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The goal of this assignment is to reflect on your group project experience, identify how you experienced the various small group concepts and theories during the group process, and evaluate your group’s performance.
Task: In this 4- to 6-page, double spaced analysis that adheres to APA style, you will reflect on your group project experience, explain how you and your group members experienced the small group concepts and theories you learned this semester, and rate your group’s performance. Divide your analysis into three parts: (1) describe your group project; (2) identify and explain the small group concepts and theories applied in your group; (3) evaluate your group performance. You should answer the following questions in detail in your analysis:
- Part 1:
Who are the members of your group?
What did you experience when your group initially formed?
How did you make decisions related to your group project?
Was the work equitable across group members or did the majority of the work fall on a few group members?
What are the positive and negative aspects of how your group worked together?
- Part 2:
Identify at least 4 concepts from our textbook that you experienced with your group this semester. Briefly describe/explain each concept and show how you experienced it.
Was it surprising to see these concepts and theories at work?
- Part 3
What is your relationship with your group members?
Do you think your group was successful in completing the group project?
What were your favorite and least favorite parts of working in a group?
What would you do differently if you were to do this project again?
Ch. 7- Leadership
Ch. 8 – Developing Effective Teams
Ch.10- Effective Decision Making
Ch.12- Conflict Management & Negation
CITATION:
Rothwell, J. D. (2021). In Mixed Company (11th ed.). Oxford University Press Academic US.
https://reader2.yuzu.com/books/9780197602843
Group R-
Myself-Denise Kania-Leader
Samuel Torres- Presenter
Martin Camacho- Clarifier
Danika Pachas- Initiator Contributor
Abigail Wheeler- Secretary
Cristian Carranza- Researcher
After a few days, I reached out to the group members, requesting that they form a What’s App group to communicate the group project together. A few members were missing for the first two weeks of forming the group, but they were added later because they either did not check their emails regularly or chose to wait until the last minute to check in when the assignment was due.
The group chose me as their ‘leader’ because I was the only one taking the initiative to form the group and arrange Zoom meetings weekly. Once the contract agreement was drafted, they chose their own roles.
I asked each member for availability for meetings so that we could narrow down a suitable virtual meeting day each week; we chose Monday evenings. As per the contract, group members needed to give a 24-hour notice of inability to attend the weekly meeting, but there were multiple occasions where some members did not give notice until the last few seconds of the meeting. Even after I sent reminders the night before and the day of the meeting. I did find myself taking on a lot of the workload for this group project because I felt like I needed to pick up the slack for the missing members that had to work ever-changing schedules. Work was distributed in a volunteer form, and the team members could choose what they wanted to work on, which they did in the end. However, planning, script development, and video editing came down to me as the others did not have the tools or resources to do those tasks.
A major setback that occurred was when Danika and Abigail decided to travel out of town the weekend that we were set to record and did not give notice to the group until a few days before, and we already had group members work schedules we were scheduled to work around, so I had to come up with a solution to get their recordings separately and edit their scripted parts that we already rehearsed with the others in the group. However, the video suffered from this due to Abigail recording a 4-minute-long synopsis at the beginning of our skit because she was not available for the recording day, and it was too late to change the whole script and ask the others to record again. While I think that with the lack of full attendance at the weekly meetings by others, and the inability to record the same day, with last-minute changes may have caused us to receive a less than favorable grade on this project, the group put together, rehearsed and performed to the best o their abilities. I am proud of every single one of them!
Welcome to Chapter 7 of In Mixed Company! This chapter discusses leadership in groups. Your group for this course may have already met or will be meeting soon so some of the concepts you learn about leadership will be at play in your group dynamic. Even if you aren’t the leader of your group for this course, you may be a group leader in the future and will have some tools to be a great leader!
We know that leaders head up groups of people to achieve a goal but there are many factors at play in defining leadership. Your text defines leadership as “a leader–follower influence process, directed toward positive change that reflects mutual purposes of group members and is largely accomplished through competent communication.” Let’s break down this definition down.
We know that leadership is a “social influence process” whereby leaders convince others to follow their vision. Leadership also involves credibility, as we are more likely to follow someone else if we perceive them to be credible (i.e. you support a member of your student group as leader because you think they know what they’re talking about). The ability to lead also implies that there are followers. If there aren’t people to follow the leader, then true leadership doesn’t exist.
