Post on 09-Apr-2023
PSYC30825: Community, Health, and
Applied Social Psychology
Small Group and Individual Interventions:
Session 9 with Dr Glenn Williams
Overview This week – Small group and
individual interventions
• Continuing Mhairi’s session 8 on
place, environment and well-
being: designing community
through teamwork
• Ways of working in groups – the
case study of teams
• Leading teams – the dynamics of
leadership
• Using Stages of Change
model: steps for interventions
with individuals and small groups
• CHASP coursework question
‘thought shower’ and
preparation for next week
Last week – Organisational
and Community Change
• Organisation systems and
cultures - revisiting Session #2
• Organisational structures
• Types of change
• Resistance to change
• Using Appreciative Inquiry to
effect change
• Steps for organisational change
• Considering strategies for
organisational change – as
applied to group scenarios from
Sessions 2, 3 and 4.
Community by Design: Designing Healthy Environments through Teamwork
• Watch the following clips from “Ways we live”:
– What do you think about Murray’s Corner? Do you like it? How might it have created a different sense of community compared with conventional suburban areas?
– Look at the Garden Drive Project in Vancouver – how was team work and involvement encouraged here? What tactics that were used and how effective could these be?
• Watch the following clips from “Kevin McCloud and the Big Town
Plan”:
– Look for the presence of ‘champions’ (advocates for the community groups being represented)
– Look out for the ways in which people were encouraged to get involved in Castleford.
– How was this involvement different to the Garden Drive project in Vancouver?
– How was it similar?
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What is in a team?
Team members:
• Share a common purpose and common goals (Hayes, 1997)
• Have a clear understanding of each others’ roles and abilities(Thomas & Corney, 1993)
• Regularly interact with each other, usually through informalor formal team meetings (West & Slater, 1996)
• Have a shared knowledge base and collective responsibilityas a team (Gilmore et al., 1974)
• Are task-orientated and have different, but complementary, skills (Hayes, 1997)
What makes a team work well?Understanding team climate…
• Team Vision
• Participative Safety
• Support for Innovation
–Articulated
–Enacted
• Task Orientation
Anderson & West (1994)
Quality of team climate depends on type of team (Williams & Laungani, 1999)
Team Type
Team climate MDTs Mgt. teams PHCTs Single disc.
teams
Participative
Safety *
40.24 47.83 34.73 45.87
Support for
innovation
24.60 29.19 22.30 28.75
Vision * 22.87 18.61 9.74 14.12
Task
orientation
19.90 22.93 17.83 25.12
N=259; 30 health service teams*p<.05
How to handle team dynamicsThe String Quartet Study (Murnighan & Conlon, 1991)
• Paradox 1 – Leadership versus Democracy
–Question: When might directive leadership be preferable in a team?
• Paradox 2 – The Second Violin
–Question: Who is playing ‘second fiddle’ in a team and how are their needs met?
• Paradox 3 – Confrontation versus Compromise
–Question: How does a team meet conflict?
The Capable Team Model #1 (Cook, 1993)
• Cooperation
• Activities
• People
• Advancement
• Brief
• Leadership
• Environment responsiveness
Self-Directed Team (Ankarlo, 1992)
• The team has a shared unit of production or service
delivered.
• Team members are trained in many core skills. Members are
sufficiently competent to be able to cover for staff absences
• The team can plan, implement and control all work
processes.
• All team members’ responsibilities are clearly defined
When NOT to have a self-directed team
When the team:
• Has geographically separate members who don’t meet often
• Has low interdependence among members
• Has lack of trust among team members
And when there are…
• Task limitations - some jobs can be done better by one
person!
Cautions: ‘Group-Think’ and ‘Team-Think’• Janis (1972) identified Group-Think when analysing the failed invasion
of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba by a US-based militia in 1961 to overthrow
the Cuban government.
• Group think characterised by the following:
– Overestimating power and morality of the in-group
– Stereotyping the out-group as weak and ignorant
– Pressures to conform to the leader’s ideas and censorship of any information that might not support the leader’s chosen course of action
• Curing ‘Group-Think’ through ‘Team-Think’ (Manz & Neck, 1995) – see:
http://tinyurl.com/c6ssbx8
– Encourage diverse views
– Be aware of limitations/threats
– Discuss collective doubts
– Look at the moral and ethical issues of decisions being made
Team Roles (Belbin, 2010)
• ‘Plant’: so-called because person was planted in team; creative,
solves problems in novel ways
• Resource Investigator: Important when team is too inward
looking; focuses on getting ideas and knowledge from outside of the
team
• Co-ordinator: Focuses on objectives and gets team to work together
• Shaper: Very keen on moving the team forward
• Monitor-Evaluator: Has an impartial eye; able to assess team’s
options in a neutral way.
