Group Dynamics
Strategies for Success
- Establish clear group/team expectations BEFORE first meeting
- Group facilitator/leader is critical in helping shape member expectations
- Create a context for discussion, brainstorming, decision-making and dialogue
- Bohm's Principles of Dialogue (more on dialogue)
- The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation
- Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation
- As these individuals "suspend judgement" they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible
- Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals' ideas in the conversation
- Bohm's Principles of Dialogue (more on dialogue)
- SMART goals
- Clearly established expectations
- Activities and experiences must be perceived as meaningful and worthwhile
- Assigning specific roles and/or responsibilities
- Utilize team and individual strengths
- "....clear definition of roles is a hallmark of effective collaboration." (Useem, 2006)
- Establish mutual accountability for meeting these roles and/or responsibilities
- A common fate
- Identify team rules/guidelines for negotiation and decision-making
- Identify a decision-making model (reach consensus)
- Periodic self-reflection to identify ways to more effectively
- Contribute and use my skills
- Support teammates
- Communicate (speak and listen)
- Identify methods for individual and group recognition
Inhibitors of Group/Team Development
- Davenport and Prusak (1998) suggest:
- Lack of trust
- Different cultures, vocabularies, and frames of reference
- Lack of time and meeting places
- Narrow idea of productive work
- Status and rewards go to knowledge owners
- Lack of absorptive capacity in recipients
- Belief that knowledge is prerogative of particular groups
- Intolerance for mistakes or need for help
- Not-invented-here syndrome (own ideas and creations, nationalism, etc.)
Group Dynamics/Team Development Theory
Phase Model
- Gersick's Punctuated Equilibrium Model (1988)
- These phases occur regardless of the time bewteen formation and completion
- Groups transition from a phase of inertia punctuated by a period of concentrated change
- Time and context are defining characteristics
- Phase One
- First meeting is critical and establishes
- Norms are established quickly
- Pre-meeting member expectations and context for how the group will operate
- "A framework of behavioral patterns and assumptions through which a group approaches its project emerges in its first meeting, and the group stays with that framework through the first half of its life," (Gersick, 1988, p. 32)
- Little progress is made
- First meeting is critical and establishes
- Transition
- Occurs 1/2 way between first meeting and goal/task completion date
- Paradigmatic shifts occur from gradual learnings during phase one
- Is "...a powerful opportunity for a group to alter the course of its life midstream," (Gersick, 1988, p. 32)
- Alterations to group function beyond this point are unlikely
- Phase Two
- Group acts based on strategies/behaviors established during transition phase
- Goal/task completion is when the group "experiences the positive and negative consequences of past choices," (Gersick, 1988, p. 32)
Linear Model
- Tuckman, (1965) and later with Jensen (1977), proposed at least 4+ stages for a group/team (this will not apply to short-term teams)
- Views society from a small group perspective
- Progression through each stage indicative of group/team effectiveness
- Involves a variety of skills and behaviors that must be negotiated and compromised
- Tuckman (1965), and Tuckman and Jensen (1977) stages:
- Forming
- High dependence on leader(s) who need to direct and guide
- Lack of commitment and interest
- Unclear goals and group member roles
- Hesitation, frustrations, and conflict are apparent
- Storming
- Power struggles
- Catharsis (purging of emotions)
- Testing of roles
- Dissention and negotiation
- Sub-groups may form
- Leader coaches
- Power struggles
- Norming
- Consensus reached
- Roles are clearly defined
- Member strengths are identified
- Commitment and unity are strengths
- Leader is a facilitator
- Social bonds begin to establish
- Challenges include:
- Social loafing - exerting less effort toward a goal in a group than when performed individually
(Karau and Williams, 1993)
- Lack of individual recognition
- Inability to be evaluated
- Increases with group size
- Social facilitation - "An increase in effort in effort by a person working in a group," (Gagne and Zuckerman,
1993, p. 525)
- Typically only in easier tasks?
- Higher arousal or motivation
- Performing
- Shared vision and strong intra-team relationships
- Seek delegation from leader
- Creativity and confidence
- Cohesion:
- Cohesion – "the dynamic process that is reflected in the tendency of a group to stick together
and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction
of member affective needs," (Carron, Brawley, and Widmeyer, 1998, p. 213)
- Attracts members, resists turnover, motivates individuals
- Correlates with
- The presence (or perceived presence) of outside threats (Useem, 2006)
- Increased self-esteem
- Increased trust and satisfaction
- Increased pressure to perform
- Drecreased anxiety
- Cohesion – "the dynamic process that is reflected in the tendency of a group to stick together
and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction
of member affective needs," (Carron, Brawley, and Widmeyer, 1998, p. 213)
- Attains:
- Team efficacy - belief in capabilities to attain specific goal (Bandura, 1997)
- Team potency - global belief in capabilities across multiple domains (Guzzo, Yost, Campbell, and Shea, 1993)
- Combined, these result in setting higher goals, specific strategies, which persist during setbacks (Collins and Parker, 1993)
- Challenges include:
- Overbounding – build boundaries, limits productive outside help or input
- Groupthink – conformity that suppresses dissent and critical thinking, and lacks tolerance for alternative perspectives
- Adjourning/Reforming
- Team, as is, dissolves
- Recognition of achievements
- Mourning and decline in motivation levels
- Need for new goals and challenges for remaining members
- New team members join
- Team dynamics and capabilities change
- New goals and purpose may be identified
- Team, as is, dissolves
- Forming
- More on Tuckman's stages - MIT
Image source: Edison, T. (2008)