It’s important not to switch leaders and managers. Managers lead groups because of positions they hold or power they are given (i.e. your boss at work may manage the group but may not have leadership qualities). Anyone can have leadership qualities, even if they don’t possess a certain title. Additionally, managers don’t typically seek to change existing conditions, whereas leaders strive to shift them. For example, a manager at work might post sales quotas where a leader might do away with quotas altogether and come up with a way of revolutionizing the company to be more successful. In this way, leaders seek change where managers do not. Scholars call this transformational leadership, which I’ll talk more about in a bit. It is possible for managers to be leaders and leaders to be managers simultaneously but being one does not necessarily mean you are the other.
In order for leaders to be successful, they must possess the skills to communicate effectively with their followers. It doesn’t matter if a person has all the leadership qualities in the world if they can’t communicate well with others. Competent communication includes the ability to listen and to show respect for group members.
Now that we’ve broken down leadership, let’s take a look at how to get it and keep it. In order to gain leadership, you should be on time to important meetings (this also shows respect), be knowledgeable about any issues the group is focusing on, be committed to helping the group reach its goals, allow others to participate and voice their thoughts, listen, be open-minded to varying viewpoints, be supportive, and speak civilly to all group members. All leaders should exhibit these qualities.
Groups use process of elimination to identify their leaders. First, those who are quiet and those to talk a lot are typically dismissed as potential leaders. Then, those who are perceived as too extreme or unable to complete the required tasks are eliminated, as are those who are too bossy. The group is trying to remove those with undesirable traits as potential leaders and select someone who is perceived as being capable of leading the team to success and who is perceived to be a good listener. We also want to see emotional intelligence (aka EQ) in our potential leader. It helps if potential leaders have people within the group who outwardly support or promote them as leaders.
Once someone gains the leader role, they need to exhibit certain behaviors to keep it. The textbook identifies 3 components of retaining leadership: (1) “You must demonstrate your competence as leader; (2) You must accept accountability for your actions; (3) You must satisfy group members’ expectations.” It can be difficult to retain leadership because, as we’ve discussed in previous chapters, group climate, roles, expectations, etc., can change quickly. One of the most important components of retaining leadership is communicating with group members. I want to make special note of a section in your text on gender and ethnic bias in leader emergence. Make sure to read this section and consider it as you select your group’s leader.
The last section we’re going to cover is the various perspectives of leadership. These have developed as communication scholars have done more research on types of leadership. Consider your own thoughts and experiences on each perspective. Let’s start with the traits perspective. Near the beginning of this chapter summary we established that leadership is a process, not a person. The traits perspective views leaders as people and asserts that leaders are born with the necessary qualities to be strong leaders. The traits perspective has been controversial and is not as widely accepted a valid perspective on leadership given subsequent research on other leadership perspectives. Rather than say leaders are born, not made, you could think that leaders are developed, not born, according to your text.
Next, we have the styles perspective. There are three styles within this perspective: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. The autocratic style is directive and attempts to control others (i.e. you WILL do this, or else!). The democratic style encourages participation from group members and attempts to reach a consensus (i.e. can we all come to an agreement on how to proceed?). The laissez-faire style is where there is a lack of leadership (i.e. I don’t care what you do). The laissez-faire style is ineffective. The autocratic and democratic styles can both be useful in small groups.
Keep in mind that leadership is not static so what is needed in a leader can shift. It is not a “one size fits all.” Enter the situational perspective. A lot of what we need from a leader and how a leader will be successful depends on many factors, so we need our leaders to be flexible based on the situation. The Hersey-Blanchard model is particularly useful here. It looks at two dimensions we’ve discussed before: task and relationship. There are four styles of leadership within the model: telling (high task-low relationship), selling (high task-high relationship), participating (low task-high relationship), and delegating (low task-low relationship). Each of these styles is good in the right situation and depends largely on follower readiness: whether they have the ability and willingness to tackle a task. Using the wrong style in the wrong situation will cause problems in a group.
The next perspective is the functional perspective. It tells us that leaders fulfill necessary functions within a group, specifically task and relational. Leaders in this perspective have to find the right balance of the two. This perspective reinforces the idea that leaders are not people but are processes.
Last, we have the servant leadership perspective. This perspective focuses on ethical leadership by serving others. In short, ethical leaders place others above themselves and approach leadership with strong morals in mind.
That wraps up Chapter 7! Make sure to read the chapter and take notes on important information, review this week’s module, and complete the assignment/s. Thanks for reading!
Dr. Reed
Welcome to Chapter 8 of In Mixed Company! This chapter discusses developing effective teams. You have already worked on a team and will in the future so it’s important to understand team dynamics.
