Page 122 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Unit 8: Team and Group Intervention

“Synergy is the process of putting two or more elements together to achieve a sum total greater Notes
than the sum total of individual elements separately. This effect can be described as 2+2=5
effect.”
Thus, synergistic effect is not automatic but depends on the complementarity of different elements
that are put together and the way they interact among themselves, that is, how a particular
element affects another and is affected by it. Putting the concept of synergy in team-work means
members of the team are complementary to each other and they contribute positively to one
another. In fact, a team is created to undertake a task which requires a variety of skills and single
individual cannot perform that task alone. To the extent, the complementarity among members
is achieved; the team would be effective, other factors remaining the same.
Social Loafing
Social loafing is antithesis of synergy in team-work which suggests that people working together
on a common task may actually decrease their individual efforts; team-work does not necessarily
spurt group efforts. A simple phenomenon of social loafing may be observed in a group
assignment to students during their study. In such an assignment, students find that one or two
students do not put their weight for the completion of the project. These students may be called
loafers (not attaching the same connotation which is attached with the term loafer in our social
phenomenon) who frequently miss the project group’s meetings, fail to perform their assigned
tasks, and so on. They rely on the fact the more reliable members will complete the project
without their help, and still expect to share the credit and obtain the same marks from the
professor since he will be concerned with determining who worked and who did not. This
phenomenon may happen in teams in work organizations too. For example, in one experiment,
it was found that individuals’ total efforts were much higher than the group efforts. Individuals
were asked to pull alone as hard as possible on a rope attached to a strain gauge. They averaged
138.6 pound of pressure while tugging on the rope. When the same individuals pulled on the
rope of groups of three, group of eight, the individual average dropped down still lower-68.2
pounds. Dropping of average output in group efforts indicates that some members of the group
were not contributing as much as they did individually. The possibility of occurring of social
loafing in a team-work increases because of the following reasons:
1. When the division of work cannot be accomplished properly and individual efforts are
hard to determine, group efforts tend to slacken.
2. When the group is not cohesive with high output norms, individual members do not
contribute to the fullest extent. A group is not merely an assemblage of individuals but
there should be a feeling that they are members of the group and share common interests,
goals, and attitudes.

The phenomenon of social loafing can be minimized by constituting effective team for group
performance.
Effective Team

An effective team is one which contributes to the achievement of organizational objectives by
performing the task assigned to it and providing satisfaction to its members. In the above
paragraph, we have mentioned that team effectiveness depends on the complementarity of
team members, other factors remaining the same. From this statement, it appears that there are
many factors in an effective team. These factors are skills and role clarity, supportive environment,
super-ordinate goals and team rewards. Let us see how these factors make a team effective.
1. Skills and Role Clarity: For an effective team, two things are required from its members;
skills which are complementary to the team requirement and understanding of one’s own
role as well as roles of other members. While skills are relevant for job performance,

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