Managing groups in a professional organization. Managing a group in an organization
It is difficult to imagine modern management without such a phenomenon as a group. The fact that managing each person personally is an extremely ineffective task has become clear long ago. One of the most important tasks facing the management of the company is the development of effective mechanisms for the activities of associations of people, i.e. groups. It is clear that a well-coordinated group of specialists has a much greater chance of achieving success, in contrast to the situation if each person worked alone.
Diversity of views on a problem, collective attention to detail, reducing the likelihood of making an erroneous decision is just the beginning of the list of benefits of group activity. The diversity of the range of assessments of the situation in this case is incomparably greater than the “black and white palette” of each person individually. Each person is unique and this circumstance gives rise not only to advantages, but also to unpleasant phenomena called conflicts, which, due to their negative nature, reduce the productivity of the entire group. Thus, based on all of the above, we can conclude the following. The key to the success of any group is the skillful use of a balanced combination of positive and negative aspects in the group’s work, as a result of which the group would move along the path of creation, and not vice versa. This is actually the purpose of this work.
1. GROUP AS AN OBJECT OF MANAGEMENT
1.1. Group: concept, main features and characteristics
A person needs communication with his own kind and, apparently, receives joy from such communication. Most of us actively seek interaction with other people. In many cases, our contacts with other people are short and insignificant. However, if two or more people spend enough time in close proximity to each other, they gradually become psychologically aware of each other's existence. The time required for such awareness and the degree of awareness very much depend on the situation and on the nature of the relationship between people. However, the result of such awareness is almost always the same. The awareness that others think about them and expect something from them causes people to change their behavior in some way, thereby confirming the existence of social relationships. When this process occurs, a random collection of people becomes a group.
Each of us belongs to many groups at the same time. We are members of several family groups: our immediate family, the families of grandparents, cousins, in-laws, etc. Most people also belong to several friend groups—a circle of people who see each other fairly regularly. Some groups turn out to be short-lived and their mission is simple. When the mission is completed, or when group members lose interest in it, the group disbands.
According to Marvin Shaw, “a group is two or more persons who interact with each other in such a way that each person influences and is simultaneously influenced by the others.”
Today, people, as a rule, work as part of a group united by some principle, for example, a common territory, profession, social conditions, random circumstances in which they find themselves. The main thing here is inclusion in a certain system of interpersonal relationships. Within groups, coalitions can be formed - subgroups that seek to influence group behavior. A group can act as a managerial, managed or self-governing structure with varying degrees of cohesion among its members. the group must satisfy several criteria, the main one of which can be considered the presence of a common goal among all its members. The latter can be formed as a result of the mutual influence of their individual goals or set from the outside in accordance with the mission of the organization, but it will always be the same for everyone, and not just the same.
Another sign of a group is psychological recognition by its members of each other and identification of themselves with it, which is based on common interests, ideals, principles, similarity or mutual complementarity of characters, temperaments, etc., although these points should not be overestimated.
The group changes a person, as he has to learn to live and work surrounded by other people, adapt his desires, aspirations, and interests to them. In turn, the person also tries to influence her, to make her more “comfortable” for himself.
The result of such influence depends on the strength of both parties. A strong personality can subjugate a group, including as a result of conflict with it; the weak one, on the contrary, submits to it and dissolves within the group.
The ideal situation lies somewhere in the middle and is characterized by a trusting partnership between the group and its members, not giving up their own positions, but respecting common goals and needs.
1.2. Types of groups
The composition of the group can be homogeneous (homogeneous) and heterogeneous (dissimilar). These differences may relate to gender, age, profession, status, level of education, etc.
Heterogeneous groups tend to be more effective at solving complex problems and also at intense creative work. At the same time, homogeneous ones solve simple problems better. In general, an effective team must still consist of dissimilar individuals.
Any group has a certain structure. It can be functional (based on the division of labor and defining the tasks of each); political (in accordance with belonging to certain groups); socio-demographic (by gender, age, education, qualifications, etc.); socio-psychological (in accordance with likes and dislikes); behavioral, determined by activity, etc.; motivational (depending on the driving factors of behavior).
Based on their status, groups can be divided into official and unofficial. The first are legally formalized and operate within the legal framework. The second is based on the desire of people to cooperate with each other.
The nature of internal connections distinguishes between formal and informal groups. Formal relationships are prescribed in advance; informal relationships develop spontaneously.
Based on the duration of their existence, teams are divided into temporary, intended to solve a one-time task, and permanent.
An important feature by which groups can be classified is the degree of freedom provided to their participants. Moreover, it is considered in two aspects: firstly, as freedom to join a group. Secondly, as freedom to actively participate in activities. This allows people to simultaneously be members of several groups and be active primarily where it is most needed at the moment.
By size, groups are divided into small and large, based not on the number of participants, but on the possibility or impossibility of directly maintaining constant connections between members.
Small groups whose members maintain not just direct, but also emotionally charged friendly contacts with each other are called primary. IN primary group people cannot be replaced without destroying it.
Increasing the size of a group affects the behavior of its members. Larger groups are more productive, but there is less agreement between members and less conformity. In such groups, inequality and difficulties in establishing contacts are more likely to be observed. Members of such groups are characterized by low morale, an indifferent attitude, weakened connections, and an unwillingness to cooperate with each other. Therefore, special managers are needed to manage them.
It is easier to turn a small group into a well-interacting whole and introduce self-government.
In secondary groups, which are formed according to a functional-target principle, contacts are substantive, indirect, and determined by the solution of assigned tasks. Therefore, the main importance is attached here not to personal qualities, but to the ability to perform certain functions. If roles are clearly defined, people in the secondary group can be replaced without pain.
A special type of team, characterized by increased unity, particularly close cooperation and coordination, and frequent joint work, is a team. It is created to solve specific problems or perform individual functions, Projects and brings together individuals with diverse knowledge and skills, Gives them the opportunity to learn from each other, and provides mutual support. The team is usually independent from the main team, and sometimes completely autonomous. Exerts pressure on participants and is often conflictual.
Teams are characterized by clear, inspiring goals, an effective structure, particularly high competence of employees, a climate of cooperation, a desire for good work that becomes the norm, external support, universal recognition and patronage of management.
People will work effectively as part of a team if they can fill their preferred roles. Managers' knowledge of these roles allows them to form a team of the right people.
Each group develops a system of social control - a set of ways to influence its members through persuasion, regulations, prohibitions, recognition of merit, etc. Thus. the behavior of team members is brought into line with established values and performance standards. The system of social control is based, firstly, on habits, secondly, on customs, thirdly, on sanctions, fourthly, on formal and informal ways of supervising the behavior and actions of people.
In the life of a group, the psychological aspect of its activities is very important.
Groups differ from each other psychologically, and these differences are manifested in the nature of the internal climate, the state and degree of cohesion of their participants. Let's consider these points in more detail.
The internal psychological climate is the real state of interaction between people as participants in joint activities. It is characterized by employee satisfaction with the organization, working conditions, relationships among themselves and with management, mood, mutual understanding, degree of participation in management and self-government, discipline, group and place in it, and the quality of information received. It largely depends on the degree of compatibility of people.
The importance of a favorable psychological climate can be judged, for example, by the fact that a bad mood reduces the effectiveness of a group’s work by about one and a half times. Since circumstances are amenable to targeted influence, the psychological climate can be shaped and adjusted to a certain extent.
The psychological state of a group is characterized by the degree of satisfaction of its members with their position. It is influenced by the nature and content of the work, people’s attitude towards it, prestige, remuneration, growth prospects, the presence of additional opportunities (to solve some of your own problems, see the world, meet interesting or useful people, become famous), place of implementation, psychological climate . In many ways, the psychological state also depends on the ability of group members to consciously live according to its laws and obey established requirements and orders.
Cohesion is the psychological unity of people in the most important issues in the life of a group, manifested in the attraction of participants to it, the desire to protect and preserve it. Cohesion is determined by the need for mutual assistance or support for each other in achieving certain goals, mutual emotional preferences, and understanding of the role of the collective principle in providing certain guarantees. The degree of cohesion depends on the size of the group, the social homogeneity of its members (with heterogeneity, groups arise), the successes achieved, and the presence of external danger.
In close-knit groups there is closer communication, higher self-esteem of the individual, but there is a hostile attitude towards outsiders, arrogance, loss of criticality and sense of reality, like-mindedness, a sense of invulnerability, self-confidence, and filtering of information.
Disagreements among a close-knit team usually arise not over goals, but over the means of achieving them; for a person who is not united, on all issues, which negatively affects relationships and sooner or later leads to disintegration.
Close-knit teams are characterized by organization - the ability and readiness to independently overcome emerging difficulties and coordinated actions; unity in extreme situations.
The cohesion of the team and people’s satisfaction with their stay in it also depend on their psychological and socio-psychological compatibility. The basis of such compatibility is the correspondence of team members’ temperaments, professional and moral qualities.
The conditions ensuring socio-psychological compatibility are:
the correspondence of each person’s personal capabilities to the structure and content of his activity, which ensures its normal course, the absence of envy in relation to the successes of others;
proximity or coincidence of moral positions, creating the basis for the emergence of mutual trust between people;
homogeneity of the main motives of activity and individual aspirations of team members, promoting better mutual understanding;
the possibility of real mutual complementation and organic compound everyone’s abilities in a single labor and creative process;
rational distribution of functions between team members, in which none of them can achieve success at the expense of the other.
The result of team cohesion is improved individual adaptation to others and more active involvement of people in its activities.
1.3. Formal groups
Based on Shaw's definition, an organization of any size can be considered to consist of several groups. Management creates groups of its own free will when it divides labor horizontally (divisions) and vertically (levels of management). In each of the many departments of a large organization, there may be a dozen levels of management. For example, production at a factory can be divided into smaller units - machining, painting, assembly. These productions, in turn, can be divided further. For example, production personnel involved in machining can be divided into 3 different teams of 10–16 people, including a foreman. Thus, a large organization may consist of literally hundreds or even thousands of small groups.
These groups, created by the will of management to organize the production process, are called formal groups. However small they may be, they are formal organizations whose primary function in relation to the organization as a whole is to perform specific tasks and achieve specific, specific goals.
There are three main types of formal groups in an organization: leadership groups; production groups; committees.
The command (subordinate) group of a leader consists of a leader and his immediate subordinates, who, in turn, can also be leaders. The company president and senior vice presidents are a typical team group. Another example of a command subordinate group is the aircraft commander, co-pilot and flight engineer.