We’ll begin by discussing the differences between groups and teams. Keep in mind that all teams are groups but not all groups are teams. The text defines a team “as a small number of people with complementary skills who act as an interdependent unit, are equally committed to a common mission, subscribe to a cooperative approach to accomplish that mission, and hold themselves accountable for team performance.” There are a few concepts in this definition to break down.
Teams require more cooperation than some groups. Think about any sports team. Without cooperation, the team is less likely to win the game. Teams also have collaborative interdependence, which means that team members use their strengths and work together to achieve a common goal (i.e. win the game). Next, teams typically have members with unique and diverse skill sets. Think of the many positions on a football team. You need people to fill each position and those who fill one position may not do well in another. In this way teams need complementary skills. You don’t want all members of a team to be good in only one area. The team won’t win that way. We often see that team members have a stronger team identity than groups. Think about a team you’ve been on versus the group you’re in for this course. You may feel more of sense of belonging than to your group. My hope is that as you work together in your group, you begin to feel some of these characteristics present in teams!
Now that we’ve defined teams, let’s take a look at team members and their characteristics. Effective team members have a good attitude about working as a team. Team members with cynical attitudes can detail a team and keep it from reaching its goals. Some other qualities than can keep teams from reaching their potential are an egocentric attitude (i.e. me, me, me) and using verbally abusive language (i.e. why are you so awful). Think back to our discussion on group climate…the bad behaviors here lead to a defensive climate instead of a supportive one! Sometimes you have to remove toxic team members if they cannot exhibit positive behaviors.
So what types of members should teams look for? There are a few qualities that are beneficial to teams. Keep in mind that teams are created differently than groups in that teams may have some sort of gatekeeping process that lets only certain people in. Think about joining a sports team. You likely have to try out. This is very different than a work group where your boss creates a small group to complete a project. Desirable qualities for team members include experience (both doing the task and working in teams), problem-solving capabilities, knowledge, and communication competence.
Now that you’ve got your team members, how do you build teamwork? First, develop team goals that are clear, cooperative, challenging, and require commitment. Make sure the goals are clear and that everyone sees the goals the same way. It’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page because not everyone interprets information the same way. If team members start their journey with seemingly different goals, the team will have some issues down the road. Goals should also be cooperative, meaning team members must work together to achieve them. A superordinate goal, which supersedes individual differences, encourages team members to work together. Next, goals should be challenging. Teams can achieve great things when they work toward a goal that demands their best. Last, set goals that require commitment. When team members are committed to reaching a goal, they will likely put their best work into it.
As I mentioned earlier, teams can have a stronger identity than groups. Teams work to build a strong identity by sharing fantasy themes, using solidarity symbols, and implementing team talk. Fantasy themes are stories that team members share with common themes that build and reinforce a team identify. A solidarity symbol is a verbal or nonverbal symbol that represents a team, like a team name, logo, color, etc. Any sports team is an example of a solidarity symbol. Team talk occurs when team members engage in “we” talk instead of talk that is geared toward the individual. For example, what can WE achieve? How can WE be the best?
Something groups and teams have in common is member roles. We discussed previously that group roles are not always explicitly doled out. For example, you may not have given each group member for this course a specific role to play. In teams, roles are more often clear and explicit. They need to be this way because the team will not function at its highest unless they are. Going back to the sports teams examples I’ve mentioned in this summary, members of a football team aren’t likely to work well together if nobody knows who the quarterback is or what play they intend to make. It is often up the team leader (in this case, the coach), to designate and clarify roles.
Another way to build teamwork is to empower the team. Empowerment has four dimensions: potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact. Potency refers to the belief that team members can achieve great goals by working together. This belief can really motivate the group. Meaningfulness is the belief that the team goals are worthwhile. Autonomy is the idea that team members are free to work toward their goals without being micromanaged. Last, impact is the far-reaching effect of the team work and the belief that their work has meaning beyond just the team.
Empowerment is threatened by a traditional organizational hierarchy, where a lot of decisions come from the top down. A few attempts have been made to work around organizational hierarchies. The first was quality circles, which were composed of employees who volunteered to work on specific projects. They were not found to be successful because those at the top of the hierarchy still made the final decision based on the team’s work. Next came self-managing teams, which were given more autonomy and decision-making power. They are a good way to work around organizational hierarchies.
