The Handbook for Working with Difficult Groups E-Book

Sandy Schuman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: J-B International Association of Facilitators
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 729

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

WE'VE ALL EXPERIENCED the challenges associated with working with groups, but The Handbook for Working with Difficult Groups turns the idea of "difficult groups" on its head. Rather than view groups as inherently difficult, it looks at the factors that make working with groups difficult. Individual chapters focus on challenges such as involving dissenters, building external perspectives, reducing complaining, adapting to cultural differences, incorporating diversity, facilitating inclusion, working virtually, resolving identity-based conflict, transforming unproductive behavior patterns, preventing workplace harassment, and strengthening accountability. The book first provides a framework for thinking systemically about the many and varied ways in which working with a group can be difficult. Building on that framework, the contributors each address three basic issues: * How the group is difficult--a description of a real group and the observable phenomena that reflect the group's difficulty. * Why the group is difficult--an exploration of the underlying causes of the difficulty. * What you can do about it--what you can do as a group facilitator, leader, or member to help the group.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

PREFACE

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Introduction

THREE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO GROUP PERFORMANCE

FOUR PERSPECTIVES ON GROUP EFFECTIVENESS: THE COMPETING VALUES APPROACH

TWELVE CONDITIONS THAT CAN SUPPORT OR UNDERMINE GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

APPENDIX: A PRIMER ON THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK

chapter ONE - Keeping Difficult Situations from Becoming Difficult Groups

DEALING WITH DIFFERENCES

A THEORY OF DIFFERENCE: WHY WE CAN’T ALL GET ALONG

YOU CAN TURN STEREOTYPICAL SUBGROUPS INTO FUNCTIONAL ONES

FOUR WAYS TO ENABLE FUNCTIONAL SUBGROUPS

SUMMARY

chapter TWO - Building an External Focus: Avoiding the Difficulties on an ...

A DIFFICULT GROUP?

WHY DID THE CONSULTING TEAM FAIL?

WHAT IS AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE?

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES TO AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE?

HOW CAN ONE FACILITATE AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE?

CONCLUSIONS

chapter THREE - The Downside of Communication: Complaining Cycles in Group Discussions

HOW THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT: INEFFICIENT GROUP DISCUSSIONS

WHY THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT: COMPLAINING CYCLES

WHAT YOU CAN DO: COUNTERACTING COMPLAINING CYCLES

chapter FOUR - Facilitating Multicultural Groups

WHY THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT

WHAT YOU CAN DO

ACKNOWLEDGE AND ADAPT TO CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

ENGAGE LEADERS AND BUILD TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS

GAIN PARTICIPATION AND MANAGE POWER DYNAMICS

BUILD SYSTEMS FOR PRODUCTIVE DIALOGUE

ACCOMMODATE COMMUNICATION NEEDS AND STYLES

MAKE OPTIMUM USE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL

chapter FIVE - Interpersonally Hostile Work Groups: Precipitating Factors and Solutions

HOW INTERPERSONALLY HOSTILE GROUPS ARE DIFFICULT: PATTERNS AND IMPACT

WHY INTERPERSONALLY HOSTILE GROUPS ARE DIFFICULT: PRECIPITATING AND SUSTAINING FORCES

WHAT YOU CAN DO: INTERVENTIONS FOR REDUCING HOSTILITY IN WORK GROUPS

chapter SIX - Diversity by Design: Creating Cognitive Conflict to Enhance ...

THE SYSTEM SELECTION GROUP

THE MICROCOSM GROUP

THE MEANINGS OF DIVERSITY

CONFLICT: COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE

THE SYSTEM SELECTION AND MICROCOSM GROUPS: A RECAP

A FRAMEWORK FOR DEFINING DIVERSITY

AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE FRAMEWORK

CONCLUSION

chapter SEVEN - Facilitating Inclusion: Study Circles on Diversity and Student Achievement

CONTEXT

STRUCTURE

PROCESS

CONFLICT AND FACILITATOR CHALLENGES

OUTCOMES

IMPLICATIONS

chapter EIGHT - Overcoming Sources of Irrationality That Complicate Working in ...

THE GROUP AND HOW IT IS DIFFICULT

WHY SUCH GROUPS ARE DIFFICULT

WHAT ONE CAN DO TO FACILITATE WORKING WITH DIFFICULT GROUPS

CONCLUSION

chapter NINE - Working Without Rules: A Team in Need of a Different Picture

INTRODUCTION

HOW THE GROUP WAS DIFFICULT

WHY THE GROUP WAS DIFFICULT

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT—THE PROCESS

THE FACILITATOR’S PRESENCE—SETTING THE POSITIVE FRAME

chapter TEN - Interaction Archetypes: Keys to Group Difficulty and Productivity

THE FORCES INFLUENCING GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

A POWERFUL WAY TO INFLUENCE GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

SEEING AND SHIFTING GROUP BEHAVIOR

SUMMARY—GUIDELINES FOR FACILITATORS

chapter ELEVEN - Virtual Teams: Difficult in All Dimensions

INTRODUCTION

CONTEXT

STRUCTURE

PROCESS

CONCLUSION

chapter TWELVE - Politics of the Arts: Challenges in Working with Nonprofit Boards

HOW THESE GROUPS WERE DIFFICULT

WHY THIS GROUP WAS DIFFICULT

WHAT YOU CAN DO

CONCLUSION

chapter THIRTEEN - Competitive Group Interactions: Why They Exist and How to ...

THE INTERINDIVIDUAL-INTERGROUP DISCONTINUITY EFFECT

WHEN ARE GROUP INTERACTIONS COMPETITIVE?

WHY ARE GROUP INTERACTIONS COMPETITIVE?

HOW CAN INTERGROUP COMPETITION BE REDUCED?

CONCLUSION

chapter FOURTEEN - Active Facilitation: How to Help Groups Break Through ...

HOW THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT

WHY THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT

WHAT TO DO?

OUTCOMES

chapter FIFTEEN - Mediating History, Making Peace: Dealing with the “Messy” ...

IDENTITY-BASED APPROACH TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION

HOW THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT

WHY THESE GROUPS ARE DIFFICULT

WORKING WITH GROUPS PLAGUED WITH INTERNAL HISTORICAL TRAUMA: VILLAGE DIALOGUES ...