The second type of formal group is a working (target) group. It usually consists of individuals working together on the same task. Although they have a common leader, these groups differ from a command group in that they have significantly more autonomy in planning and executing their work. Working (target) groups are composed of such famous companies like Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Texas Instruments and General Motors. More than two-thirds of Texas Instruments' 89,000-plus employees are members of task forces. For increasing the overall efficiency of the company, they can receive a 15 percent bonus to their budget. In this company, management believes that task forces break down barriers of mistrust between managers and workers. In addition, by giving workers the opportunity to think about and solve their own production problems, they can meet the needs of higher-level workers.
The third type of formal group is the committee.
All team and work groups, as well as committees, must work effectively as a single, well-coordinated team. There is no longer any need to prove that effective management of every formal group within an organization is critical. These interdependent groups are the blocks that form the organization as a system. The organization as a whole will be able to effectively fulfill its global challenges only on the condition that the tasks of each of its structural divisions are defined in such a way as to ensure the activities of each other. In addition, the group as a whole influences the behavior of the individual. Thus, the better a manager understands what a group is and the factors behind its effectiveness, and the better he masters the art of effectively managing a group, the more likely he is to improve the productivity of that unit and the organization as a whole.
1.4. Informal groups
Despite the fact that informal organizations are not created at the will of management, they are a powerful force that, under certain conditions, can actually become dominant in the organization and nullify the efforts of management. Moreover, informal organizations tend to interpenetrate. Some managers often do not realize that they themselves belong to one or more of these informal organizations.
The study of informal groups began with a famous series of experiments conducted by Elton Mayo. Although not perfect, these experiments had an impact on managers' understanding of behavioral factors.
An informal organization is a spontaneously formed group of people who interact regularly to achieve a specific goal. Like formal organizations, these goals are the reason for the existence of such an informal organization. It is important to understand that in a large organization there is more than one informal organization. Most of them are loosely connected in some kind of network. Therefore, some authors believe that an informal organization is essentially a network of informal organizations. The work environment is particularly favorable for the formation of such groups. Because of the formal structure of an organization and its mission, the same people tend to come together every day, sometimes for many years. People who would otherwise be unlikely to even meet are often forced to spend more time with their colleagues than with their own family. Moreover, the nature of the tasks they solve in many cases forces them to communicate and interact with each other frequently. Members of the same organization depend on each other in many ways. The natural result of this intense social interaction is the spontaneous emergence of informal organizations.
2. The process of forming an effective group
An efficient, cohesive group does not arise immediately; it is preceded by a long process of its formation and development, the success of which is determined by a number of circumstances that have little to do with whether it develops spontaneously or is formed consciously and purposefully.
First of all, we are talking about clear and understandable goals for the upcoming activity, corresponding to the internal aspirations of people, for the sake of achieving which they are ready to completely or partially give up freedom of decisions and actions and submit to group power.
To others an important condition successful formation of a group is the presence of certain, even minor, achievements in the process of joint activity, clearly demonstrating its clear advantages over individual ones.
Another condition for the success of an official group is a strong leader, and an unofficial one is a leader to whom people are ready to obey and go towards their goal.
Finally, each group must find its place, its “niche” in the formal or informal structure of the organization, where it can fully realize its goals and capabilities and does not prevent others from doing so.
For an unofficial group, a “birthday” is usually some extraordinary event or the achievement of a certain limit in the development of a situation. It generates a surge of emotions that pushes people to unite with each other. Usually we are talking about feelings of fear, protest, desire to protect oneself, one’s position, one’s status in the organization.
Management theorists have devoted much time to defining the ideal group size. Authors of the administrative management school believed that the formal group should be relatively small. According to Ralph K. Davis, the ideal group should consist of 3-9 people. His opinion is shared by Keith Davis, a modern theorist who has spent many years studying groups. He believes that the preferred number of group members is 5 people. Research shows that in fact, between 5 and 8 people attend group meetings.
Some studies suggest that groups with between 5 and 11 members tend to make more accurate decisions than those larger than that. Research has also shown that groups of 5 people tend to experience greater satisfaction than those in larger or smaller groups. The explanation for this seems to be that in groups of 2 or 3 people, members may be concerned that their personal responsibility for decisions is too obvious. On the other hand, in groups of more than 5 people, its members may experience difficulty and timidity in expressing their opinions in front of others.
Any relationship between people begins to develop as a result of technical contacts and observations, during which people accumulate information about each other, which serves as the basis for mutual interest, sympathy or, conversely, antipathy. Sympathy is an unconscious, irrational attitude of affection towards another person. People who like each other work more cooperatively and effectively.
The emergence of sympathy and antipathy is determined by patterns of perception, the degree of coincidence or divergence of basic life interests, goals and values (people, naturally, sympathize with those who share their views and positions, are nearby, jointly participate in solving difficult problems, but hardly anyone will have good feelings towards competitors), general demeanor. Based on sympathy, certain fairly permanent relationships often arise. If groups are formed “from above” and the basis of relations is coercion, they will be ineffective, since they may be “mixed” with antipathy.
Therefore, at present, Western companies often practice a method of creating work collectives, which is based on the voluntary choice of partners from persons with whom a person has communicated for a predetermined time, as a result of which a strong sympathy arises for some of them, antipathy for others, and -indifference.
Formed likes and dislikes are transformed into preferences, reflecting the desire or unwillingness of others to cooperate with a given person. They make it possible to identify so-called reference groups (individuals), whose norms of behavior, views and interests are accepted as a standard of behavior, to which most people are drawn, to whom they are guided and, most importantly, with whom they strive to cooperate. As a rule, a group formed on the basis of personal sympathies works more efficiently than one formed arbitrarily.
After the emergence of a group, there goes a long process of its organization or self-organization (if we are talking about an informal group), consisting of several stages. At the first stage, individualism predominates in people's behavior. They get to know each other, observe those around them and demonstrate to them their own capabilities. Many people take a wait-and-see attitude, avoid hostility, observe, and analyze.
At the second stage, people come together, the necessary contacts are established between them and common norms of behavior are formed that strengthen the group, as well as attempts to establish priorities and seize power arise.
At the third stage, the group is stabilized, joint goals and norms are formed, and reliable cooperation is established, allowing for guaranteed results.
Subsequently, as the group matures, it can handle increasingly complex tasks, and the trust that exists between people allows it to function on the principles of self-government. When completing a task or when several people leave key figures the group reorganizes or disbands.
At the same time, any group faces two serious dangers, one of which is the emergence of “schismatic” groups based on common goals, needs, interests, pursuing narrow selfish goals and seeking to seize power. This is manifested in the so-called groupism, characterized by the fact that groups become isolated, do not pay attention to the needs and requirements of others, are uncritical of themselves and their role in the organization, and consider themselves infallible, invulnerable, invincible. Such a team is characterized by unanimity and conformism of its members. Another danger is its bureaucratization, which is based on his desire for a quiet life.
3. Managing informal groups
Informal organizations have much in common with the formal organizations in which they find themselves embedded. They are organized in some ways the same way as formal organizations - they have a hierarchy, leaders and tasks. Emergent organizations also have unwritten rules, called norms, that serve as standards of behavior for members of the organization. These norms are supported by a system of rewards and sanctions. The specificity is that the formal organization is created according to a pre-thought-out plan. Informal organization is more likely a spontaneous reaction to unmet individual needs. Figure 1 shows the difference in the formation mechanisms of formal and informal organizations.
The structure and type of formal organization is determined consciously by management through design, while the structure and type of informal organization arises as a result of social interaction.
Why do people join organizations? People usually know why they join formal organizations. As a rule, they either want to carry out the goals of the organization, or they need rewards in the form of income, or they are driven by considerations of prestige associated with belonging to this organization. People also have reasons for joining groups and informal organizations, but they are often unaware of them. As the Hawthorne experiment showed, belonging to informal groups can provide people with psychological benefits that are no less important to them than the salary they receive. The most important reasons for joining a group are: a sense of belonging, mutual assistance, mutual protection, close communication and interest.
The main reasons people join organizations are: belonging, helping, protecting, communicating, bonding and being liked.
The development of informal organizations and the reasons why people join them contribute to the development of characteristics in these organizations that make them both similar and different from formal organizations. Below is short description the main characteristics of informal organizations that are directly related to management, as they have a strong impact on the effectiveness of the formal organization.
Social control. As scientists discovered during the Hawthorne experiment, informal organizations exercise social control over their members. The first step to this is to establish and strengthen norms—group standards for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In order to be accepted by the group and maintain his position in it, an individual must comply with these norms. It is quite natural, for example, that an informal organization has its own clearly defined rules regarding the nature of dress, behavior and acceptable types of work. To reinforce compliance with these norms, the group may impose fairly harsh sanctions, and those who violate them may face exclusion. This is a strong and effective punishment when a person depends on an informal organization to meet his social needs (which happens quite often).
Social control exercised by an informal organization can influence and guide the achievement of the goals of a formal organization. It can also influence opinions about managers and the fairness of their decisions.
Resistance to change. People can also use informal organization to discuss proposed or actual changes that may occur in their department or organization. In informal organizations there is a tendency to resist change. This is partly due to the fact that change may pose a threat to the continued existence of the informal organization. Reorganization, implementation new technology, expansion of production and, consequently, the emergence of a large group of new employees, etc. may lead to the disintegration of an informal group or organization, or to a reduction in opportunities for interaction and satisfaction of social needs. Sometimes such changes can enable specific groups to achieve position and power.
Because people react not to what is objectively happening, but to what they perceive is happening, a proposed change may seem much more dangerous to the group than it actually is. For example, a group of middle managers may resist the introduction of computer technology out of fear that the technology will take away their jobs just when management is about to expand their areas of expertise.
Resistance will arise whenever group members perceive change as a threat to the continued existence of their group as such, their shared experience, the satisfaction of social needs, common interests, or positive emotions. Management can reduce this resistance by allowing and encouraging subordinates to participate in decision making.
Informal leaders. Just like formal organizations, informal ones have their own leaders. An informal leader gains his position by seeking and exercising power over group members, much as a leader of a formal organization does. There are essentially no major differences in the means used by leaders of formal and informal organizations to exert influence. The only significant difference between them is that the leader of a formal organization has support in the form of official powers delegated to him and usually acts in the specific functional area assigned to him. The support of an informal leader is his recognition by the group. In his actions, he relies on people and their relationships. The sphere of influence of an informal leader may extend beyond the administrative boundaries of the formal organization. Despite the fact that the informal leader is also one of the members of the management staff of a formal organization, very often he occupies a relatively low level in the organizational hierarchy there.