There are some barriers to empowering teams. First, organizations sometimes lack support needed for teams and sabotage them. For example, if an organization creates a team but doesn’t give it sufficient autonomy, it’s not enabling the team to be successful. Second, not all people prefer empowerment. Some like to be “cogs in the wheel” and be handed their tasks. Next, a team is less likely to feel empowered if they feel their decision making isn’t taken seriously by those at the top of the organization. For example, if a CEO has already made a decision and will pursue that decision even if a team advocates for a different position, the team members may feel less empowered. Last when individual effort is rewarded over team progress, team members will not feel empowered.
We’ve talked a lot about teams and working together but individual accountability is an important part of successful teamwork. Individuals have to buy into what the team is doing in order to fully contribute and they need to “carry their weight.” Teams have a minimum standard of performance in order to encourage individual accountability. The minimum standard looks different in different teams. For example, one standard for a sports team might be to arrive at practice on time and there may be consequences for arriving late.
The last set of concepts I’ll cover relate to team leadership. We talked about perspectives on leadership last chapter so I’ll approach team leadership from a broader point of view. All teams have to have a leader in order to be successful. Participative leadership works well in teams. Remember that all team members bring a unique skill set to the table and the leader can capitalize on these to lead the team to success. Team leaders have the job of developing supportive rules with team members (i.e. the rules you listed in your group contract) and implementing systematic procedures for the team (i.e. this is how we solve problem and make decisions). An egocentric leader who puts their goals before the goals of the team will drive a team into the ground and should be avoided.
That wraps up Chapter 8! Make sure to read the chapter and take notes on important information, review this week’s module, and complete the assignment/s. Thanks for reading!
Dr. Reed
Welcome to Chapter 12 of In Mixed Company! This chapter discusses conflict management and negotiation. Learning how to manage conflict and negotiate in small groups is an invaluable skill, one you will most certainly use in the workplace in the future. We’ll talk about what conflict is, examine styles of conflict management, and cover the use of negotiation in small groups.
Before we discuss types of conflict management, we first need to define conflict. Conflict “is the expressed struggle of interconnected parties who perceive incompatible goals and interference from each other in attaining those goals.” Without each of these components, we don’t have conflict. Let’s break down the definition. A conflict must have an expressed struggle. If you feel tension with people but don’t express that, there is no conflict. Conflict, must also have interconnected parties, which means that parties’ actions affect others. These interconnected parties must also perceive incompatible goals (i.e. Party A wants one thing, Party B wants another). Last, conflict must include interference that prevents one or more parties from achieving their goals (Party A stops Party B from reaching their goals so A can reach its goals).
When we hear the word “conflict,” we might immediately think of it as a negative thing. However, conflict can be constructive. When there are small amounts of conflict within a group that is managed well, conflict can help the group grow stronger. On the other hand, when conflict isn’t managed and gets out of control, it can cause major problems for small groups. Destructive conflict includes the following: “dominating, escalating, retaliating, competing, acting defensively, and inflexibly” as opposed to constructive conflict, which includes the following: “We-oriented, de-escalating, cooperative, supportive, and flexible communication patterns,” according to your text.
When conflict is present, each person has a preferred style of dealing with it. There are five styles of conflict management, each of which has its pros and cons: collaborating, accommodating, compromising, avoiding, and competing. These styles have task and social dimensions, similar to other small group concepts we’ve covered this semester. Another way to think about conflict management styles is on a continuum of concern for self and concern for others. I’ve included a visual of the five styles below.
Let’s start by describing the collaborating style, which is a basic approach to problem solving. People try to address conflict by working together and trying to find a solution that pleases everyone involved. The collaborating style has high concern for task and social dimensions. It includes confrontation, integration, and smoothing behaviors. Confrontation occurs when group members directly address conflict. Integration occurs when people have to be creative and “think outside the box” when addressing conflict. Smoothing occurs when people are heated about conflict and it is an attempt to calm people down in order to successfully solve the problem. Collaborating has many positives but one of the negatives is that it is very time consuming and requires people that are competent communicators.
The second conflict management style is accommodating, or yielding, which occurs when someone involved in conflict allows the other party to “get their way.” This style favors personal relationships over tasks. Sometimes yielding takes place because people see that it is beneficial to the group process, whereas other times it occurs because people have given up or aren’t invested.
Next, we have compromising, which can be thought of as a “lose-lose” style of conflict management because both parties have to give up something they want in order to reach a solution. This means that neither party will be totally satisfied with the outcome. The compromising style is “middle of the road” for task and social dimensions.
