENT
External communication Meaningful exchange of information through messages
transmitted between an organization and its major audiences.
• Uses include:
• Keep operations functioning
• Maintain position in the marketplace
• Build customer relationships by supplying information about topics such as
product modifications and price changes.
• Steps for dealing with a public crisis
• Respond quickly when a crisis occurs and with a prepared statement.
• Put top company management in front of the press as soon as possible.
• Stick to facts when answering reporters’ questions
• If you don’t know the answer to a question, offer to find out.
• Never say “no comment,” which is perceived as a statement of guilt.
• Identify and speak to your audience.
• Acknowledge problems and explain solutions.