WORKING WITH CROSS-CONFLICT GROUPS: THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN DIALOGUE GROUP

WHAT YOU CAN DO

RESHAPING RURAL COMMUNITIES OF CAMBODIA THROUGH LONG-TERM DIALOGUE

AN HISTORICAL TIMELINES APPROACH IN CROSS-CONFLICT DIALOGUE GROUPS

CONCLUSION

chapter SIXTEEN - Deep Democracy: Multidimensional Process-Oriented Leadership

DEEP DEMOCRACY

PROCESS THEORY

TRACKING

PROCESS STRUCTURE

SPIN

RANK

MULTIDIMENSIONAL PROCESS-ORIENTED LEADERSHIP

FIRST AND SECOND TRAINING

chapter SEVENTEEN - Authentic Relationships and Collective Psychological Capital

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF AUTHENTICITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL ON INTRAGROUP RELATIONS

COPING WITH DIFFICULTIES THROUGH AUTHENTICITY AND PSYCAP

chapter EIGHTEEN - How Leaders Can Make Diverse Groups Less Difficult: The ...

HOW THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT: PROBLEMS IN DIVERSE GROUPS

WHY THE GROUP IS DIFFICULT: PERCEPTIONS OF DIVERSITY

WHAT YOU CAN DO: THE ROLE OF LEADERS

CONCLUSION

chapter NINETEEN - The Hero’s Journey: Helping Inflexible Groups—and ...

WHY DO FACILITATORS EXPERIENCE GROUPS AS DIFFICULT, AND WHY DO THEY NEED TO BE FLEXIBLE?

TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE—THE ENERGETIC BOND OF THE GROUP

THE HERO’S JOURNEY

FACILITATING THE HEROES’ JOURNEY

CONCLUSION

chapter TWENTY - Difficult Groups or Difficult Facilitators? Three Steps ...

HOW THE FACILITATOR CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THREE COMMON GROUP DIFFICULTIES

WHY THE FACILITATOR MAY CONTRIBUTE TO THESE PROBLEMS

WHAT FACILITATORS CAN DO

CONCLUSION

KEY TERMS

REFERENCES

NAME INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

Copyright © 2010 by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). All rights reserved.

Pages 421-422 constitute a continuation of the copyright page.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-59412-4

1. Conflict management. 2. Interpersonal relations. 3. Interpersonal conflict.

4. Teams in the workplace. I. Schuman, Sandy, 1951-

HD42.H357 2010

658.3|145—dc22

2009051940

HB Printing

The Jossey-Bass

Business & Management Series

PREFACE

“Isn’t this the most difficult group you’ve ever worked with?” a group member asked earnestly. As a group facilitator, I have heard this question—in one form or another—many times. For years I responded by downplaying or outright denying the group’s difficulty. “Oh, this group isn’t so difficult; it’s not that unusual.” “Really?” the group member responded. “I thought this was a really bad group!” and the eagerness and energy that came with the initial question would fade.

After many such exchanges, I finally realized two things. First, from my perspective the group did not seem unusual or difficult, but from the perspective of its members, it was. Second, instead of hearing me deny their reality, these group members wanted me to acknowledge that their group was indeed difficult, provide some insight into why it was difficult, and suggest what they could do about it.

When I finally caught on to the meaning of this question, I started responding differently. Instead of negating people’s sense of the group’s difficulty, I replied, “That’s an interesting question! What makes this group difficult from your perspective?” The responses I heard were often illuminating, and they helped me appreciate the many ways in which groups can be experienced as difficult. And indeed, even for the most experienced and wise group members, leaders, and facilitators, there are “difficult groups.”

This leads to an important element in how we think about our work with groups: rather than think in terms of how to work with difficult groups, the approach we take in this book is to think in terms of what makes working with groups difficult. That is to say, a particular group is not innately difficult; rather, there are various things that make working with the group difficult. Wouldn’t it be useful if we had a way of thinking systematically about all the ways in which working with a group might be difficult? That would provide a basis for understanding why working with the group is difficult and then what you could do about it.

In the Introduction, John Rohrbaugh and I present a conceptual framework for thinking about groups and how they might be effective or ineffective. In brief, the framework presents three high-level factors that affect group performance: context, structure, and process. In addition, it adopts four perspectives on group performance: relational, political, rational, and empirical. These factors and perspectives are integrated to result in twelve conditions. The framework was presented to prospective authors in the “call for chapters” that initiated this book. I asked the authors to locate their chapters within this framework, and I appreciate their willingness to work with it. However, the authors were not limited to addressing one factor, perspective, or condition. Rather, most of the chapters address multiple parts of the framework, as should be expected when dealing with real groups. The framework is intended as an intellectual tool for helping you think about the difficulties that groups encounter, not as a way to categorize groups.

The value of this structure to you is—I hope—twofold. First, any structure is valuable if it helps you make sense of the content of the book. Second, the structure itself is informative. It provides a framework for thinking about the full range of issues, not just those presented in the book, but in the full domain of concern—group effectiveness.

But why this structure? As we say in the Introduction, “Rather than provide a long list or an all-too-simplistic categorization of the ways in which working with groups can be difficult, we would like to present a framework for thinking about groups and what makes them effective or ineffective.” Because it is based on several decades of research and thinking about organizational and group effectiveness, the framework is time tested and able to accommodate virtually any group-related topic and place it in the context of others. If you are already familiar with the three factors and four perspectives, their juxtaposition will not present a great challenge. If you are encountering them for the first time, I hope you can make sense of our presentation and see how the framework applies in each of the chapters and in your everyday work.

In addition, I asked the authors to address each of the following questions.

How the group is difficult: a brief story that presents a group and the observable phenomena that reflect the group’s difficulty

Why the group is difficult: an exploration of the underlying causes of the difficulty

What you can do: what you as a group facilitator, leader, or member can do to help the group

Initially, I thought I would use the framework to order the chapters in the table of contents but, as I noted earlier, most of the chapters address multiple aspects of the framework, so this didn’t work. However, I noticed that most of the chapters were in predominantly intragroup settings (Chapters One through Nine), a few addressed both intra- and intergroup settings (Chapters Ten through Twelve), and a few addressed intergroup settings (Chapters Thirteen through Fifteen). In addition, a number of chapters dealt directly with the roles of leadership and facilitation (Chapters Sixteen through Twenty). I arranged the chapters in this order, but I did not want to reinforce these categories by labeling these as formal parts of the book.