The fourth style is avoiding, or withdrawing. Those who withdraw tend to hate conflict and the thought of confronting someone makes them very uncomfortable. Those who avoid might also be in low power positions. Avoiders have low concern for task and social dimensions. Avoiding can be productive when it’s not worth confrontation in a conflict situation but avoiding is not typically productive.
The last style is competing, which occurs when one party is aggressive and is determined to win over the other. This style has high concern for task and very low for social. Some of the concepts here might remind you of hypercompetitiveness that we discussed earlier this semester.
Although certain styles like collaborating, compromising, or accommodating might seem like the more desirable styles of conflict management in most situations, there is no one style that works for every conflict situation. Each has its benefits and challenges. Generally speaking, avoiding and competing are not productive, but in some cases, might be the best style to choose. There are several factors that can help us decide which conflict management style to use, such as whether the issue is complex or simple, how much parties have communicated on the conflict issue/s, how much time the parties have to work through the conflict, issue significance, the length and depth of relationships between the parties, and power differentials between the parties.
As you can see, context, or the conflict situation, heavily affects the type of style people might use. There are a few situational factors to keep in mind, including task, relational, and value. As we’ve discussed previously, the task factor has to do with completing work. However, when there is conflict, groups need to examine whether the task is a routine one (there is a clear set of steps followed that are unlikely to change) or a nonroutine task (there is some uncertainty about how to address it and requires problem solving). In terms of the social aspect of conflict, we determine which style to use based on our relationships with the group members. For example, if there is one group member who is egotistical, it might not even be worth confronting the person because they are not likely to change the way they behave. Or perhaps it’s necessary that you confront them because they are derailing the rest of the group. It’s important to note that sometimes conflict can be blurred across the task and relational dimensions. For example, a conflict can begin as one that is related to a task but can morph into a conflict about relationships. Value conflicts have to do with people’s moral compass. Our values are the foundational beliefs we hold on what is right and wrong. It is difficult to navigate value conflicts because it is unlikely we will change our values.
As we’ve noted in several chapters, culture also plays a role in how conflict is managed. Our culture prescribes certain acceptable behaviors for addressing conflict. For example, in some cultures, confrontation is not an acceptable form of conflict management and avoiding might be more acceptable.
Now that we’ve covered conflict management, let’s move to negotiation, which is how we make decisions when dealing with conflict. One negotiation strategy is positional bargaining, which occurs when people take certain positions on an issue and go back and forth on what they will and will not make concessions on until a solution is mutually reached by both parties. Hard bargainers are more likely to try to exert their dominance or power over others and want to win. Sometimes the hard bargaining approach can be detrimental to the negotiation process because people can be perceived as wanting to steamroll others. However, when a party is fair in their approach to hard bargaining, the outcome can be positive. Soft bargainers may make concessions on an issue even if they don’t want to because they want to preserve their social relationship with the other party.
Another approach to negotiation is principled negotiation, which has four major elements: “separate the people from the problem, focus on interests, not positions, generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do, and insist that the result be based on some objective standards,” according to your text. It takes competent communicators to address these elements properly. You may find that the other party in principled negotiation wants to be more of a hard bargainer so it’s important to remain constructive and keep both parties’ interests in mind. As a negotiator, you should also have a BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), which is what you can do if the negotiation does not produce an agreement. You can think of this as your “bottom line” in a negotiation.
People can become heated during negotiations and you may find that you or another party has issues with anger. Anger can be constructive or destructive depending on intensity and duration. Anger that lasts a long time and is very intense can be destructive. You can manage your anger by talking yourself down, actively listening, and redirecting your anger temporarily (i.e. focus on something else and allow yourself to calm down). Managing others’ anger can be tricky but can be done by not responding in kind (i.e. when they get louder, we get softer), recognizing the other party’s feelings as valid, asking questions to fully understand the source and nature of the anger, and disengaging, among others.
That wraps up Chapter 12! Make sure to read the chapter and take notes on important information, review this week’s module, and complete the assignment/s. Thanks for reading!
Dr. Reed
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Welcome to Chapter 10 of In Mixed Company! Last chapter we discussed defective decision making so for this chapter we’ll discuss effective decision making and problem solving. I hope this chapter will teach you how to address decisions and problems in your group project this semester as well as any group work in the future.
Let’s start with a few general considerations when it comes to decision making in groups. First, Poole’s multiple sequence model of decision making is the most widely accepted among communication scholars. The model has 3 dimensions: task, relational, and topic. We’ve discussed task and relational components in previous chapters. Groups also take the primary paths when making decisions: unitary, complex cyclic, and solution oriented. The unitary path approaches problem solving step-by-step. The complex cyclic path cycles between the problem and the solution. The solution oriented path addresses the solution before understanding the problem. Groups often choose the complex cyclic path.