Significant factors that determine the opportunity to become a leader of an informal organization include: age, position, professional competence, location of the workplace, freedom of movement in the work area and responsiveness. The exact characteristics are determined by the value system adopted in the group. For example, in some informal organizations old age may be considered a positive characteristic, while in others it is the opposite.
The informal leader has two primary functions: to help the group achieve its goals and to support and strengthen its existence. Sometimes these functions are performed by different people. If this is so, then two leaders emerge in an informal group: one to carry out the group's goals, the other to facilitate social interaction.
It is important that leaders understand that informal organizations interact dynamically with formal ones. One of the first to pay attention to this factor, as well as the formation of informal organizations, was George Homans, a theorist in the field of group studies. In the Homans Model (see Fig. 2.), activities are understood as tasks performed by people. In the process of performing these tasks, people interact, which, in turn, contributes to the emergence of feelings - positive and negative emotions towards each other and their superiors. These emotions influence how people will carry out their activities and interact in the future.
In addition to demonstrating how informal organizations emerge from the process of management (the delegation of tasks that generate interaction), it shows the need to manage an informal organization. Because group emotions influence both tasks and interactions, they can also influence the effectiveness of the formal organization. Depending on the nature of emotions (favorable or unfavorable), they can lead to either an increase or decrease in efficiency, absenteeism, staff turnover, complaints and other phenomena that are important for assessing the organization’s performance. Therefore, even if a formal organization is not created at the will of management and is not under its complete control, it always needs to be effectively managed so that it can achieve its goals.
One of the biggest and most common difficulties that hinders the effective management of groups and informal organizations is the initially low opinion of leaders about them. Some managers stubbornly continue to believe that informal organization is the result of ineffective management. In essence, the emergence of informal organizations is a natural and very common phenomenon - they exist in every organization. Like many other factors operating in the field of management, they carry both negative and positive aspects.
Indeed, some informal groups may behave unproductively in ways that interfere with the achievement of formal goals. False rumors can be spread through informal channels, leading to negative attitudes towards management. The norms adopted by the group may cause the organization's productivity to be lower than that determined by management. The tendency to resist any change and the tendency to preserve ingrained stereotypes can delay the necessary modernization of production. However, such counterproductive behavior is often a reaction to the attitude of superiors towards this group. Rightly or wrongly, group members believe that they are being treated unfairly and respond as any person would respond to something that seems unfair to them.
Such instances of backlash sometimes prevent managers from seeing the many potential benefits of informal organizations. Since being a member of a group requires working for the organization, loyalty to the group can translate into loyalty to the organization. Many people turn down higher-paying positions at other companies because they don't want to break the social connections they have made at that company. The goals of the group may coincide with the goals of the formal organization, and the performance standards of the informal organization may exceed the norms of the formal organization. For example, strong spirit collectivism, characteristic of some organizations and generating a strong desire for success, often grows from informal relationships and involuntary actions of management. Even informal communication channels can sometimes help a formal organization by complementing the formal communication system.
By failing to find ways to effectively engage with informal organizations, or by trying to suppress them, managers often miss out on these potential benefits. In any case, regardless of whether an informal organization is harmful or useful, it exists, and it must be taken into account, even if the leadership destroys some group, another will certainly arise in its place, which, perhaps, will have a deliberately negative attitude towards management.
Earlier writers thought they knew how to deal with informal organization—they just had to destroy it. Today's theorists believe that informal organization can help a formal organization achieve its goals. Scott and Davis propose to solve this issue as follows:
1. Recognize the existence of an informal organization and realize that its destruction will entail the destruction of the formal organization. Therefore, management should recognize the informal organization, work with it and not threaten its existence.
2. Listen to the opinions of members and leaders of informal groups. Developing this idea, Davis writes: “Every leader should know who the leaders are in each informal group and work with them, encouraging those who do not interfere with, but contribute to the achievement of the organization's goals. When an informal leader opposes his employer, his widespread influence can undermine the motivation and job satisfaction of employees in a formal organization.”
3. Before taking any action, consider its possible negative impact on the informal organization.
4. To reduce informal resistance to change, allow the group to participate in decision making.
5. Provide accurate information quickly, thereby preventing the spread of rumors.
4. MANAGING FORMAL GROUPS
In addition to the challenge of managing informal organizations to harness their potential benefits and reduce negative impacts, management must also improve the effectiveness of command teams and committees. Because these groups are an intentionally created component of the formal organization, much of what is true for managing an organization is also true for them. Like the entire organization, groups require planning, organization, motivation, and control to function effectively.
Let us dwell on one of the aspects of the functioning of a small group, which, in the opinion of many managers, is the most difficult, namely, increasing the efficiency of meetings where problems are solved and decisions are made. Depending on the characteristics of the group and the way it is led, a meeting can be an exercise in futility or an extremely effective tool where talent, experience and the ability to generate new ideas come together. Before we present some specific guidelines on how to make a meeting effective, let us first look at the general factors that influence group effectiveness.
The group will be able to more or less effectively achieve its goals depending on the influence the following factors: size, composition, group norms, cohesion, conflict, status and functional role of its members.
Size. Management theorists have devoted much time to defining the ideal group size. Authors of the administrative management school believed that the formal group should be relatively small. According to Ralph K. Davis, the ideal group should consist of 3-9 people. His opinion is shared by Keith Davis, a modern theorist who has spent many years studying groups. He believes that the preferred number of group members is 5 people. Research shows that in fact, between 5 and 8 people attend group meetings.
Some studies suggest that groups with between 5 and 11 members tend to make more accurate decisions than those larger than that. Research has also shown that groups of 5 people tend to experience greater satisfaction than those in larger or smaller groups. The explanation for this seems to be that in groups of 2 or 3 people, members may be concerned that their personal responsibility for decisions is too obvious. On the other hand, in groups of more than 5 people, its members may experience difficulty and shyness in expressing their opinions in front of others.
In general, as a group increases in size, communication among its members becomes more complex and it becomes more difficult to reach agreement on issues related to the group's activities and tasks. Increasing group size also increases the tendency for groups to split informally into subgroups, which can lead to conflicting goals and the formation of cliques.
Compound. Composition here refers to the degree of similarity of personalities and points of view, approaches that they show in solving problems. An important reason for bringing an issue to a group decision is to use different positions to find the optimal solution. It is therefore not surprising that research recommends that a group be made up of dissimilar individuals, as this promises greater effectiveness than if group members have similar points of view. Some people pay more attention to the important details of projects and problems, while others want to look at the big picture, some want to approach the problem from a systemic perspective and look at the interrelationships of various aspects. According to Miner, when “groups are selected to include either very similar or very different people, groups with different points of view produce more high-quality solutions. Multiple points of view and perspectives pay dividends.”
Group norms. As early group researchers discovered, in work groups, the norms adopted by the group have a strong influence on the behavior of the individual and on the direction in which the group will work: to achieve the goals of the organization or to counter them. Norms are designed to tell group members what kind of behavior and work is expected of them. Norms have such a strong influence because only if their actions are consistent with these norms can an individual count on belonging to a group, its recognition and support. This applies to both informal and formal organizations.
From the perspective of an organization, we can say that norms can be positive and negative. Positive norms are those that support the goals and objectives of the organization and encourage behavior aimed at achieving those goals. Negative norms have the opposite effect: they encourage behavior that does not contribute to achieving the goals of organizations. Norms that reward workers' diligence, commitment to the organization, concern for product quality, or concern for customer satisfaction are positive norms. An example of negative norms are norms that encourage unconstructive criticism of the company, theft, absenteeism, and low levels of productivity.
There is the following classification of group norms: 1) pride in the organization; 2) achieving goals; 3) profitability; 4) collective work; 5) planning; 6) control; 7) professional training personnel; 8) innovations; 9) relations with the customer; 10) protection of integrity.
Leaders should make judgments about group norms with caution. For example, a group of lower-level managers who believe in always agreeing with their superiors may appear to exhibit a high degree of loyalty. However, in reality, such a norm will lead to the suppression of very beneficial initiatives and opinions for the organization. Such suppression of important information can reduce the effectiveness of decisions.
Cohesion. Group cohesion is a measure of the attraction of group members to each other and to the group. A highly cohesive group is a group whose members feel strongly attracted to each other and consider themselves similar. Because a cohesive group works well as a team, high level cohesion can improve the effectiveness of the entire organization if the goals of both are consistent with each other. Highly cohesive groups tend to have fewer communication problems, and those that do occur are less severe than others. They have less misunderstandings, tension, hostility and mistrust, and their productivity is higher than in disjointed groups. But if the goals of the group and the entire organization are not aligned, then a high degree of cohesion will negatively affect productivity throughout the organization.
Management may find it possible to increase the positive effects of cohesion by holding periodic meetings and emphasizing the overall goals of the group, and by allowing each member to see his or her contribution to achieving those goals. Management can also strengthen cohesion by allowing subordinates to meet periodically to discuss potential or current problems, the impact of upcoming changes on production activities, as well as new projects and priorities in the future.
A potential negative consequence of high cohesion is group like-mindedness.
Group unanimity is the tendency of an individual to suppress his actual views on some phenomenon in order not to disturb the harmony of the group. Group members believe that disagreement undermines their sense of belonging and therefore disagreement should be avoided. In order to preserve what is understood as agreement and harmony among group members, a group member decides that it is better not to express his opinion. In an atmosphere of group like-mindedness, the primary task for an individual is to stay on the same line in a discussion, even if he or she has different information or beliefs. This tendency is self-reinforcing. Since no one expresses different opinions from others or offers different, opposing information or point of view, everyone assumes that everyone else thinks alike. Since no one speaks up, no one knows that other members may also be skeptical or concerned. As a result, the problem is solved less effectively because all the necessary information and alternative solutions are not discussed and evaluated. When there is group consensus, the likelihood of a mediocre decision that will not affect anyone increases.
Conflict. It was mentioned earlier that differences of opinion usually lead to more effective group performance. However, it also increases the likelihood of conflict. While active exchange of ideas is beneficial, it can also lead to intragroup arguments and other forms of open conflict, which are always detrimental.
