Written paragraph:In many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is toassemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack a project offersseveral advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider rang

Written paragraph:
In many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to
assemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack a project offers
several advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider range of knowledge,
expertise, and skills than any single individual is likely to possess. Also, because of the
numbers of people involved and the greater resources they possess, a group can work
more quickly in response to the task assigned to it and can come up with highly creative
solutions to problems and issues. Sometimes these creative solutions come about because
a group is more likely to make risky decisions that an individual might not undertake.
This is because the group spreads responsibility for a decision to all the members and
thus no single individual can be held accountable if the decision turns out to be wrong.

Taking part in a group process can be very rewarding for members of the team. Team
members who have a voice in making a decision will no doubt feel better about carrying
out the work that is entailed by that decision than they might doing work that is imposed
on them by others. Also, the individual team member has a much better chance to
“shine,” to get his or her contributions and ideas not only recognized but recognized as
highly significant, because a team’s overall results can be more far-reaching and have
greater impact than what might have otherwise been possible for the person to
accomplish or contribute working alone.

Lecture transcription:
(Professor) Now I want to tell you about what one company found when it decided that
it would turn over some of its new projects to teams of people, and make the team
responsible for planning the projects and getting the work done. After about six months,
the company took a look at how well the teams performed.

On virtually every team, some members got almost a “free ride” ... they didn’t
contribute much at all, but if their team did a good job, they nevertheless benefited from
the recognition the team got. And what about group members who worked especially
well and who provided a lot of insight on problems and issues? Well...the recognition for
a job well done went to the group as a whole, no names were named. So it won’t surprise
you to learn that when the real contributors were asked how they felt about the group
process, their attitude was just the opposite of what the reading predicts.

Another finding was that some projects just didn’t move very quickly. Why? Because
it took so long to reach consensus...it took many, many meetings to build the agreement
among group members about how they would move the project along. On the other hand,
there were other instances where one or two people managed to become very influential
over what their group did. Sometimes when those influencers said “That will never work”
about an idea the group was developing, the idea was quickly dropped instead of being
further discussed. And then there was another occasion when a couple influencers
convinced the group that a plan of theirs was “highly creative.” And even though some
members tried to warn the rest of the group that the project was moving in directions that
might not work, they were basically ignored by other group members. Can you guess the
ending to *this* story? When the project failed, the blame was placed on all the members
of the group.