Poole’s model describes three paths groups often take, whereas the functional perspective describes steps that groups can take to be productive in decision making. These steps should be seen as guidelines for decision making and are represented in The Standard Agenda, which has six steps. The first step is problem identification. Groups should identify whether they are addressing a problem of fact (something is true or false), value (something is morally right or wrong), or policy (should a course of action be taken). In a group project for class, problem identification could be: what’s the assignment? Second, groups should analyze the problem. In the case of a group project, analyzing the problem might include talking to the instructor about expectations and specifics about the group project. Third is solution criteria. This is where groups identify criteria for success. For example, how do you know when the project is done? Is it done when it is “A” work, when the deadline comes, when you’ve done two drafts of it? This step is important because group members should never assume others have the same criteria for success. Fourth we have solution suggestions. This is where the group brainstorms on how to solve the problem. In the group assignment example, it might be proposing topics for your video. Fifth is solution selection. This is where you would pick which topic you want to cover. Last is solution implementation, where you follow through with the topic you selected and create your group video.
Let’s look back at the fifth step in The Standard Agenda: solution selection. How do groups pick a solution? There are several decision-making rules groups can call on: majority, minority, unanimity. Majority rule is when the group picks the solution that a majority of the group selected. Majority rule can be problematic because it sometimes ignores good solutions but can be effective when groups are large and decisions need to be made quickly. Minority rule occurs when one person makes the decisions for the group. This person interacts with the group to take in all necessary information. This decision-making rule has its issues as well, such as the decision maker seeking personal gain. Last, there is unanimity, or consensus. This decision-making rule occurs when all group members agree on a solution and requires them to commit to it. It can be very difficult to reach consensus in a group because people sometimes simply don’t agree. One way to think about consensus is that you don’t have to absolutely love the solution but can you live with it for the duration of the project your group has undertaken?
Another component of effective decision making is critical thinking. One important step in critical thinking is gathering information. In order to think critically about something, you need to have all the information available while not having information overload (easier said than done!). Once you have the information you need, you must evaluate that information. Think about all of the “fake news” that’s online and how it affects the way we view the world. Thinking critically requires us to weed through information and evaluate its legitimacy. When evaluating information, consider the following: credibility, currency (is it current or outdated?), logic (does it make sense?), representativeness (are statistics put into context?), and sufficiency (do you have enough information to make a sound decision?).
In addition to thinking critically about information, successful groups need participation from all members. If group members do not participate or the quality of participation is low, the decision-making process can be painful. It’s important to keep in mind cultural diversity here because we don’t all approach participation the same way. If there are people in your group who aren’t participating, there are a few ways to encourage them to participate. First, ask them for their thoughts to get them talking. Second, frame the decision making or problem-solving process in a way that interests the low participators. Third, give them tasks to complete, even if they are small ones. Last, ensure you have a positive group climate (we discussed this several chapters back).
Conducting effective meetings can stimulate participation. The meme I’m posting here reminds me of how many people view groups meetings: as a waste of time!
So how can you make meetings effective and ensure group members feel their time is being productive? Start with simple things, such as beginning and ending on time, all members showing up on time, setting an agenda for discussion, staying on track, preparing before the meeting, staying off of your phone, etc. Some of these are the responsibility of the group leader and can make a big difference in buy in to the group. For example, the group leader could create the agenda and send it out to the group several days before the meeting. Your text contains more information about how leaders can facilitate group participation.
The last area I want to go over for this chapter is creative problem solving. Sometimes the problem and solution are clear cut, but sometimes we have to “think outside the box” in order to solve complex problems. Your book contains a lot of information on creative problem solving but I want to highlight just a few concepts here. The first is brainstorming, a concept with which you are all likely familiar. Something that people do during the brainstorming process is to immediately question or dismiss ideas. This can stifle a group! When brainstorming, there are no “bad” ideas and group members should wait until the idea generation process is over to question or shoot down solutions. The second concept I want to address is the nominal group technique, which involves each group member working by themselves to generate solutions before coming together as a group and voting on the best idea/s. Even though you are working in largely virtual groups, you can still participate in these processes online.
That wraps up Chapter 10! Make sure to read the chapter and take notes on important information, review this week’s module, and complete the assignment/s. Thanks for reading!
Dr. Reed