Group member status. An individual's status in an organization or group can be determined by a number of factors, including seniority in the job hierarchy, job title, office location, education, social talents, awareness, and experience. These factors can lead to increases and decreases in status depending on the values and norms of the group. Research has shown that high-status group members are able to exert more influence over group decisions than low-status group members. However, this does not always lead to increased efficiency.
A person who has worked for a company for a short time may have more valuable ideas and better experience regarding a project than a person with high status acquired through many years of work in the management of that company. The same applies to the head of a department, whose status may be lower than the vice president. To accept effective solutions, it is necessary to take into account all information relevant to the issue and weigh all ideas objectively. To function effectively, a group may have to make a concerted effort to ensure that the views of higher status members do not dominate the group.
Roles of group members. A critical factor determining the effectiveness of a group is the behavior of each of its members. For a group to function effectively, its members must behave in ways that promote group goals and social interaction. There are two main types of roles for creating a well-functioning group - goal and support roles.
Target roles are distributed in such a way as to be able to select group tasks and carry them out. Employees performing target roles are characterized by the following functions:
1. Initiation of activity. Offer solutions, new ideas, new formulations of problems, new approaches to solving them, or new organization of material.
2. Search for information. Look for clarification of the proposal put forward, additional information or facts.
3. Gathering opinions. Ask group members to express their views on the issues being discussed and to clarify their values or ideas.
4. Providing information. Provide facts or generalizations to the group, apply your own experience to solve group problems or to illustrate points.
5. Expressing opinions. It is imperative to express opinions or beliefs regarding any proposal with an evaluation of it, and not just report facts.
6. Elaboration. Explain, give examples, develop ideas, try to predict future fate proposal, if accepted.
7. Coordination. Explain the relationships between ideas, try to summarize proposals, try to integrate the activities of different subgroups or group members.
8. Generalization. Relist the proposals after the end of the discussion.
Supportive roles involve behavior that contributes to the maintenance and activation of the life and activities of the group. Employees in support roles perform the following functions:
1. Encouragement. Be friendly, sincere, responsive towards others. Praise others for their ideas, agree with others, and positively evaluate their contributions to solving a problem.
2. Ensure participation. Try to create an environment in which each member of the group can make a proposal. Encourage this, for example, by saying, “We haven't heard from Jim yet,” or offer everyone a specific time limit for speaking so that everyone has the opportunity to speak.
3. Establishing criteria. Establish criteria to guide the group when making substantive or procedural choices or evaluating the group's decision. Remind the group to avoid decisions that are inconsistent with group criteria.
4. Execution. Follow the decisions of the group, being thoughtful about the ideas of other people who make up the audience during group discussions.
5. Expressing the feelings of the group. Summarize what is being formed as a feeling of the group. Describe group members' reactions to ideas and solutions to problems.
Most American managers perform goal roles, while Japanese managers perform goal and support roles. Discussing this issue, Professor Richard Pascal and Professor Anthony Athos state:
“The Japanese are extremely sensitive to group interactions and relationships. Their attitude towards groups is very similar to their attitude towards marriage in Western countries. And, what is especially interesting, the Japanese identify the same problems and concerns in work relationships that we identify in marriage: they relate to trust, mutual assistance and devotion. In the West, work group leaders tend to emphasize production activities and ignore social aspects, while in Japan maintaining the state of satisfaction of work group members goes hand in hand with the fulfillment of goal roles.”
A large proportion of executives' time is spent attending meetings. The effectiveness of meetings is determined by the same factors that determine the effectiveness of the group. Leland Bradford offers the following tips for making meetings more effective.
1. Create a specific meeting agenda and briefly review it before the meeting begins.
2. Ensure free flow of information among group members. This kind of exchange is possible if group members behave in the meeting according to their different roles.
3. Make full use of group members' abilities and encourage their participation. The competence, experience, information and ideas of all group members must be brought to bear to solve the common problem.
4. Create an atmosphere of trust so that group members feel free to openly and tactfully comment on points of view and ideas that they do not share.
5. View conflict as a positive factor and try to manage it effectively.
6. At the end of the meeting, briefly summarize the discussion and identify future activities that are planned to be implemented in light of the decisions made.
Fight against unanimity. A group meeting that seeks to benefit from differences of viewpoints can only be successful if there is no unanimity in the meeting. To reduce the likelihood of unanimity, the presiding officer should:
1. Instill in group members that they can freely provide any information, express any opinions or doubts about any issue under discussion.
2. Assign one member of the group to play the role of “devil’s advocate” - someone who defends a clearly wrong cause.
3. Be able to listen to different points of view and criticism as calmly as constructive comments.
4. Separate the effort of generating ideas from evaluating them: first collect all the proposals, and then discuss the pros and cons of each of them.
5. If subordinates are present at the meeting, listen to their ideas first.
Let us now consider management by committees
A committee is a group within an organization to which authority has been delegated to carry out a task or set of tasks. Committees are sometimes called councils, task forces, commissions, or teams. But in all cases, it implies group decision-making and action, which distinguishes the committee from other organizational structures.
It is said that at least three out of every four jokes about bad management contain the word "committee". And yet the fashion for committees has definitely not passed away and even continues to spread. This is partly because the committee is compatible with any large organizational system, but also because business decisions are increasingly technical in nature. But the main reason that committees have not gone out of fashion is the fact that the correct use of a committee is very effective remedy achieving certain goals. There are two main types of committees: ad hoc and permanent.
A special committee is a temporary group formed to accomplish a specific purpose. The head of a bank branch may form a special committee to identify problems in customer service, as well as alternative ways to correct them. Congress often creates special committees to study special problems or to resolve sensitive issues.
A standing committee is a permanent group within an organization that has a specific purpose. Most often, standing committees are used to provide advice to an organization on issues of enduring importance. A well-known and often cited example of a standing committee is the board of directors. The board of directors of a large company may be divided into standing committees such as the audit committee, finance committee and executive committee. The president of a large company often has committees under his command, such as a policy committee, a planning group, an employee grievance committee, and a salary review committee.
At lower levels of the organization, committees may be formed for purposes such as reducing costs, improving technology and production organization, solving social issues, or improving relations between departments.
In addition to all of the above, many organizations have informal committees. There are groups organized outside of the formal organization to solve problems. For example, four technicians might get together to discuss problems that arise in a laboratory while testing a device or equipment. Like all informal work groups, they can help or hinder the work of a formal organization. In any case, they act only because they themselves have acquired some kind of power, and not because they have authority.
Management delegates authority to a committee in the same manner as it would to an individual. Like individuals, committees must report the performance of their assigned tasks to the person who delegated authority to them. However, since the committee is a group, personal accountability is weakened. In 1986, Bank of America eliminated the authority delegated to loan origination committees in an effort to strengthen the accountability of individual loan officers. Previously, when the committees were in charge of this, Bank of America experienced serious difficulties in issuing loans.
Committees have either line or staff powers. Cabinet of Ministers and Council National Security, for example, are standing committees of the Federal Government with staff powers delegated by the President of the United States and reporting to the President. The board of directors of a corporation is a standing committee with line authority within the organization. The board not only advises the firm's president, but can also take action to implement its decisions through the line organization. When committees have line authority like the Board, this is called "multiple leadership". Large companies sometimes resort to "multiple leadership" in addition to the Board of Directors to formulate and implement major strategic and financial activities.
Like other management tools, a committee will be effective only when all or most of the factors in a given situation dictate the choice of this particular tool. Most management theorists advise resorting to this form of management when a group can do the job better than a single leader, or when the organization puts itself at risk by placing all power in the hands of one person. The following are situations where management by committee may be preferable.
1. When a problem requires a lot of expertise in a particular area, a tool such as a committee can be used to advise the person responsible for the issue to make a decision. In today's complex and rapidly changing environment, it is unlikely that the chief executive of a diversified enterprise will have knowledge of all the factors affecting the organization. Committee members' views on the pros and cons of a new and complex area, especially if the firm has never been involved in it before, can be extremely helpful. Examples of such situations include decisions to enter a new market, create a new product, acquire or merge with another company, find sources of large loans for the development of the company, and make significant changes in company policies to satisfy social or legal requirements.
2. When a proposed decision is likely to be highly unpopular within the organization, using a committee to make a decision can help alleviate dissatisfaction with the actions of specific decision makers. The university's board of trustees often makes unpopular decisions that, if made only by the president or chancellor, would expose them to unpleasant public pressure.
3. When collective decision-making lifts the morale of the organization, the committee can involve subordinates in the decision-making process. Sometimes, if a decision is imposed on employees from above, and no one from the managers asked their opinion on this matter, this can lead to undermining the morale of subordinates.
4. When there is a need to coordinate the work of different parts of the organization, the committee can provide a forum for expressing the views of managers and helping them understand their place in the overall enterprise.
5. When it is undesirable to concentrate all power in the hands of one person, a committee can distribute powers among several persons. This will help the organization avoid mistakes on critical issues and relieve pressure on senior management. Insurance companies often use this tool to evaluate and approve capital investments that involve large amounts of money and the need to use conservative tactics.
Committees are often notoriously ineffective tools due to their misuse. They are the ones who suffer due to incompetent management. Below are typical mistakes in relation to such a form of management as a committee, and situations where one leader will achieve greater efficiency than the group.
1. Lack of a clear description of the rights and responsibilities of the committee.
2. Incorrectly determined committee size.
3. Waste of time.
4. Slow decision making and implementation. No group can act as quickly and decisively as a competent individual, and this is generally recognized.
5. Compromise breeds mediocrity.
6. Excessive costs.
7. Like-mindedness.
In the course of the work done, an analysis of the informal group was carried out. The general concept of a group is given, the differences between informal groups and formal ones are considered, as well as the characteristics of an informal group, its emergence and role in the functioning of the organization.
A group is a relatively isolated association of two or more individuals who are in fairly stable interaction and carry out joint actions over a fairly long period of time.
There are two types of groups: formal and informal. Both of these types of groups are important to the organization and have a great influence on the members of the organization.
Formal groups are identified as structural divisions in an organization. They have a formally appointed leader, a formally defined structure of roles, positions and positions within the group, as well as formally assigned functions and tasks.
Informal groups are created not by management orders and formal regulations, but by members of the organization in accordance with their mutual sympathies, common interests, similar hobbies, habits, etc. They represent a spontaneously formed system of social connections, norms, and actions that are the product of more or less long-term interpersonal communication.