As the third in a series of edited collections sponsored by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), the idea and planning for this book emerged from the efforts of Tammy Adams, then IAF’s strategic initiative coordinator for communications and publications; Betty Kjellberg, then IAF’s executive director; and Kathe Sweeney, senior editor at Jossey-Bass/Wiley. Without them, this book would never have been conceived, much less implemented. Fifty-three individuals thoughtfully reviewed and evaluated the chapter proposals that were submitted in response to the call for chapters. The Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany provided support throughout, with Paul Dickson playing a key role in managing the chapter review process. John Rohrbaugh’s contributions to the Introduction, and his advice throughout my editorial work, were invaluable. More than I can say, I am indebted to the thirty-seven authors who contributed to this volume, responded thoughtfully and graciously to my comments, made multiple revisions, and saw through the details of bringing this book to publication. Although I hope that everyone has gained something through this process, no one has gained more from these interactions than I.

August 2009 Sandy Schuman University at Albany Albany, New York [email protected]

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at MIT Sloan School of Management. Her work is focused on distributed leadership and team process and performance and has appeared in a wide range of journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal.

Anna C. Boulton is program manager of community development for the Utah Arts Council. Her program focuses on enabling arts and cultural organizations to grow and stabilize through professional development. She created and facilitates the Utah Change Leader Institute, a National Endowment of the Arts-funded program to train community arts administrators and volunteers to become the initiators of change in their local communities using the arts as a vehicle for economic development. She authored two arts administration handbooks, The Art of Board Development (State of Utah, 2000), and The Art of Volunteer Development (State of Utah, 2004). Anna is also an adjunct instructor of communication at Weber State University.

Füsun Bulutlar is assistant professor of organizational behavior at Yeditepe University, Istanbul. She has been teaching research methods and management courses at the undergraduate level and human resources and organizational behavior courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. As the vice chair of the International Trade and Business Department, she is well accustomed to working with diverse and difficult groups. Her interest areas are positive organizational behavior, positive scholarship, emotions in the workplace, and business ethics. Her primary aims are to stress the importance of the human side of the organization and to reveal that the efficiency and effectiveness of groups and organizations can flourish when the quality of work life and the well-being of employees are improved.

David F. Caldwell is the Schott Professor of Business at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. His research on individual and team processes has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Organization Science.

Michael Cassidy is a professor of information technology and management science at Marymount University’s School of Business in Arlington, Virginia, with teaching responsibilities in research methodology, statistics, decision analysis, simulation modeling, and task groups. He is past coeditor of Performance Improvement Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal whose focus is human performance at the individual, group, and organizational levels. He is also senior principal analyst at Innovative Decisions, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia. Professor Cassidy has an active and diverse research agenda, including the areas of decision making, human deception, and epistemology, and he has published in fields including management, education, sociology, and law enforcement. He has worked with multiple agencies in the U.S. federal government, the World Bank, and other organizations.

Ingrid C. Chadwick is completing her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario. She has an international background in human resources, and she has worked with employee and organization development initiatives at Volvo, Ford, and PepsiCo. Her research focuses on teams, interpersonal relations, diversity, learning, and leadership. She completed a master’s degree in education at Queen’s University prior to pursuing her Ph.D.

Mark A. Clark is an associate professor at the Kogod School of Business, American University, Washington DC, and Visiting Scholar at the Instituto de Empresa (SEK) in Madrid. His research on team performance contexts, culture, diversity, and strategic human capital has appeared in Group Dynamics, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Applied Psychology, among other outlets, and has been presented internationally to both academic audiences and business executives. Dr. Clark’s background includes experience as a treatment specialist, trainer, program administrator, and consultant. He earned his Ph.D. from Arizona State University.

Taya R. Cohen (Ph.D. in psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008) is a visiting assistant professor and postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Dr. Cohen’s research focuses on understanding differences between group and individual behavior in a variety of contexts, including ethical dilemmas, social dilemmas, and negotiation. She investigates these issues by comparing interactions between groups to interactions between individuals in mixed-motive situations, such as the prisoner’s dilemma game and the deception game. She studies how moral emotions (for example, guilt, empathy) affect interactions in these contexts.

Philip Gamaghelyan is the co-founder and co-director of the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation that works primarily with Turkish-Armenian and Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts. Philip’s research focus in on the role of historical memory and education in identity-based conflicts. He developed a facilitation methodology that uses historical timelines as a tool for analysis of the underlying reasons for the “historical hatred” of groups in conflict and also for outlining solutions to the conflict through a structured mediated discussion of events alive in the historical memories of the involved groups. Prior to starting the Imagine Center, he lectured at Tufts University Experimental College, served as a fellow at the International Center for Conciliation and worked with Arab and Israeli educators at Seeds of Peace. Philip has a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Brandeis University and a B.A. in Political Science from Yerevan State Linguistic University. He is the author of a number of articles on Nagorno-Karabakh and Turkish-Armenian conflicts, including publications in the International Negotiation Journal and Peace and Conflict Monitor.

Dennis S. Gouran (Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1968) is a professor of communication arts and sciences and labor studies and employment relations at the Pennsylvania State University. Professor Gouran has been president of both the Central States Communication Association and National Communication Association. He has served as editor of Communication Studies and Communication Monographs. Professor Gouran’s scholarship focuses on communication in decision-making and problem-solving groups. He is author or coauthor of more than one hundred books, book chapters, and journal articles dealing with the subject. For his contributions to scholarship, in 1993 Professor Gouran was named one of the first ten National Communication Association Distinguished Scholars.

Verlin B. Hinsz received his undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology from North Dakota State University and his Ph.D. in social-organizational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since earning his doctorate, he has been on the faculty of North Dakota State University, where he is now a professor of psychology. Professor Hinsz has published primarily in the areas of group and individual judgment and decision making. In addition, his research has ventured into social psychology topics of mate attraction, mood, and nonverbal expressions. Professor Hinsz’s research in organizational psychology has focused on team performance and goal setting by groups and individuals. Professor Hinsz is currently associate editor of the Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes section of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Astrid C. Homan (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2006) is an assistant professor of social and organizational psychology at VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her research interests include team diversity, team processes, team performance, subgroup salience, and diversity beliefs. She is particularly interested in determining how to harvest the potential value in diversity. She has published her work in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology and Academy of Management Journal. Her most recent area of interest is team member change and leadership of diverse teams.