• Team Worker: Flexible; is the social ‘glue’ to the team itself
• Implementer: Puts together a strategy and tries to put it into action
• Completer Finisher: Checks for errors; fine-tunes the final product
• Specialist: Has in-depth knowledge of a key area
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Ways to make things stick: The Tipping Point (Gladwell, 2001)
The Law of the Few
• ‘Salesmen’: Strongly persuasive people with powerful negotiation skills;
• ‘Mavens’: Information specialists - “Mavens are really information brokers,
sharing and trading what they know”
• ‘Connectors’: - Those in the community who know a lot of people and
habitually take pleasure from enabling people to connect with each other.
Characterised by personality traits of curiosity, sociability, and self-
confidence.
Stickiness of the Message
• Examples used by Gladwell were from Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues
The Power of Context
• Example given by Gladwell of dramatic reduction in crime on New York’s
metro system by tackling small crimes (e.g. vandalism, fare-dodging)
Leadership
"Managers are people who do things rightand leaders are people who do the right thing" (Bennis & Nanus, 1985, p. 21).
By that definition, does this mean anyone can be a leader, even if you’re not a manager?
Contingency theory (Fiedler, 1967)
• A leader’s success depends on how characteristics of a
situation and the characteristics of the leader inter-relate
• Focuses on:
–Leader-member (i.e. subordinate/follower) relations –ranges from favourable to poor relations
–Task structure – ranges from highly structured (i.e. always ask customers if they want a muffin with their coffee) to vague/unstructured (e.g. “develop a better coffee product)
•From some leaders’ perspective, highly structured is good (needs less explanation and guidance)
–Position power of leader – ranges from high levels of authority to having little formal authority over co-workers
Leader Characteristics: The Least Preferred Co-worker Scale (Fiedler 1967)
“…Now use the scale to describe the person with whom you
find it hardest to get the job done.
Pleasant: __:__:__:__:__:__:__:__: Unpleasant
Friendly: __:__:__:__:__:__:__:__: Unfriendly
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
•High LPC scores = relationship-focused•Low LPC scores = task-oriented
Schriesheim et al. (1994)’s meta-analysis found:Leaders with low LPC levels tend to out-perform
those with high LPC levels
Transformational vs. Transactional leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2006)
• Transactional:
– Uses contingency theory (i.e. outcomes for the employee are dependent/contingent on what they do)
– Assumes that workers are mainly motivated by reward and punishment
– Seeks centralised control (e.g. tells each person what, when, and how to do it)
– Rewards given when leader-determined performance expectations are met
– Management by exception (e.g. not bothered with regular performance – only exceptionally good/bad results)
• Transformational:
– Engenders trust and respect of followers
– Looks for different perspectives when problem-solving
– Gets workers to challenge old assumptions and ways of working
– Thinks about what motivates each worker and each one can best develop in their role (and any possible future roles)
– Spends time coaching colleagues and empowering them
– Appreciates each employee’s contributions; recognises and celebrates each person’s achievements
The 1,9 Approach
I initiate actionsto help and support
others
I avoid generatingconflict but when it
appears I try to soothefeelings to keep people
together
I look for facts, beliefs and positions that suggest all is
well
The 9,1 Approach
I investigate facts, beliefs,and positions so that I am in
control of any situation
I drive myself andothers
I stand up for my opinions, attitudes and ideas even though it means rejecting others’ views
The 9,9 Approach
I feel it is importantTo express my concerns and convictions. I
respond to ideassounder than myown by changing
my mind
When conflict arises,I seek out reasonsfor it in order to
resolve underlyingcauses
I place high valueon arriving at sounddecisions. I seek understandingand agreement
Situational leadership (Hershey & Blanchard, 2001)
Low High
High
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Directive behaviour
Support
ive b
ehavio
ur
Directing
CoachingSupporting
Delegating
Steps for Interventions with Individuals and Small Groups (Adapted from Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010)
Work with individuals Work with groups
Pre-contemplation:• Look at where oppression and
suffering has emerged for each individual
Pre-contemplation:• Look at reasons for coming together
Contemplation:• Refine and define areas of work
Contemplation:• Explore principles for working
together
Preparation:• Select specific goals and areas for
change
Preparation:• Look at plan for achieving personal &
group goals
Action:• Try out actions to address oppressive
practices/systems
Action:• Balance participation and inclusion
with action itself
Maintenance:• Develop systems of sustaining
personal change and empowerment
Maintenance:• Norms and procedures for sustaining
change
Suggested Reading
• Belbin, M. (2010) Management teams – why they succeed or fail.
Butterworth Heinemann, 3rd edition.
• Nelson, G. & Prilleltensky, I. (2010) Community Psychology:I n
Pursuit of Liberation and Well-Being. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan [see Chapter 10].
• Williams, G. & Laungani, P. (1999) Analysis of teamwork in an NHS
community trust: an empirical study. Journal of Interprofessional
Care, 13(1), 19-28. [click on find it @NTU when going to the
following web page: http://informahealthcare.com/toc/jic/13/1 and
then access via EBSCO Host Academic Search Complete. There is
also a good paper by Poulton and West in the same journal issue].
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