The features of the characteristics of informal groups that we have studied, namely: social control exercised by an informal organization; tendency to resist change; the presence of our own informal leaders helped us to study this issue more deeply and subsequently find the necessary levers for managing these groups.
The reason for the emergence of an informal group in a formal organization is the inevitable limitations of the formal organization, which cannot cover and regulate all processes of the functioning of a social organization, and is also a consequence of a person’s natural desire to unite with other people, to form stable forms of interaction with them.
Informal groups have both negative and positive influence on the activities of a formal organization.
The negative aspects include: the spread of false rumors, people's devotion to the group, the tendency to resist any changes and the tendency to preserve deep-rooted stereotypes, which delay the necessary modernization of production, etc. The positive aspects of the activities of an informal organization - devotion to the group can turn into devotion to the organization, the goals of the group may coincide with goals of a formal organization - and the efficiency standards of an informal organization may exceed the norms of a formal organization, informal communication channels can help a formal organization, complementing the formal communication system, etc.
Management methods include: consultation with groups, training and indoctrination, ensuring the loyalty of management employees, replacing “middle management” managers, transferring employees to another place of work, placing offices, recognizing natural leaders, exchanging information in the organization.
Group management is very great importance in modern management. Since organizations of all sizes are made up of groups, managers need to have a good understanding of the emergence and development of formal and informal groups. A modern manager must understand the importance of the existence of informal groups. He should strive to ensure close interaction between formal and informal organizations, since informal organizations dynamically interact with formal organizations, influence the quality of work and the attitude of people towards work and towards their superiors.
Problems associated with informal organizations include decreased efficiency, the spread of false rumors, and a tendency to resist change. Potential benefits include: Greater commitment to the organization, high team spirit, and higher job performance are observed when group norms exceed formal norms. To cope with potential problems and capture the potential benefits of informal organization, management must recognize and work with informal organization, listen to the opinions of informal leaders and group members, consider the effectiveness of informal organizations' decisions, allow informal groups to participate in decision making, and suppress rumors by promptly providing official information.
Having a good understanding of group dynamics, management will be able to effectively manage formal groups, conduct effective meetings, and wisely use structures such as committees in the activities of their enterprise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vikhansky O.S., Naumov A.I. Management: Person, strategy, organization, process. – M.: Higher School, 1996.
Grachev M.V. Super shots. Human resource management in an international corporation. –M.: Delo, 1993.
Diesel P.M.., McKinley R.W. Human behavior in an organization / Translated from English. – M.: Foundation “For Economic Literacy”, 1993.
Zaitseva O. A., Radugin A. A., Radugin K. A., Rogacheva N. I.. Fundamentals of management: Textbook. allowance – M.: Center, 1998. – 432 p.
The concept of “management” and the subject of study of the discipline “Management Theory”.
Restaurant personnel management
Recreation center management
In every organization there is a complex interweaving of formal and informal groups. They have a strong impact on the quality of activities and efficiency of the organization. The manager must be able to interact with them. A group is two or more people who interact with each other to complete tasks and achieve a common goal. Moreover, each person influences others, and is himself influenced by them.
Formal groups are created by the management of the organization to perform specific tasks and achieve certain goals. They are part of the formal structure of the organization. A formal organization is understood as a planned system of joint efforts in which each participant has his own clearly defined role, tasks, and responsibilities. They are distributed among participants in order to achieve the goals of the organization. There are three main types of formal groups: vertical, horizontal and special task groups.
A vertical group is created by a manager and his subordinates with a formal chain of command. Sometimes this group called a functional group, a leader's group, or a command group. It includes 3, 4 levels of hierarchy in a functional unit. For example, command groups will include departments: product quality control, human resource development, financial analysis, etc. Each of them is created to achieve certain goals by combining the efforts of the people in the group and their interaction.
A horizontal group is created from employees who are at the same hierarchical level of the organization, but work in different functional areas. Such a group is formed from employees of several departments. They are given a specific task, and when this task is completed, the group can be disbanded. There are two main types of horizontal groups: a working or task force and a committee.
A work group is sometimes called a cross-functional team. It can be used to create a new product in a manufacturing organization or write a textbook at a university. An example of such groups are quality circles or groups in matrix management structures working on the implementation of a new project. Work groups also have a leader, but they differ from team groups in that they have more independence and the opportunity to solve their problems.
A committee is a group within an organization that is delegated authority to perform a task. Sometimes it is called a board, commission, team, task force. This form involves group decision making. There are two main types of committees: ad hoc and permanent.
A special committee is a temporary group formed to accomplish a specific purpose.
A standing committee is a group within an organization that has a specific goal and ongoing tasks. Most often, they advise the organization on important issues, such as the Board of Directors of the company, the audit committee, commissions for salary revision, grievance redressal, cost reduction, etc. The committee has either staff or line powers.
Special task forces are created outside the formal organizational structure to develop a project of particular importance, complexity, risk, or involving the realization of the creative potential of the performers. These groups have greater freedom of action.
An example of such groups are the so-called venture teams.
Within the formal organization created by management, an informal organization emerges. This is due to the fact that people interact in groups and between groups not only as prescribed by management. They communicate during meetings, lunch, corporate events, and after work. From such social communication many friendly, informal groups are born. Their unity forms an informal organization.
2. Informal groups and the reasons for their emergence. Informal group management
An informal organization is a spontaneously formed group of people who interact regularly to achieve a specific goal. In a large organization there are many informal groups. Informal organizations, just like formal ones, have a hierarchy, leaders, tasks, and norms of behavior.
The main reasons for the emergence of informal groups are:
1) unsatisfied social needs for involvement, belonging;
2) the need for mutual assistance;
3) the need for mutual protection;
4) close communication and sympathy;
5) similar way of thinking.
Affiliation. One of the highest human needs, which is satisfied through the establishment and maintenance social contacts, interactions. But many formal organizations deprive people of social contacts. Therefore, workers turn to informal organizations.
Mutual assistance. Employees should receive help, support, consultation, and advice from their immediate superiors. But this does not always happen, because the manager does not always know how to create an atmosphere of openness and trust when performers want to share their problems with him. Therefore, people often prefer to resort to the help of their colleagues. Such interaction brings double benefits. The one who provided it acquires a reputation as an expert, prestige, and self-respect. Who received the necessary guidance for action, belonging to an informal organization.
Mutual protection. Members of informal organizations protect their interests and each other from their superiors and other formal and informal groups. For example, they protect each other from unfair decisions, harmful rules, poor working conditions, invasion of their zone of influence by other departments, lower wages, and dismissal.
Close communication. Because of the formal organization and its objectives, the same people come together every day, sometimes for many years. They are forced to communicate and interact frequently, as they solve the same problems. People want to know what's going on around them, especially when it comes to their work. But sometimes managers deliberately hide information from subordinates. Subordinates are forced to resort to an informal communication channel - rumors. This satisfies the need for security and belonging. In addition, people want to be closer to those with whom they sympathize, with whom they have a lot in common, with whom they can discuss not only work, but also personal matters. Such relationships often arise with those who are nearby in the workspace.
Similar way of thinking. People are united by the same shared social and ideological values, common intellectual traditions, professed philosophy of life, common hobbies, etc.
It is necessary to know the main characteristics of informal groups, which have a great influence on the effectiveness of the formal organization and which must be taken into account in management. These characteristics are:
1) implementation of social control;
2) resistance to change;
3) the emergence of an informal leader;
4) spreading rumors.
Social control. Informal groups establish and reinforce norms for acceptable and unacceptable behavior within the group. This may concern both clothing, behavior, and acceptable types of work, attitude towards it, and intensity of work. Anyone who violates these norms is subject to alienation and other sanctions. These norms may or may not be consistent with the norms and values of the formal organization.
Resistance to change. This phenomenon is also characteristic of formal groups, since changes disrupt the usual, established rhythm of work, distribution of roles, stability, and confidence in the future. Changes may threaten the continued existence of an informal group. Reorganization, introduction of new technology, expansion of production, liquidation of traditional industries can lead to the disintegration of informal groups or a reduction in the ability to satisfy social needs and realize common interests.
Management must reduce resistance to change using a variety of methods, including participatory management.
Informal leaders. Informal organizations, just like formal ones, have their own leaders. To influence group members, they apply the same methods to them as formal leaders. The only difference between the two leaders is that the leader of a formal organization has the support of delegated official authority and usually operates in a specific functional area assigned to him. The support of an informal leader is his recognition by the group. In his actions, he relies on people and their relationships. The sphere of influence of an informal leader may extend beyond the administrative boundaries of the formal organization.
The main factors determining the opportunity to become a leader of an informal organization are: age, official authority, professional competence, location of the workplace, freedom of movement around the work area, moral qualities (responsiveness, decency, etc.). The exact characteristics are determined by the value system adopted in the group.
Informal organizations interact with formal ones. This interaction can be represented in the form of the Homans model. The model demonstrates how an informal group emerges from the interaction of people performing certain tasks.
In an organization, people perform the tasks assigned to them; in the process of performing these tasks, people interact, which in turn contributes to the emergence of emotions - positive and negative in relation to each other and their superiors. These emotions influence how people will carry out their activities and interact in the future. Emotions, favorable or unfavorable, can lead to either increased or decreased performance, absenteeism, turnover, complaints and other phenomena that are important in assessing the performance of the organization. Therefore, even if an informal organization is not created at the will of management and is not under its complete control, it must be managed so that it can achieve its goals.
To ensure effective interaction between formal and informal groups, the following methods can be used:
1) recognize the existence of an informal organization, refuse to destroy it, realize the need to work with it;
2) identify leaders in each informal group, involve them in the decision-making process and take into account their opinions, encourage those who participate in solving production problems;
3) check all management actions for their possible negative impact on the informal group;
4) to weaken resistance to change, involve group members in making management decisions;
5) quickly provide accurate information to prevent the spread of false rumors.
In addition to general organizational factors, the effectiveness of groups is also influenced by specific factors. They can be divided into two groups:
1) characteristics of the group;
2) group processes.
3. Characteristics of groups and their effectiveness
Group characteristics include its size, composition, status, and the roles of group members.
Band size. Many management theorists have devoted attention to defining the ideal group size. Summarizing them, we can say that such a group will be a group of 5-12 people. The explanation for this is that in smaller groups there is less opportunity to realize the benefits of group decision making, benefiting from differences of opinion. In addition, group members may be concerned about too much personal responsibility for work results and decisions made.
