Coming of Age with Self-Managed Teams: Dealing with a Problem Employee

In the wake of documented success stories from organizations using self-managed teams, additional attention should be directed at factors that can enhance as well as diminish their success. The common characteristics of highly desirable team members are described as a setting for understanding performance problems that are created when individuals with co-dependent behaviors are introduced into a team structure. Although it is difficult to pinpoint accurately the number of individuals who are affected by co-dependency, estimates that reach as high as 95 million make discussion and recommendations for dealing with these individuals in a team setting especially useful.     

Meta-dialogue

On the basis of recent developments in constructivism and social constructionism, the authors propose an approach that takes self-recursiveness seriously: Meta-dialogue, an extension of reflecting teams and reflecting positions. The authors see therapists as experts in interviewing (questioning, asking, and reflecting) and clients as experts for their different domains (their lives). Thus, the authors see it as crucial to express basic respect to the people who come to consult them in a cooperative way in order to enlarge the options of all the people taking part in the interview. The structure of meta-dialogue is described in detail and illustrated with a case example.We would like to thank Amanda Gorman (Kiel) for her sensitive help with the translation.     

Behavioral Consequences of Fluctuating Group Success: An Internet Study of Soccer-Team Fans

Abstract

The authors tested the hypothesis that fans of a sports team avoid private contact with their team when it is unsuccessful (cutting off reflected failure, or CORF), whereas fans actively seek private contact with their team when it is successful (basking in reflected glory, or BIRG). During the 2nd half of the 1999–2000 soccer season, the authors registered the number of visitors who had surfed the Web sites of 16 Belgian and 18 Dutch 1st-division teams on the 1st working day following a championship game. The authors obtained 586 valid measurements, which were transformed into z scores for each team separately. In line with the hypothesis, there were significantly more visitors after the teams won (BIRG) than after they lost (CORF). The effects of game outcome were not mediated by pregame expectations or by the size of the wins or losses.     

“We've Got Creative Differences”: The Effects of Task Conflict and Participative Safety on Team Creative Performance

Although both participative safety and team task conflict are widely thought to be related to team creative performance, the nature of this relationship is still not well understood, and prior studies have frequently yielded conflicting results. This study examines the ambiguity in the extant literature and proposes that both constructs must exist in tandem. Through a study of 55 design teams, we have identified a significant interaction between task conflict and participative safety. Results suggest that both participative safety and task conflict must exist in tandem to spur team creativity, and that team creative performance must be examined at the facet level, instead of simply as a single construct. In addition, supplemental analyses suggest that teams low on participative safety and task conflict are likely able to generate more original solutions for creative tasks due to the presence of an independent, disagreeable creative member. Implications for future research and practice are further discussed.     

The Inter-Life project: researching the potential of art,design and virtual worlds as a vehicle for assisting young people with key life changes and transitions

ABSTRACT

Careers work in the twenty-first century faces a key challenge in terms of digital technologies: to evaluate their potential for careers work in challenging settings. Given the rapidity of developments, technologies require evaluation in research innovations and naturalistic settings. Virtual worlds offer potential for careers and guidance work, and the therapeutic domain. To illustrate this, we present examples in which young people explore their feelings and ideas, plans and difficulties, while preparing for film-making. During this they develop important life transition skills. We argue that the power of virtual worlds – to support emotional and cognitive engagement – could be utilised in practice settings. We conclude that they are serious candidates as digital tools in the careers and guidance domain.     

The psychological costs of knowledge specialization in groups: Unique expertise leaves you out of the loop

Knowledge specialization, such as that present in cross-functional teams, produces both positive and negative outcomes. Our research investigated how unique expertise can lead to feelings of ostracism in the form of being out of the loop. Compared to group members with shared expertise, members with unique expertise felt out of the loop and experienced decreased fulfillment of fundamental needs, particularly when their expertise was to be given less weight in the group’s decision. Possessing unique expertise did not inhibit leadership emergence, even when that expertise should not have been used in the decision-making process. So, although knowledge specialization can have positive consequences for teams and task performance, it also has some negative psychological consequences that need to be understood.     

Measuring Situation Awareness in Virtual Environment-Based Training

We evaluated the efficacy of a computer-based situation awareness (SA) measurement system for training dismounted infantry SA in an urban terrain virtual reality (VR) simulation. Based on past research, we hypothesized that the SA measures would be sensitive to individual (squad leader) differences, and that the frequency of specific probes would reveal differences in critical SA requirements among scenarios. Three infantry squads performed multiple trials across two different scenarios. A confederate platoon leader posed probes to squad leaders during trials and experts made ratings afterward. Results revealed squad leaders had similar responses to probes, despite differences in combat experience. Analysis of probe frequency revealed different high priority SA elements and decisions for each scenario. The SA behavior and communication ratings revealed differences among squads, which trended with experience. Measures of SA were also consistent across the test scenario as a result of similar mission types and task difficulties. We discuss the implication of our findings for future research and theory within this area.     

虚拟现实社交环境中的普罗透斯效应:情境、羞怯的影响

化身是虚拟世界中的一种重要的自我呈现方式,化身特点会在有意无意间影响用户的认知、态度和行为,即普罗透斯效应(Proteus effect)。本研究通过3个实验,采纳一种新的研究方法——"虚拟情境模拟",对普罗透斯效应进行了较为深入的探讨,不仅系统考察了虚拟社交情境中化身的效应,而且着重考察了社交情境这一情境因素与羞怯这一人格因素的潜在影响。研究结果最终表明:(1)普罗透斯效应受到情境因素(社交情境)和个体变量(羞怯水平)的影响。(2)社交情境调节了化身的效应,进入社交情境中化身主效应显著,而在维持社交情境中主效应不显著。(3)在维持社交情境中,普罗透斯效应受羞怯水平的调节。低羞怯个体的社交表现水平比高羞怯个体更易受化身影响。(4)高低羞怯个体之间的差异产生于认知层面。     

Managing information overload in virtual teams: Effects of a structured online team adaptation on cognition and performance

Information overload (IO) indicates the exchange of too much low-quality information in virtual teams. When being overloaded with information, teams need to adapt and to change communication behaviour. This study introduces and tests a structured online team adaptation (STROTA) procedure that enables virtual teams to reduce IO by improving their team mental model quality. STROTA, built from team adaptation models, is a moderated intervention consisting of three stages: (1) individual situation awareness, (2) team situation awareness, and (3) plan formulation. STROTA was tested in the context of an experimental problem-solving task. Participants (N = 363) worked in virtual teams of three and were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: no STROTA, incomplete STROTA (step 1, steps 1–2), and complete STROTA (steps 1–2–3). We found teams that followed a complete STROTA procedure experienced lessened IO over time. Teams with complete STROTA showed the largest development of TMM immediately after STROTA. Finally, multilevel mediation analyses showed that TMM are mediators that explain the influence of STROTA on IO.