Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior - Soltanieh ...

MAKING GROUP PROCESS WORK
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extensive real - time information. During missions, snipers double as observers, calling in
information they glean from their observation perch about suspects, such as movement
within an apartment or other activity. Perimeter team members cover the area surrounding
the location, searching for possible escape routes for the suspects or places where adding
officers might be useful. At the same time, detectives contact city building departments to
get the blueprints for the apartments, homes, or businesses where suspects are holed up.
The typical outcome of this team is an efficient and safe resolution of standoff situations,
with suspects surrendering with no loss of life.
Further, research suggests that real - time information about the situation is particularly
effective when different members of the group are responsible for specific pieces of it
(Eisenhardt, 1989 ). In effect, members of groups with superior process adopt deliberately
distinct information roles in the group. Often these roles are along the lines of functional
expertise like engineering or marketing. This partitioning of responsibility for information
cultivates a variety of different perspectives and provides depth of knowledge by focusing
the attention of specific members on particular features of the situation. Not only is the
information likely to be more accurate given that the group is leveraging the expertise of
its members, but it is also likely to be obtained more quickly. This focus is not only effective
for information that affects the internal operations of the crew, but also for external
information that can lead members to a more effective group process by focusing their
attention on important stakeholders (Ancona, 1990 ; Ancona and Bresman, 2007).
Of course, simply having knowledgeable individuals in a group paying attention
is of little use if their information is not available to be used collectively by the group.
Indeed, one of the main challenges of group process is to ensure that information is effectively
exchanged with all other members of the group (Stasser, 1992 ; Stasser and Stewart,
1992 ). In order to share and use information effectively, groups with great process engage
in frequent interactions. For example, some management groups set up “ can’t miss ” meetings,
police crisis teams engage in extensive information sharing during briefi ng meetings,
and film crews continuously update one another using walkie - talkies on set. In general,
these groups have a large number of regular interactions among members (Eisenhardt
et al., 1997a ; Bechky and Okhuysen, 2008 ).
The importance of real - time information, partitioned responsibility for that information,
and frequent meetings appears in many organizational groups. For example,
Eisenhardt ( 1989 ) examines group process among top management teams in start - up
ventures in the computing industry. In particular, she describes how the members of one
team, at a firm with the pseudonym Zap, operate. First of all, members of the management
team at Zap claim to “ over- MBA it ” and to “ measure everything. ” And they come
close. They focus their attention on a wide variety of raw internal and external measures
of current operations like bookings, backlog, revenue per employee, cash, and scrap in
preference to refi ned, accounting - based indicators like profi t.
Exploiting information: fostering positive interactions
and dissimilarity of knowledge
Why does this combination of real - time information gathered and collectively shared by
group members lead to effective group process? One reason is that this combination of
tactics is fast. In particular, continual tracking of information acts as an early warning