In larger groups, communication between members becomes more difficult, and reaching agreement on issues related to the group's activities becomes more difficult. There may be difficulty or timidity in expressing your opinion in front of big amount of people. Everyone's participation in the discussion of the issues being resolved is limited.
Composition of the group. Composition refers to the degree of similarity of personalities, points of view, and approaches to solving problems. The group must consist of dissimilar individuals, with different knowledge, abilities, skills, and ways of thinking in order to work more effectively.
The status of group members is the position, the position of a person in the group. It can be determined by a number of factors: position, location of the office, education, social talents, awareness, accumulated experience, moral qualities. These factors can contribute to both upgrading and downgrading of status depending on the values and norms of the group. To make effective decisions, it is necessary to eliminate the dominant influence of members with higher status.
Roles of group members. A role is a set of rules of behavior expected of an individual in a certain situation. There are two main areas of roles for creating an effective group: target roles, which are aimed at selecting and setting group tasks and their implementation, as well as supporting (social) roles, which contribute to the activation of the group’s activities. Most American managers perform goal roles, while Japanese managers perform goal and support roles.
Target roles:
1) initiating activities, i.e. proposing new solutions, ideas, searching for new approaches to solving them;
2) search for information necessary to solve the assigned problems, to clarify the proposals put forward;
3) collecting the opinions of group members, clarifying their attitude to the issues under discussion. Understanding their ideas and values;
4) generalization, i.e. linking various ideas, proposals for solving a problem and generalizing them into a final solution;
5) elaboration - explaining the decision, predicting its fate if it is made;
6) motivation - stimulating the actions of a group when the interests and motives of its members fade away. Supporting roles:
1) encouragement is praise for the ideas expressed, a positive assessment of their contribution to solving the problem, maintaining a friendly atmosphere;
2) harmonization, which consists of reducing emotional tension, resolving conflicts, reducing disagreement and reaching agreements;
3) ensuring participation - creating an atmosphere of trust, openness, freedom of communication, so that each member of the group could and wanted to contribute their ideas and suggestions;
4) devotion, support - this is the ability to hear and agree with other ideas, to go along with the group;
5) willingness to compromise - the ability to change one’s own opinion in order to maintain harmony in the team. If the majority of group members perform social roles, the team becomes socially oriented. Its members do not conflict with each other, do not impose their opinions on others, and do not particularly strive to fulfill the team’s tasks, because the main thing for them is to keep the team united and happy, and to harmonize relationships. Members of such teams may experience high individual satisfaction, but usually at the expense of reduced productivity.
The other extreme is a team consisting primarily of “specialists.” Everything in it is subordinated to one goal - the result. Such a team will be effective in the short term, but in the long term the level of satisfaction, and therefore the motivation of its members, decreases, since the social and emotional needs of its members are ignored.
Some team members play dual roles. These people are focused on both the task and emotional needs of other participants. These people can become team leaders because they, who satisfy both types of needs, are looked up to by all members of the group. Finally, there is another role - the role of an outside observer who does not overwork either in solving team problems or in meeting social needs. Such team members do not have the respect of the team members.
It is important for managers to remember that effective teams must be well balanced, have people performing both roles: achieving goals, solving production problems, and creating social unity.
4. Group processes. Creating and managing teams
Group processes include the stages of group development, cohesion, norms, and conflict. Stages of group development
Research shows that a group does not develop spontaneously, but goes through certain stages. There are several models for team development. They include five stages. In teams that work under time pressure, or that only exist for a few days, stage changes occur very quickly. And each leader and team members face their own unique challenges.
Formation is the stage of orientation and familiarity. Group members evaluate each other’s abilities, the ability to achieve goals, the ability to establish friendly relations, types of behavior acceptable to others. This is a stage of high uncertainty, and group members usually accept any authority offered by formal or informal leaders. During the formation stage, the team leader should give members time to get to know each other and encourage informal communication.
The stage of disagreement and contradiction reveals the individual characteristics of people. They become established in their roles and understand what the team expects of them. This stage is marked by conflicts and disagreements. Members may disagree about the group's goals and how to achieve them, and create coalitions with common interests. The team has not yet achieved cohesion and unity. And until she overcomes the odds, her performance is subpar. At this time, the team leader should encourage its members to participate in management, discuss goals, objectives, and put forward new ideas.
Achieving a normal state. At this stage, conflicts are resolved and a state of mutual recognition is achieved. The team becomes stronger, and agreement arises regarding the distribution of roles and power in the group. There is a feeling of trust and cohesion. The leader must emphasize unity, agreement in the team and help team members understand its norms and values.
Functioning. At this stage of the work, the main thing is to resolve problems and achieve the intended goals. Team members coordinate their efforts, and disagreements that arise are resolved in civilized ways in the interests of the group and its goals. A leader must focus on achieving high results. This requires the performance of both roles aimed at achieving goals and social interaction.
Disbandment occurs in groups such as committees, task forces and special task forces after they have completed their tasks. Attention is paid to curtailing and slowing down group processes.
Team members may experience emotional highs, feelings of attachment, depression, and regret about the disbandment of the group. They may be satisfied with the achievement of planned goals and saddened by the upcoming separation from friends and colleagues. To soften negative consequences the leader can announce the termination of the team's activities at a ceremonial meeting, hand out awards, bonuses or commemorative badges.
Team cohesion is a measure of the attraction of group members to each other and to the group. A highly cohesive group is a group whose members feel a strong attraction to each other and consider themselves like-minded people. Such groups have a good moral climate, a friendly atmosphere, and joint decision-making. These groups are more effective if their goals align with the goals of the organization. Working in a group of friends and like-minded people brings more satisfaction. Group with low level cohesion does not have an interpersonal attractive force for its participants.
A potential negative consequence of high cohesion is groupthink. This is the tendency of an individual to suppress his actual views, refusing to express opposing points of view, so as not to disrupt the harmony in the group.
As a result, the problem is solved less effectively because alternative proposals are not discussed and all available information is not evaluated.
Group norms are generally accepted standards of individual and group behavior that have developed over time as a result of the interaction of group members. These are patterns of behavior that are instilled in all members of a group through approval or disapproval from its members. Only fulfilling these norms allows one to count on belonging to the group, its recognition and support. Group norms can be either positive or negative.
Positive norms support the goals of the organization and encourage behavior aimed at achieving those goals.
Positive group norms:
1) pride in the organization;
2) striving for the highest results;
3) profitability;
4) customer orientation;
5) collective work and mutual assistance;
6) continuous development personnel;
7) professional training;
8) employee career management;
9) encouragement of innovation;
10) respectful, kind attitude towards each other;
11) interest in the opinions of colleagues;
12) care for people on the part of management.
5. Advantages and disadvantages of working in teams
When deciding whether to use a group to perform certain tasks, a manager must weigh their advantages and disadvantages.
Team benefits
The increase in individual labor efforts is associated with the objective emergence of competition, the desire to distinguish oneself or at least keep up with other people. The presence of other people causes additional energy and enthusiasm, which leads to an increase in motivation, productivity and quality of work, and the release of the creative potential of employees.
Satisfaction of group members. It is group work that allows one to satisfy the needs for involvement, affiliation, and social interaction. Close-knit groups reduce loneliness and promote the development of feelings self-esteem, significance, since people are included in group work with special goals. Such work has a greater chance of being enjoyable.
Expanding work skills and knowledge. People with extensive experience, skills and secrets of mastery pass them on to all group members and teach them the necessary operations and work to complete the group’s tasks. In addition, teams are delegated authority to solve production problems. This enriches work and increases employee motivation.
Increasing organizational flexibility. Traditional organizations have a rigid structure, where each employee performs only one specific job or function. In teams, team members can perform each other's responsibilities. If necessary, the team's assignment can be changed and employees redistributed, which allows for increased production flexibility and a quick response to changing customer needs.
Disadvantages of teams.
Redistribution of power. When companies create self-managing work teams, the main losers are low- and middle-level managers. It is difficult for them to adapt to the new situation: they do not want to share their powers, they are afraid of losing their status or even their job. Some are unable to learn the new skills they need to survive.
Free rider problem. This term refers to a team member who enjoys all the benefits of being part of a team, but does not contribute proportionately to the work of the team, hiding behind other people's backs. Sometimes this phenomenon is called social dependency. In large groups, some people work less efficiently than when working individually or in a small group.
Coordination costs are the time and effort required to coordinate the actions of group members to ensure that group tasks are accomplished. In addition, teams must also spend time preparing to work together to decide who will complete certain work tasks and when.
So, an effective group is one whose size corresponds to its tasks, which contains people with dissimilar character traits and ways of thinking, whose norms are consistent with achieving the goals of the organization and creating high morale, where both goal and social roles are performed well and where the high status of group members is not dominant.
High morale is a psychological state of a person that encourages him to actively participate in the work of the group and direct all his energy to accomplish its tasks.
The collective nature of work makes it necessary to take into account the socio-psychological aspects of group behavior, the influence of formal and informal groups on the work behavior of the individual.
Group – it is a real collection of people united to achieve certain goals. Production groups are divided into formal and informal. Formal- these are groups with legal status, created by management to consolidate the division of labor and improve its organization, the role and place of which in the overall labor process is defined in regulatory documents (“Regulations on divisions”, etc.), instructions, and management orders. Among the formal groups there are teams– subordinate groups of the leader-manager and his employees; working (target) groups, created for the purpose and duration of a specific task; committees– special and permanent groups to which certain powers for management, coordination of activities, etc. are delegated. (board of directors, trade union committee, etc.). Based on the performance of socially significant work by a formal group, the concept is distinguished labor collective.
In addition to the above concept of command, it is also working group , having reached the highest level of cohesion, acting as new system, a single community that combines the advantages of formal and informal groups in the absence of their disadvantages, ensures the most effective achievement of organizational results and satisfaction of the personal and social needs of team members.
Informal groups are formed spontaneously to satisfy the individual needs of employees, which for one reason or another (incompetent management, authoritarian management methods, lack of humanism in management, etc.) are not satisfied within the formal group. These are the needs for involvement, for understanding the reasons for decisions made, for protection, for participation, for communication, for information. Behavior of members of informal groups led by informal leader can either help or hinder the achievement of organizational goals. Therefore, informal groups (IFGs) need to be managed. To do this, according to American scientists Scott and Davis, one should:
1. Recognize the existence of the NFG and realize that its destruction may also lead to the destruction of the formal organization;
2. Listen to the opinions of members and leaders of the NFG;
3. Before taking any actions, you need to calculate their possible negative impact on the UFH;
4. To reduce resistance to change on the part of the NFG, the group should be allowed to participate in decision making;
5. It is advisable to quickly provide accurate information, thereby preventing the spread of rumors.
A group can act as a managerial, controlled or self-governing structure with varying degrees of cohesion of its members - from an unorganized crowd to a single team.