Chester A. Insko received his A.B. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, his M.A. in psychology from Boston University in 1958, and his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963. Since 1965, he has been on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is now a professor of psychology. He is a past associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and past editor of the Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes section of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. His current research focuses on interindividual-intergroup discontinuity—the tendency in some social contexts for relations between groups to be more competitive than relations between individuals.

Sandra Janoff, Ph.D., a psychologist and consultant, works with corporations, government agencies, and communities worldwide on issues of globalization, sustainability, and humane practices. She was staff member for Tavistock conferences sponsored by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in Oxford, England. She is coauthor with Yvonne Agazarian of “Systems Thinking and Small Groups” for the Comprehensive Textbook of Group Psychotherapy, and was a member of the European Institute for Transnational Studies. Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord codirect the international nonprofit Future Search Network, and they are coauthors of Future Search: An Action Guide, 2nd Edition (Berrett-Koehler, 2000), and Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter (Berrett-Koehler, 2007). They have managed planning meetings in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, India, and North and South America and have trained more than thirty-five hundred people worldwide in using their principles.

Karen A. Jehn (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1992) is a professor at Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research examines intragroup conflict, group composition, and lying in organizations. Professor Jehn has authored numerous publications in these areas, including articles in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Business Ethics. She has served as a director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Sloan Foundation’s Diversity Research Network. Her most recent area of interest is in asymmetric perceptions within workgroups.

Simone Kauffeld (Ph.D., University of Kassel, Germany, 1999) is a professor of work, organizational, and social psychology at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. Her research focuses on teams, competencies, training and transfer, consultant-client interaction, leadership, and innovation in organizations. Professor Kauffeld has edited three volumes on competence management and development, developed several instruments in organizational psychology, and written more than one hundred contributions to textbooks and peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, and Personnel Review. After managing numerous team and organization development projects, she founded the spinoff 4A-SIDE (www.4a-side.com) to carry her scientific instruments and approaches into the field.

Celia Kirwan is a consultant with Robert H. Schaffer & Associates (RHS&A), a management consulting firm based in the United States and London. RHS&A helps organizations conduct rapid-cycle, results-driven experiments that stimulate large-scale systems change and develop the capabilities needed to sustain those changes. Celia has used this approach to help organizations in the financial services, consumer goods, health care, insurance, and nonprofit sectors improve their internal processes and ensure that those processes yield the desired results. Prior to joining RHS&A, Celia worked for Kinsley Lord- Towers Perrin in London and Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman) in London and Boston. In 2008, Celia coauthored “Healthcare Rx: Start with Results Today” in OD Seasonings (the online publication of the OD Network). Celia has also coauthored a chapter on RHS&A’s Rapid Results approach in the second edition of The Change Handbook (Berrett-Koehler, 2007). Celia has an undergraduate degree in geography, German, and European studies from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and an M.A. in geography from Boston University.

Theresa J. B. Kline is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. She has an active research program in the area of team performance, and her other research interests include psychometrics, organizational effectiveness, and work attitudes. Theresa has published two books on teams, Teams That Lead (Erlbaum, 2003) and Remaking Teams (Jossey-Bass, 1999), and one on psychometrics, Psychological Testing (Sage, 2005), and over fifty peer-reviewed articles. Theresa teaches statistics and methods and organizational psychology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has an active organizational consulting practice with projects ranging from individual and organizational assessment to strategic alignment.

Dagmar Kusa is a senior fellow and program coordinator at the International Center for Conciliation (ICfC) and a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University and at the Ethnology Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She is currently in the final stages of writing her thesis on the role of historical memory in the politics of Central Europe. She has written a number of publications and chapters—most recently a chapter on Slovak citizenship (in R. Bauböck, B. Perchinig, & W. Sievers, Citizenship Policies in the New Europe, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007) and Alternative Conflict Resolution I and II for the Foundation Against Discrimination in Slovakia (EU Project EQUAL). Dagmar has a background in political science and human rights, and has worked in the field of conflict resolution since 1999, leading workshops in Slovakia, India, Cambodia, The Netherlands, and the United States. She has been developing an “historical conciliation” approach, focusing on working with the collective memory of the groups involved in identity-based conflict.

Mary Laeger-Hagemeister has spent her career living and working with diverse populations in the United States, from the plains of the Midwest to an inner city on the East Coast and the mountains of Appalachia. Her adult students have included incarcerated individuals, people in poverty, people in a mental health facility, immigrants, and members of the general population. In addition to developing curricula and teaching topics ranging from parenting to leadership and facilitation, Mary has served as a community coach. For the past twenty years she has been employed in the extension system at the Pennsylvania State University and, most recently, the University of Minnesota. Presently, Mary is finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. Her dissertation is on social capital networking and immigration populations in rural Minnesota.

John Landesman is the founder and current coordinator of the Montgomery County Public Schools Study Circles Program. The program has organized over two thousand parents, teachers, administrators, and students in dialogue and action to address racial and ethnic barriers to student achievement and parent involvement. Landesman also consults with government agencies and community organizations to develop public engagement programs on race, education, neighborhood issues, and immigration. Landesman is a senior associate and former director of community assistance for the national organization Everyday Democracy, and has written curriculum guides for facilitating dialogues on a variety of challenging public issues.

Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology after studying at the University of Göttingen (Germany) and the University of California, Irvine. She has worked in human resource development as a team trainer and has been a faculty member at the Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany) since 2007. She is currently working on her Ph.D. thesis concerning trust in the workplace, based on a study of fifty groups from two companies. Her research interests further include intragroup processes, teamwork, communication, and heterogeneous teams. She has written several book chapters and articles in such peer-reviewed journals as the European Journal of Psychological Assessment and the Journal of European Industrial Training.

Ann Lukens promotes collaborative and reflective working practices in local government, corporations, and partnership groups through strategic activities such as mergers, reorganizations, public consultations, and change programs. As a mediator and facilitator, Ann designs and delivers training and facilitated sessions to develop cross-sector and partnership working, collaborative leadership, and conflict management and resolution, and she supports teams and groups working through conflict and difficult times. Her M.Sc. research centered on the availability of training that effectively combines group work and conflict work. Ann is a practitioner at heart—she enjoys training and being trained, but loves “the doing” even more.

