Running head: GROUP 1
GROUP 3
Group Dynamics in the Forming Stage
Ciera Blackwell
Golden Gate University
Group Dynamics in the Forming Stage
Group works are part of the learning process and are intended to enhance the student’s learning process with the main goals being to increase the understanding of content and building on certain transferable skills. I have been involved in various group works in the past and each of these groups had its issues. In one of the group work that was meant to help students coordinate in completing a group assignment, some of the issues we had were apprehension between the members and the inability to come up with an effective plan of action. As one of the members, my main concern was that other members of the group were not taking the project as serious as I did, and this led to the development of the perception that the group work would be a failure. One of the strong and effective elements of the group was the leadership and the comfort in the expression of ideas. Members had trust in the group leader and each member was comfortable and vocal in expressing their ideas and or opinions.
On the issues that were evident in the group right from the start, the apprehension I had as regards the seriousness in other members was an apprehension shared by some of the other members. Such apprehension is part of group hate and as noted by Beebe and Masterson (2003), it comes from the failure to have realistic expectations of the group work. Each individual in the group perceived themselves as better than the other members and this meant that there was little trust between the group members. Much of the distrust between the members came from the failure to understand the advantages of working in groups. The group members had trust in the leader, but his effectiveness was limited by the fact that each member was expressing his/her own opinion and leaving no room for compromise. Due to such issues, much time was spent on arguing and trying to eliminate dissonance, thus leaving little time to address the real issue, which was the assigned project. The realization that came after was that the group missed the important aspect of having a manageable group size and creating a plan of action to complete the group assignment.
According to Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations, there are three different categories each member of a group can be placed in: winners, followers and losers (Salas, Tannenbaum, Cohen & Latham, 2013). That being said, we had a vast amount of followers that tried to act as if they were in the winner category, however, none of them wanted to take on the “daunting” role of directing the group. During the first two hours of the forming stage, these followers soon became losers due wanting to compete constantly with the leader. It was by far the most frustrating experience to witness. Our leader, who had prior leadership experience, did his best to remain calm and to respectfully but the disgruntled members in their place.
As much as a group has an effective leader and members are comfortable in expressing their ideas and opinions, effective group work is only possible with a manageable group size, the development of a plan of action, and being systematic and focused. The recommendation for the case group is that the group size should have been smaller and limited to a maximum of about five students. The dissonance in the group came from the fact that there were nine members and this meant that it was not easier for slackers and loafers to be noticed. Another important recommendation is that a plan of action should have been developed right from the start so that group members were aware of the expectations in the group. A plan of action in a group work largely involves assigning responsibilities among the members and outlining the goals that should be achieved at the end of the group work process (Burke, 2011). With a plan of action in place, the process would have been systematic and there would have been a commitment to the production of effective results. Such recommendations would have helped the group deliver effective outcomes by utilizing all the dynamics of the group work.
References
Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2003). Communicating in small groups. Pearson Education Inc. Boston: Massachusetts.
Burke, A. (2011). Group work: How to use groups effectively. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 11(2), 87-95.
Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (2013). Developing and Enhancing High-Performance Teams: Evidence-Based Practices and Recommendations: (J-B SIOP Professional Practice Ser. series). Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John.