Social Psychology considers the team as a special quality of the group associated with common activities. But not every group can be considered as a work collective, but only one that has formed certain psychological characteristics that arise as a result of the development of its main activity and are of particular importance for its members and society. Hence, labor collective is a social organization characterized by joint socially significant activities.
It is possible to highlight certain criteria, allowing the group to be considered a labor collective:
1. Common goals and their social significance;
2. Joint activity (the result depends on the “contribution” of each team member);
3. Organization (presence of structure, level of self-government).
4. Relationships, socio-psychological unity at the following levels:
Sympathy,
Understanding,
Mutual assistance.
Collectives differ from each other not only in the number of members, but also psychologically, and these differences are manifested in the nature of the internal, socio-psychological climate, the state and cohesion of the participants.
Socio-psychological climate– this is the real state of interaction between people as participants in joint activities. It is characterized by employee satisfaction with the organization, working conditions, relationships among themselves and with management, mood, mutual understanding, degree of participation in management and self-government, discipline, group and place in it, and the quality of information received.
The importance of the psychological climate can be judged, for example, by the fact that a bad mood reduces the efficiency of the work collective by about one and a half times. The psychological climate can be shaped and adjusted to a certain extent.
The psychological state of the work collective is characterized by the degree of satisfaction of the participants with their position. It is influenced by the nature and content of the work, people’s attitude towards it, prestige, remuneration, growth prospects, the availability of additional opportunities (to solve personal problems, see the world, etc.), psychological climate. In many ways, the psychological state of the work collective also depends on the ability of its members to consciously live according to its laws and obey established requirements and orders.
Cohesion- this is the psychological unity of people in the most important issues of the life of the team, manifested in the attraction of participants to it, the desire to protect and preserve it. Cohesion is determined by the need for mutual assistance or support for each other in achieving certain goals, mutual emotional preferences, and understanding of the role of the collective principle in providing certain guarantees. The degree of cohesion depends on the size of the group, social homogeneity (with heterogeneity, groups arise) of its members, the successes achieved, and the presence of external danger.
Close-knit teams are characterized by organization - the ability and readiness to independently overcome emerging difficulties and coordinated actions; unity in extreme situations.
The cohesion of the work team and people’s satisfaction with their stay in it also depends on their psychological and socio-psychological compatibility. The basis of such compatibility is the correspondence of the temperaments of the members of the work team, professional and moral qualities.
An efficient, cohesive work collective does not arise immediately - it is preceded by a long process of its formation and development, the success of which is determined by a number of circumstances that have little to do with whether the work collective takes shape spontaneously or is formed consciously and purposefully.
In the process of development, the workforce goes through the following stages:
1. Nominal group– goals are individual, activities are individual, administrative structure, there is no socio-psychological unity;
2. Association– partial agreement of goals, elements of joint activity, the emergence of an internal structure and attempts at self-government, the beginning of the formation of socio-psychological unity between individual members, the emergence of “activists”, leaders;
3. Cooperation– general goals and Team work larger team composition, predominance business relations above the emotional, a well-organized structure, but conditions are not favorable for everyone, the desire for autonomy and self-government, the emergence of “public opinion” as a means of managing people;
4. Team– a high level of all specified criteria, favorable conditions for effective activities and relationships of all members of the work team.
The tactics of managing a workforce at different stages of its development boils down to the following.
At the 1st stage– strict leadership based on uniformity, firmness and consistency of all requirements, setting goals and organizing activities, identifying a possible “asset” for delegating part of the powers.
At the 2nd stage - creating conditions for uniting the work team (group tasks, responsibility, etc.), identifying informal groups, attracting them to one’s side, delegating part of their powers to them, analyzing the structures of informal groups and influencing them in order to include them in the overall structure of the team.
At the 3rd stage– strengthening the capabilities of self-government in the team – increasing cohesion between groups, involving more workers in the organization and management of the team (individual and group responsible tasks with reporting to the team), democratic leadership style, reliance on “ public opinion» in resolving all issues ( especially related to reward-punishment and personnel problems ).
At the 4th stage– reliance on self-government and self-organization, collegiality in resolving all issues, creating an atmosphere of complete unity of the leader with the life of the team and the team’s understanding of the tasks of joint work, working “for the future” both in relation to the entire team and each employee.
Concept, structure and types of organizational groups. Formal and informal groups. Processes of group dynamics: formation and development of groups, pressure, organizational communication. Effects that appear as a result of group pressure: consolidation, conformism, group thinking. Managing informal groups.
Team management.
Team concept. Conditions for creating a team. Team formation. Team management.
Changes in the organization and innovation management.
The nature of change in the organization. Main types of changes. Employees' attitudes to changes in the organization. Forms of employee resistance to change. Innovation management . Methods by which resistance can be reduced or completely eliminated
Textbooks
1. Glumakov V.N. Organizational behavior. Tutorial. - M.: Finstatinform, 2011.
2. Doblaev V.L. Organizational behavior: Textbook.- M.: Delo i servis, 2012.-416 p.
3. Zeldovich B.Z. Fundamentals of organizational behavior: Textbook. - M.: Exam, 2009. - 350 p.
4. Kartashova L.V., Nikonova TV., Solomanidina T.O. Organizational behavior. Textbook. M.: Infra-M, 2012.
5. Krasovsky Yu.D. Organizational behavior. Tutorial. M.: Unity, 2012.
6. Lutens F. Organizational behavior. Textbook. Per. from English M.: Infra-M, 2008.
7. Meskon M. et al. Fundamentals of management. Textbook. Translation from English M.: Delo, 1998.
8. Nikulenko T.G. Organizational behavior: Textbook. - Rostov n/d: Phoenix, 2009. - 407 p.
9. Newstrom J.V., Davis K. Organizational behavior. - St. Petersburg, 2009.
10. Semikov V.L. Organizational behavior of a leader: Proc. manual.-M.: Academic project, 2004.-224 p.
2. Periodicals
1. Russian entrepreneurship
2. Problems of management theory and practice
3. Russian Journal of Management
4. Management in Russia and abroad
Internet sources
1. Magazine “Management in Russia and Abroad” [ electronic resource] // www.mevriz.ru
2. International journal “Problems of theory and practice of management” [electronic resource] // www.uptp.ru
3. Business magazine “Personnel Management” [electronic resource] // www.top-personal.ru
4. Magazine “Russian Entrepreneurship” [electronic resource] // www.creativeconomy.ru
GLOSSARY
Influence- the process and result of one person changing the behavior of another person during interaction with him.
Group- two or more individuals who interact with each other, influence each other, and perceive themselves as “we.”
Group dynamics- a set of processes of interaction between group members among themselves and the group with the external environment.
Pressure- a group dynamic process of mutual influence of group members, the main function of which is a certain adjustment, grinding people into each other for the sake of achieving a group goal.
Incident- an action by one of the parties to the conflict, as a result of which real (or imagined) damage to the interests of the other party is caused intentionally or unintentionally.
Team- a social organization (group) characterized by socially significant activities.
Team- a group of people who would like to jointly achieve certain goals at the lowest possible cost. The team is an optimal group, balanced in its own way labor activity, as well as behavioral characteristics.
Consolidation- one of the effects that occurs in a group as a result of pressure. People in a group become united in their thoughts and actions when something threatens its well-being or even its existence from outside or inside.
Conformism- change in people's behavior or beliefs as a result of real or perceived group pressure.
Motivation- statements that justify a particular action by reference to the objective or subjective circumstances motivating it.
Informal group- a group that forms spontaneously, regardless of the will of the leadership; Its existence is based on personal sympathies and interest in communication.
Grouping of thoughts- a mode of thinking that occurs in people when the search for consensus becomes so dominant for a cohesive group that it tends to reject realistic assessments of other options for solving a problem.
Organizational role- a set of actions expected by a group (organization) from one of its members.
Organizational behavior - a special form of interaction between people, determined by the nature of relationships in organizations as socio-economic groups and the specifics of work activity.
Organizational development- purposeful work carried out by the top management of an organization to increase the efficiency and viability of the organization by introducing planned changes to the processes occurring in it.
Role structure- the entire set of roles available in a given group or organization, and the system of connections between them.
Role formation- the process of group dynamics, as a result of which a certain role structure is formed in the group.
Social facilitation- strengthening dominant responses in the presence of others.
Theories X - Y. Designed by D. McGregor. According to Theory X, most people do not like to work and must be forced to do it, according to Theory Y - people strive for work, dedication to the organization is seen as a function of rewards associated with achieving a goal.
Formal group- a group created at the will of management to perform specific tasks and achieve very specific goals.
Discipline "Strategic Management"
There are two types of groups: formal and informal. Both of these types of groups are important to the organization and have a great influence on the members of the organization.
Formal groups are usually identified as structural units in an organization. They have a formally appointed leader, a formally defined structure of roles, positions and positions within the group, as well as formally assigned functions and tasks.
Informal groups are created not by management orders and formal regulations, but by members of the organization in accordance with their mutual sympathies, common interests, the same hobbies, habits, etc.
An organization is a social category and at the same time a means of achieving goals. It is a place where people build relationships and interact. Therefore, in every formal organization there is a complex interweaving of informal groups and organizations that have formed without the intervention of management. These informal associations often have a strong impact on the quality of operations and organizational effectiveness.
Despite the fact that informal organizations are not created by the will of management, they are a factor that every manager must take into account because such organizations and other groups can have a strong influence on the behavior of individuals and on the work behavior of employees. Moreover, no matter how well a leader performs his or her functions, it is impossible to determine what actions and attitudes will be required to achieve goals in an organization moving forward. The manager and subordinate often have to interact with people outside the organization and with departments outside their subordination. People will not be able to perform their tasks successfully if they do not achieve proper cooperation between the individuals and groups on which their activities depend. To cope with such situations, the manager must understand what role this or that group plays in a particular situation, and what place the leadership process occupies in it.
One of the necessary conditions for effective management is also the ability to work in small groups, such as various committees or commissions created by the managers themselves, and the ability to build relationships with their direct subordinates.