Brian P. Meier received his undergraduate degree in psychology and his Ph.D. degree in social psychology from North Dakota State University. He has been a faculty member at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania since 2005. Professor Meier’s primary research interests lie in emotion and social cognition. His recent publications cover a wide range of topics in these areas, including embodied cognition and emotion, personality and aggression, and implicit processes in emotion and social cognition.

Steven Ober, Ed.D., is founder and president of Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting. He is a leading executive coach and has created a breakthrough approach to executive coaching: Creating Your Leadership Story. Steve has worked successfully with senior executives in business, high-tech, government, health care, and education—helping them produce outstanding results in complex systems. He was a vice president at Arthur D. Little, a principal in Innovation Associates, a thought leader in ADL’s strategy and organization practice, and leader of Innovation Associates’ team learning practice. Steve is the author of numerous articles and professional guidebooks, including “Encouraging Enrollment: Personal Stories as a Vehicle for Change” (Prism, 2000), Cracking the Culture Nut: Human Systems Consulting (Innovation Associates/Arthur D. Little, 2000), and “Lies About the Learning Organization” (in Lies About Learning, ASTD, 2006). Steve has conducted sessions on organizational learning and executive storytelling in numerous workshops and national conferences. He is known for his frankness, openness, honesty, and ability to unravel very difficult team and organizational problems.

Thomas A.O’Neill is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where he is studying industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology. He completed his B.A. Honours in psychology at the University of Calgary and his M.Sc. in I/O psychology at the University of Western Ontario. His varied research interests include the effects of personality in explaining teamwork, the antecedents of effective teleworking arrangements, methodologies of group research, alternatives to selection test validation, the usefulness of broad versus narrow traits in predicting organizational behavior, and virtual teamwork and leadership.

Jana L. Raver, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario. Her expertise covers topics including interpersonal relations in work teams and workplace diversity. Her award-winning research has been published in top-tier management journals, such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Applied Psychology, and has been disseminated widely through media outlets. She teaches undergraduate, M.B.A., and Ph.D. courses on team processes, human resource management, and multilevel topics in organizational behavior. She has also consulted and conducted applied research with a number of public and private organizations. She completed her Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Maryland.

John Rohrbaugh earned his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Colorado and currently serves as full professor in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University of Albany (SUNY). Professor Rohrbaugh’s research has focused on the problem-solving processes of management groups, executive teams, and expert task forces in an effort to identify methods that would improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational decision making. His work has been published as articles in more than thirty different journals and as chapters in nearly as many books. As a consultant and facilitator, Professor Rohrbaugh has worked with over thirty-five agencies of the federal and state governments in the United States, and participated on project teams engaged with governments in Chile, Egypt, Somalia, Lebanon, and Hungary.

Adam Saltsman is a fellow and program officer at the International Center for Conciliation (ICfC). With the ICfC, Adam spent nearly two years in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between 2005 and 2007, establishing an office and projects related to historical conciliation. Collaborating with local Cambodian non-governmental organizations, Adam started the Social Justice and History Outreach project in three villages throughout Cambodia with the goal of sparking public discussion about history in conflicted communities. As part of this project, Adam worked to bring together former Khmer Rouge cadre and survivors from the Cambodian genocide to develop conciliatory dialogue strategies to address village access to Cambodia’s transitional justice process. Adam is also a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Boston College, where he focuses on the political economy of forced migration and participatory action development and research.

Donna Rae Scheffert writes for to the Washington Times Communities. Her column is called Making Change: Getting Involved in Helping Others. She is also a senior consultant with Action Wheel Leadership, Inc., and an associate with deepSEE Consulting. A former extension professor at the University of Minnesota she still teaches a graduate course on facilitation. Along with colleagues, she codeveloped the Facilitation Resources capacity-building program for adults to increase their facilitation skills and then volunteer to help create solutions for public problems. Scheffert has helped bring facilitation training, leadership development, and community visioning and action to hundreds of high-poverty communities in eight northern states to reduce poverty and grow prosperity (Horizons program). She received the Distinguished Extension Campus Faculty Award, University of Minnesota Extension, and the FUTURES award, Minnesota Rural Futures.

Sandor Schuman helps organizations work more effectively to solve complex problems and make critical decisions. He is a group facilitator, collaborative process advocate, and storyteller. He helps groups create shared meaning, make critical choices, and build collaborative relationships. Sandy is the editor of the International Association of Facilitators handbooks, including Creating a Culture of Collaboration (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation (Jossey-Bass, 2005). He was the long-term editor of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal and moderator of The Electronic Group Discussion on Group Facilitation. Sandy is a director of the Program on Strategic Decision Making at the Center for Policy Research, University at Albany, SUNY, and president of Executive Decision Services LLC.

Carol Sherriff is a Certified Professional Facilitator with more than eight years’ experience in facilitating events and projects in the United Kingdom. Before setting up her own facilitation business, she was CEO of two not-for-profit organizations. She has an M.Sc. in psychology and an M.B.A., and is an associate lecturer with Open University Business School. Carol Sherriff and Simon Wilson have presented at IAF conferences in Europe, Asia and North America. They contributed a chapter, “Metaphors at Work,” for the IAF handbook Creating a Culture of Collaboration (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and wrote the IAF Europe professional development pamphlet “Does He Who Pays the Piper Call the Tune?”

Wes Siegal is an organizational psychologist and a senior consultant at Robert H. Schaffer & Associates (RHS&A), a management consulting firm based in the United States and London. RHS&A helps organizations conduct rapid-cycle, results-driven experiments that stimulate large-scale systems change and develop the capabilities needed to sustain those changes. In his role as the firm’s team leader for practice development, Wes has worked with dozens of top-tier organizations to transcend the organizational dynamics that so often frustrate critical strategic goals. He has helped clients achieve breakthrough results in areas as diverse as sales growth, manufacturing efficiency, certification of renewable energy sources, and HIV mitigation in developing countries. Wes has spoken about consulting and change dynamics at the national SIOP and ASTD conferences, and he has written about these topics in two recent articles in the journal Consulting to Management. Wes has an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from Columbia University.

Stanford Siver, Ph.D., Dipl.PW, is a certified process work diplomate, conflict facilitator, organizational consultant, and coach. He is a cofounder of the Deep Democracy Institute, an NGO dedicated to training individuals, groups, and organizations in process oriented leadership development, community building, organizational change, and conflict facilitation. He is formerly a sales and marketing manager; an organizational change, people empowerment, and quality improvement process facilitator; a military intelligence analyst; a numerical systems development analyst; a shipwright and sailor; and director of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. Stanford’s work focuses on the psychology of conflict and the relationship between our inner experience and community, organizational, and global conflict.

RichardW.Sline (Ph.D., University of Utah, 1999) is associate professor of communication at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he teaches organizational communication, interpersonal and small group communication, group facilitation and leadership, intercultural communication, and communication theory. He has been designing and facilitating organization needs assessments, interventions, and training programs for private corporations and nonprofit organizations for over twenty years. His major areas of specialization include organizational assessment, team building, organization change, and conflict management. His research interests include work team effectiveness, teaching teamwork, and relational dialectics in retirement. He has written book chapters and conference papers on group facilitation techniques, the effects of emotionality on work team collaboration, and member commitment to their work team and organization.

Glyn Thomas, Ed.D., is the director (learning, teaching, and international) in the Centre for Excellence in Outdoor and Environmental Education at La Trobe University in Australia. His research and teaching primarily focus on the education of facilitators to work in experiential education settings. Over the last twenty-two years, he has taught in a range of educational contexts and is committed to the values, principles, and practice of ecological sustainability.

Marvin Weisbord consulted with business firms, medical schools and hospitals from 1969 to 1992. He was a partner in Block Petrella Weisbord, Inc., a member of the NTL Institute and the European Institute for Transnational Studies, and is a fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Organization Development Network, which in 2004 voted his book Productive Workplaces (1987) among the five most influential books of the past forty years. He also is author of Organizational Diagnosis (1978), Discovering Common Ground (1992), and Productive Workplaces Revisited (2004). Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff codirect the international nonprofit Future Search Network and are coauthors of Future Search: An Action Guide, 2nd Edition (2000), and Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! (2007). They have managed planning meetings in Africa, Asia, Europe, India, and North and South America and trained more than thirty-five hundred people worldwide in using their principles.

Simon Wilson is a Certified Professional Facilitator with extensive experience in facilitating events and projects in the government, public, and private sectors. He is chair of a not-for-profit national organization and holds an M.B.A. Simon Wilson and Carol Sherriff have presented at IAF conferences in Europe, Asia, and North America. They contributed a chapter on metaphors at work for the IAF Handbook Creating a Culture of Collaboration (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and wrote the IAF Europe professional development pamphlet “Does He Who Pays the Piper Call the Tune?”

Introduction

Working with Difficult Groups: A Conceptual Framework

Sandor Schuman and John Rohrbaugh

Working with groups can be difficult in innumerable ways, but working without groups is nearly impossible. The aim of this book is to help your working with difficult groups become easier. Indeed, instead of thinking in terms of difficult groups, we would rather think in terms of what makes working with groups difficult and, for that matter, what makes working with groups effective. Rather than provide a long list or an all-too-simplistic categorization of the ways in which working with groups can be difficult, we would like to present a framework for thinking about groups and what makes them effective or ineffective. This framework is not offered as definitive, but it is nonetheless useful for organizing the book. Other recent frameworks are highly instructive as well (see, for example, Rousseau, Aube, & Savoic, 2006).

Three factors (context, structure, and process) and four perspectives (relational, empirical, political, and rational) provide the organizing framework for Working with Difficult Groups.

Each chapter of the book focuses on aspects of one or more of the factors or perspectives. In this way, while each chapter addresses particular aspects that make working with groups difficult, the book as a whole presents an integrated view of group effectiveness and ineffectiveness. The following sections describe this framework more fully.

THREE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO GROUP PERFORMANCE

For nearly fifty years, effectiveness or ineffectiveness of group performance has been linked in both theory and research to at least three high-order factors: context, structure, and process (McGrath, 1964; Gladstein, 1984; Schwarz, 2002), as illustrated in Table I.1. A group’s context takes into account environmental variables and can be characterized by the multifaceted external circumstances that both support and constrain collaboration. A group’s structure reflects the variables of design and is evidenced by its many formal and informal aspects. A group’s process derives from the confluence of interaction variables and subsumes a wide variety of behaviors pertaining to exchanges before, during, and after meetings. A group may be difficult due to some particular attribute (or combination of attributes) of its context, structure, or process.

Table I.1

Three Higher-Order Factors of Group Performance

Context

All external variables that may directly or indirectly affect a group’s performance can be considered its context. These environmental factors may be described as (but not limited to) physical, social, economic, political, or organizational. In some ways, the context of a group can be beneficent and enhance its performance; in other ways, its environment can be hostile or even catastrophic in character, making any group achievement unlikely, perhaps impossible. Many groups function with considerable ignorance of the full context in which they are working, except for only the most apparent variables. As a result, they may fail to take advantage of substantial resources readily available to them, or to prepare adequately for emergent obstacles that eventually thwart them.

Resource dependence theory instructs groups to devote considerable attention to understanding the key aspects of their context and to making a concerted effort to communicate with external individuals and groups. Such strategic alliances initially may seem beyond the agenda of the group, but building successful networks of partners can serve to accumulate additional resources that may prove essential to positive outcomes. Furthermore, strong coalitions reduce the vulnerability of any one group standing alone.

Structure

Even groups that have come together organically and developed unintentionally with no oversight of membership and no succession of leadership do have structure—that is, a distinctive design. To describe a group’s design does not imply that there was a designer but merely that a pattern of characteristics is apparent. A simple head count at each meeting can be an indicator of group size, which is a key structural variable; group size, as is true of any aspect of group design, need not be fixed but can vary over time. A group with too many participants (or too few) or a group lacking members’ relevant knowledge or skills may be challenged in accomplishing its goals. In addition to its size and composition, a group’s structure includes many other aspects, such as its communication patterns, norms, and roles.