A person needs communication with his own kind and, apparently, receives joy from such communication. Most of us actively seek interaction with other people. In many cases, our contacts with other people are short and insignificant. However, if two or more people spend enough time in close proximity to each other, they gradually become psychologically aware of each other's existence. The time required for such awareness and the degree of awareness very much depend on the situation and on the nature of the relationship between people. However, the result of such awareness is almost always the same. The awareness that others think about them and expect something from them causes people to change their behavior in some way, thereby confirming the existence of social relationships. When this process occurs, a random collection of people becomes a group.
Each of us belongs to many groups at the same time. Some groups turn out to be short-lived and their mission is simple. When the mission is completed, or when group members lose interest in it, the group disbands. An example of such a group would be several students who get together to study for an upcoming exam. Other groups may exist for several years and have a significant influence on their members or even on the external environment. An example of such groups would be associations of teenage schoolchildren.
As defined by Marvin Shaw, “a group is two or more persons who interact with each other in such a way that each person influences and is simultaneously influenced by the others.”
Formal groups. Based on Shaw's definition, an organization of any size can be considered to consist of several groups. Management creates groups of its own free will when it divides labor horizontally (divisions) and vertically (levels of management). In each of the many departments of a large organization, there may be a dozen levels of management. For example, production at a factory can be divided into smaller units - machining, painting, assembly. These productions, in turn, can be divided further. For example, production personnel involved in machining can be divided into 3 different teams of 10 - 16 people, including a foreman. Thus, a large organization may consist of literally hundreds or even thousands of small groups. These groups, created by the will of management to organize the production process, are called formal groups. However small they may be, they are formal organizations whose primary function in relation to the organization as a whole is to perform specific tasks and achieve certain, specific goals. There are three main types of formal groups in an organization: leadership groups; production groups; committees.
The command (subordinate) group of a leader consists of a leader and his immediate subordinates, who, in turn, can also be leaders. The company president and senior vice presidents are a typical team group. Another example of a command subordinate group is the aircraft commander, co-pilot and flight engineer.
The second type of formal group is a working (target) group. It usually consists of individuals working together on the same task. Although they have a common leader, these groups differ from a command group in that they have significantly more autonomy in planning and executing their work. In such companies, management believes that task forces break down barriers of mistrust between managers and workers. In addition, by giving workers the opportunity to think about and solve their own production problems, they can meet the needs of higher-level workers.
The third type of formal group, the committee, will be discussed below.
All team and working groups, as well as committees, must work effectively - as a single, well-coordinated team. There is no longer any need to prove that effective management of every formal group within an organization is critical. These interdependent groups are the blocks that form the organization as a system. The organization as a whole will be able to effectively fulfill its global objectives only if the tasks of each of its structural divisions are defined in such a way as to support each other's activities. In addition, the group as a whole influences the behavior of the individual. Thus, the better a manager understands what a group is and the factors behind its effectiveness, and the better he masters the art of effectively managing a group, the more likely he is to improve the productivity of that unit and the organization as a whole.
Informal groups. Despite the fact that informal organizations are not created at the will of management, they are a powerful force that, under certain conditions, can actually become dominant in the organization and nullify the efforts of management. Moreover, informal organizations tend to interpenetrate. Some managers often do not realize that they themselves belong to one or more of these informal organizations.
Long before Maslow's theoretical explorations of human needs, the Hawthorne Experiment provided evidence that it was necessary to take into account the social relationships between employees. The Hawthorne Study was the first time that the science of human behavior was systematically applied to improve organizational effectiveness. It demonstrated the fact that in addition to the economic needs that the authors of earlier works insisted on, workers also have social needs. Organizations came to be seen as more than a logical arrangement of workers performing interrelated tasks. Management theorists and practitioners have realized that an organization is also a social system where individuals, formal and informal groups interact. Referring to the Hawthorne Study, management theorists Scott and Mitchell wrote: “These scholars have made a compelling case that, according to classical theory, even in well-designed organizations, small groups and individuals can appear whose behavior does not fit within the reasonable range of economic behavior.” framework".
Of course, one can criticize the methodology of the Hawthorne Study, but thanks largely to research in the behavioral sciences, we now have a much clearer understanding of the nature and dynamics of formal and informal groups in the workplace.
Development of informal organizations and their characteristics. A formal organization is created at the will of management. But once it is created, it also becomes a social environment where people interact not according to the instructions of the leadership. People from different subgroups communicate over coffee, during meetings, over lunch and after work. From social relationships, many friendly groups, informal groups are born, which together represent an informal organization.
An informal organization is a spontaneously formed group of people who interact regularly to achieve a specific goal. Like formal organizations, these goals are the reason for the existence of such an informal organization. It is important to understand that in a large organization there is more than one informal organization. Most of them are loosely connected in some kind of network. Therefore, some authors believe that an informal organization is essentially a network of informal organizations. The work environment is particularly favorable for the formation of such groups. Because of the formal structure of an organization and its mission, the same people tend to come together every day, sometimes for many years. People who would otherwise be unlikely to even meet are often forced to spend more time with their colleagues than with their own family. Moreover, the nature of the tasks they solve in many cases forces them to communicate and interact with each other frequently. Members of the same organization depend on each other in many ways. A natural result of this intense social interaction is the spontaneous emergence of informal organizations.
Informal organizations have much in common with the formal organizations in which they find themselves embedded. They are organized in some ways the same way as formal organizations - they have a hierarchy, leaders and tasks. Emergent organizations also have unwritten rules, called norms, that serve as standards of behavior for members of the organization. These norms are supported by a system of rewards and sanctions. The specificity is that the formal organization is created according to a pre-thought-out plan. Informal organization is more likely a spontaneous reaction to unmet individual needs.
The structure and type of formal organization is built consciously by management through design, while the structure and type of informal organization arises as a result of social interaction. Describing the development of informal organizations, Leonard Sales and George Strauss say: “Employees form friendly groups based on their contacts and common interests, and these groups arise from the very life of the organization. However, once these groups are formed, they begin to live own life, almost completely divorced from the labor process on the basis of which they arose. This is a dynamic, self-generating process. Employees united within a formal organization interact with each other. Increasing interaction contributes to the emergence of friendly feelings in them towards other members of the group. In turn, these feelings form the basis for a growing number of different activities, many of which are not included in job descriptions: eating lunch together, doing work for a friend, fighting with those who are not members of the group, gambling with numbers on cash checks, etc. These enhanced opportunities for interaction help create stronger interpersonal bonds. Then the group begins to be something more than a simple collection of people. It creates traditional ways of performing certain actions - a set of stable characteristics that are difficult to change. The group becomes an organization."
Why do people join organizations? People usually know why they join formal organizations. As a rule, they either want to carry out the goals of the organization, or they need rewards in the form of income, or they are driven by considerations of prestige associated with belonging to this organization. People also have reasons for joining groups and informal organizations, but they are often unaware of them. As the Hawthorne experiment showed, belonging to informal groups can provide people with psychological benefits that are no less important to them than the salary they receive. The most important reasons for joining a group are: a sense of belonging, mutual assistance, mutual protection, close communication and interest.
Affiliation. The very first reason for joining an informal group is to satisfy the need for a sense of belonging, one of our strongest emotional needs. Even before the Hawthorne Experiment, Elton Mayo discovered that people whose jobs do not allow them to establish and maintain social contacts tend to be dissatisfied. Other studies have shown that belonging to and support from a group is closely related to employee satisfaction. Yet, although the need to belong is widely accepted, most formal organizations deliberately deprive people of opportunities for social contact. Therefore, workers are often forced to turn to informal organizations to gain these contacts.
Help. Ideally, subordinates should be able to approach their immediate superiors without any embarrassment for advice or to discuss their problems. If this does not happen, then the boss should carefully examine his relationships with his subordinates. Either way, rightly or wrongly, many people believe that their boss in a formal organization will think poorly of them if they ask him how they can do a certain job. Others are afraid of criticism. Moreover, in every organization there are many unwritten rules that concern small matters of procedure and protocol, such as how long the coffee break should be, what the boss's attitude is towards chatting and joking, how one should dress to earn everyone's approval, and to what extent all these rules are mandatory. It is clear that the employee will still think about whether it is worth seeking help from his superiors on all these issues. In these and other situations, people often prefer to resort to the help of their colleagues. For example, a new worker in production is more likely to ask another worker to explain to him how to perform a particular operation. This leads to the fact that new workers also strive to participate in an already formed social group where there are experienced workers. Receiving help from a colleague is useful for both: both the one who received it and the one who provided it. As a result of providing assistance, the giver gains prestige and self-esteem, and the recipient gains the necessary guidance for action. Thus, the need for help leads to the emergence of an informal organization.
Protection. People have always known that strength lies in unity. One of the primary reasons that prompted prehistoric people to unite in tribes was additional protection from the hostile manifestations of their external environment. The perceived need for protection continues to be an important reason for people to join certain groups. Although it is very rare these days to talk about the existence of real physical danger in the workplace, the very first trade unions arose in social groups who gathered in pubs and discussed their grievances against their superiors. And today, members of informal organizations made up of grassroots workers protect each other from rules that harm them. They can, for example, join forces to protest harmful working conditions. Not surprisingly, this protective function becomes even more important when superiors are not trusted.
Sometimes managers also form informal organizations to protect their colleagues. Their goal is usually to protect their zone from intrusion by other parts of the organization.
The problem of informal organizations also demonstrates the need to integrate the goals of units and direct efforts for the benefit of the organization as a whole.
Communication. People want to know what's going on around them, especially if it affects their work. Yet in many formal organizations the system of internal communication is rather weak, and sometimes management deliberately hides certain information from its subordinates. Therefore, one of the important reasons for belonging to an informal organization is access to an informal channel of information - rumors, gossip and other information that either does not come from official sources at all or goes through formal channels too slowly. This can satisfy the individual's needs for psychological protection and accessories, as well as provide her with faster access to the information she needs for her work.
Close communication and sympathy. People often join informal groups simply to be closer to those they like. For example, clerks or department engineers often work in large rooms where there are no partitions between desks. These people have a lot in common and feel sympathy for each other partly because they do similar work. So, they can go to lunch together, discuss their work and personal affairs during coffee breaks, or approach their bosses with a request for a salary increase and improved working conditions. At work, people tend to interact with those around them. People are usually attracted to those who they believe can satisfy their needs for belonging, competence, protection, respect, etc.
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