A group’s goals and objectives are often considered part of its structure as well, because the extent to which they are understood, accepted (shared), and valued will affect group outcomes. However, tasks officially assigned to a group may differ from the tasks that engage the efforts of its members. This is an important distinction. Formal structure refers to any aspect of design that has been planned for (and, perhaps, imposed on) a group; emergent structure refers to the distinctive pattern of group characteristics that actually are observed over time. We should not be surprised if the formal leadership structure and the emergent leadership structure of a group are not the same. In fact, the divergence of formal structure and emergent structure can be a potential impediment (or, alternatively, the essential key) to a group’s success.

Process

Group interaction exhibits a large variety of facets of patterned verbal and nonverbal behavior. Exchanges between group members have been roughly categorized as focused on the task or focused on the group, a long-standing and useful but simplistic bifurcation. To be effective, of course, members need to work constructively toward accomplishing their objectives, but they also need to ensure that their group remains a cohesive collectivity. If an excessive task orientation begins to fragment the group or if meeting the socioemotional needs of individuals largely competes with goal achievement, failure can be imminent. How a group balances its task orientation and its social orientation is an important aspect of its process.

Group conflict, of course, is not limited to the tension between task and socioemotional interests. Conflicts of opinion, conflicts of value, and conflicts of interest (to name only a few) emerge in any group process. As has been well established in the formal study of groups, diversity (or heterogeneity) of membership can contribute positively to task performance. Groups composed of highly similar members may “get along” well, but typically do not have a large enough pool of abilities, experiences, skills, and perspectives to respond effectively to complex problems. Whereas a group’s composition is an aspect of its structure, the use of tools and techniques to enable conflict to emerge and be used constructively is a key element of its process.

FOUR PERSPECTIVES ON GROUP EFFECTIVENESS: THE COMPETING VALUES APPROACH

Contemporary standards for both organization and group performance were well anticipated by the theory-building work of the sociologist Talcott Parsons (1959; Hare, 1976). Parsons proposed that there are four key functions of any collectivity (or system of action): pattern maintenance, integration, adaptation, and goal attainment. The essential nature of these four functions—and their appropriate balance—has been the emphasis of the Competing Values Approach (CVA) to organizational analysis (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983; Rohrbaugh, 1983; Belasen, 2008). (An introduction to the CVA is given in the appendix to this chapter.) At the group level in particular, the CVA has been used to identify four domains of collective performance that parallel Parsons’ functions: relational, empirical, political, and rational (Rohrbaugh, 2005).

Relational Perspective

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

—George Bernard Shaw (1913/2008, p. 119)

The relational perspective places emphasis on achieving the pattern maintenance function and focuses on full participation in meetings, with open expression of individual feelings and sentiments. Extended discussion and debate about conflicting concerns should lead to collective agreement on a mutually satisfactory solution. Such team building would increase the likelihood of support for any solution during implementation. This very interpersonally oriented perspective is dominant in the field of organization development.

For example, when group members are divided in their values and have conflicting interests, it is important that the conditions under which they are collaborating fully support their joint efforts. In addition to such incentives that would motivate collective work, group composition should be characterized by such attributes as sincerity and openness to others’ views so that trust can be encouraged. Groups that are skillful in expressing and using their conflicts constructively will benefit substantially over time.

Empirical Perspective

A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge.

—Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb & Bergh, 1903-04, vol. 2, p. 97)

Group observers who take an empirical perspective place emphasis on achieving the integration function and stress the importance of documentation. They pay particular attention to the ways in which groups secure and share relevant information and develop or rely on comprehensive databases to support problem solving. Proponents of this perspective, typically trained in the physical and social sciences (especially management information systems) believe that, to be effective, group deliberation should allow thorough use of evidence and full accountability.

In addition to the availability of external information, group composition should be characterized by an appropriate pool of necessary skills, abilities, and expertise to address the focal issues. Furthermore, communication channels must remain open, so that group members can better inform and learn from each other. From the empirical perspective, widening communication beyond single channels and specific occasions (for example, beyond only spoken communication during face-to-face meetings) will enhance group achievement.

Political Perspective

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

—W. Edwards Deming

The political perspective emphasizes the adaptation function and takes the view that group flexibility and creativity are the paramount process attributes. One indication of adaptability is the extent to which the group is attuned to shifts in the nature of the problem, accordingly altering its focus and approach to finding solutions. The search for legitimacy—the acceptability of solutions to outside stakeholders who are not immediate participants but whose interests potentially are affected by the group deliberations—would be notable through a fully responsive, dynamic process.

From the political perspective, a group is credited rather than shamed by explicitly taking into consideration how its standing in the eyes of outside interests is maintained or enhanced. An effective group is one that works to increase its own authority and influence. Over time, such a group improves its readiness to adjust both structure and process to better position itself in the ongoing competition for resources, especially external financial support.

Rational Perspective

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is aiming for, no wind is the right wind.

—Marcus Annaeus Seneca (Cook, 1999, p. 352)

The priority of clear thinking as the primary ingredient for successful group performance is the hallmark of the rational perspective, which emphasizes the goal attainment function. From this very task-oriented approach (particularly common in management science and operations research), groups should be directed by explicit statement and understanding of their primary goals and objectives. Methods that assist group members to be more efficient planners are valued for improving the coherency and consistency of decision making.

For example, rational planning includes thorough consideration of the physical aspects of face-to-face meetings. Collaboration is enhanced when group members are comfortably seated in well-lighted, temperature-controlled, appropriately furnished and equipped rooms, well protected from the distractions of hour-to-hour organizational life. Prerequisites for virtual meetings are adequate hardware and software that are readily available to—and easily used by—participants. Ensuring optimal conditions for the most efficient use of resources, including the investment of everyone’s time and attention, is paramount.

TWELVE CONDITIONS THAT CAN SUPPORT OR UNDERMINE GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

Any aspect of a group’s context, structure, or process might have profound consequences for its performance. These aspects can be categorized as relational, empirical, political, or rational in nature. As shown in Figure I.1, these factors and perspectives can be juxtaposed. Such a juxtaposition produces not an exhaustive laundry list of conditions but rather a relatively concise framework of twelve conditions that can either support or undermine group effectiveness. The framework is further elaborated in Table I.2, with specific examples of each of the twelve key conditions having particular influence on a group’s level of accomplishment. Exhibit I.1 provides an additional example showing how the Competing Values Framework can be used to assess the need for an outside facilitator—that is, one who is not a member of the group or organization.

Figure I.1

A Conceptual Framework for Working with Difficult Groups

Table I.2

Conditions That Can Support or Undermine Group Effectiveness

Exhibit I.1

When to Use an Outside Facilitator

APPENDIX: A PRIMER ON THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK

“What problems or difficulties have you encountered when working with groups?”

I often begin with this question when I lead a workshop on group facilitation, teamwork, or leadership. I ask the participants to think about this question privately for several minutes. When it comes time to solicit and record their responses, instead of listing them, I organize them “on the fly” using the four perspectives on group effectiveness described in this chapter. That is, after I hear each item, I decide where it belongs in the framework illustrated in Figure I.1 and then write it on the wall in the corresponding position.

I don’t introduce the framework first, so my choice of where to record each person’s contribution naturally stimulates some curiosity. Invariably, someone asks why I recorded the items where I did. When I respond to this question, I explain that the question of what makes groups and organizations ineffective or effective has been a central question in organizational theory and leadership theory for decades. For example, many people would agree that the purpose of group facilitation or of leadership is to help an organization become more effective, but unless you know what “organizational effectiveness” means, it would be difficult to know if your leadership was fulfilling its purpose.

In the 1970s, John Campbell, professor of psychology and industrial relations at the University of Minnesota, addressed this question systematically. He reviewed the literature on organizations and identified what each author found to constitute organizational effectiveness. He found thirty criteria of organizational effectiveness (Campbell, 1977). In a subsequent study, another pair of researchers (one of whom, John Rohrbaugh, is coauthor of this chapter) engaged a panel of organizational effectiveness researchers to reduce the criteria, resulting in the list that follows. (An explanation of the rules they used to reduce the list can be found in Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983.)

Organizational Effectiveness Criteria

Conflict/cohesion

Control

Efficiency

Evaluations by external entities

Flexibility/adaptation

Growth

Information management and communication

Morale

Planning and goal setting

Productivity

Profit

Quality

Readiness

Stability

Training and development emphasis

Utilization of environment

Value of human resources

In my workshops, I propose that although it would be useful to memorize and apply this list of seventeen criteria, it would be better still if they could be organized in some way that made more sense and was easier to remember, something more useful than a seventeen-item laundry list. I ask people to work in small groups to organize these seventeen criteria into some scheme or framework. Conveniently, I just happen to have a deck of cards for each small group. Each deck has seventeen cards, and on each card is printed one of the criteria. I invite them to deal the cards out on their tables and move them around into whatever organization makes sense to them. Affectionately, I refer to this exercise as “Organizational Effectiveness: The Card Game.”

After ten minutes or so, each group has come to terms with each of the criteria and developed some sort of organizing scheme. I ask two or three groups to report out. Invariably, there are both similarities and differences among the groups. So I ask, “Who’s right? Is there a correct way to organize these criteria?”

Now I take a small digression and turn the workshop participants’ attention to a mathematical-spatial problem. I ask them to work again in small groups and draw a map showing the relative locations of cities A, B, and C, given that their distances are as follows. Give it a try and see if you can create a map yourself.

The distance between City A and City B is 138 miles.

The distance between City A and City C is 122 miles.

The distance between City B and City C is 175 miles.

I have not yet found a group that could not create a reasonable map given this information. To strengthen the idea that they can map the relative locations of cities given just their distances, I ask them to add a fourth, City D, which has the following distances.

The distance between City D and City A is 76 miles.

The distance between City D and City B is 113 miles.

The distance between City D and City C is 67 miles.

Having added the fourth city, I now ask them to orient their maps so that City A is to the north and City B is to the south. Figure A.1 shows the real map, with the following locations in New York State: A, Albany; B, Brooklyn; C, Cortland; D, Downsville (not an especially well-known location, but the only one in the vicinity that starts with a D).

Next, I ask if they think they could do the same with stars in the sky rather than cities on Earth. That is, if given the same kind of distance information, could they locate the stars in a three-dimensional space rather than cities in a two-dimensional space? After some thought, the workshop participants tell me that this seems a feasible if more difficult task.

Could we do this same kind of mapping with ideas? Say, for example, if two ideas were almost alike, we would give them a 1, and if another two ideas were very dissimilar, we would give them a 7. Yes, we could do that! So, for a set of ideas, such as the seventeen organizational effectiveness criteria, we could compare the ideas, two at a time, and numerically assess how similar or dissimilar they were. This would give us the “distance” data for each pair of ideas, and we could use those data to construct a map. In fact, we could ask a number of people each to make independent assessments of the similarity-dissimilarity distance for each pair, and then statistically integrate the data for all individuals. This would give us a map of the ideas, not just based on each individual’s judgment, but—if the individuals’ judgments were sufficiently similar—representing a collective judgment.

Figure A.1

A Map of Four Cities

Just as we can name the dimensions in a map of the cities—the east-west dimension and the north-south dimension—Quinn and Rohrbaugh named the dimensions in the spatial map of organizational effectiveness criteria. Notice that in addition to the seventeen criteria, the map shows a horizontal line or dimension labeled Focus that ranges from Internal to External. In organizations, concerns for the internal workings of the organization and its human and information systems compete with concerns for external resources and relationships with customers and other organizations. Also, the map shows a vertical dimension labeled Structure that ranges from Flexibility to Control. The need for organizational flexibility and adaptability compete with the need for organizational stability and control. A third dimension, Means-Ends, is indicated in the diagram by the size of the circles associated with each criterion. The concern for ends is nearer and larger; the concern for means is farther away and smaller. Organizations often experience competing concerns with regard to means and ends. Quinn and Rohrbaugh named their spatial map of effectiveness the Competing Values Approach (also referred to as the Competing Values Framework) because it captures so well these fundamental organizational tensions. I find these dimensions—Internal-External, Flexibility-Control, and Means-Ends—to be the most useful in understanding and applying the Competing Values Framework. I will return to them shortly.

A virtue of the Competing Values Approach is that it allows for multiple levels of group and organizational concerns to be viewed in the same framework. The original article on the Competing Values Approach (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983) placed four models of organizational effectiveness in the Competing Values Framework, as shown in Figure A.3:

The open systems model, where flexibility and an external focus are valued, and the primary system function is adaptation

The rational goals model, where control and an external focus are valued, and the primary system function is goal attainment

The internal processes model, where control and an internal focus are valued, and the primary system function is integration