With the professional revolution and latest globalisation results, competitive characteristics of businesses has increased more than ever. In order to survive in this modern competitive world, businesses must find solution with their problems faster and also it is more important to do their work better. Recover companies have recognized that cooperation or quite simply, group or team works will find more creative alternatives for the problems they are facing as modern day businesses. Therefore increasingly more companies nowadays use clubs as a part of their organisational strategies.
On the other side as the Article has described in its introduction, the issue is, putting a lot of people together and wanting them to work well as an organization would seldom work. Therefore understanding the term Group Dynamics and Group Operations and effectively take care of them in teams is now more important.
The article "Ten Critical Attributes of Group Dynamics" which was compiled by Helene F. Uhlfelder who's a PhD holder in educational psychology has acknowledged the importance of identifying and improving the Dynamics of groups and teams in organisations to be able to boost their success and performance. Further the writer has unveiled 10 critical traits you can use to categorize group dynamics. Finally the article has mentioned the value of assessing categories regularly and discover conditions that are facing communities and how those traits may be used to improve group dynamics in order to develop effective clubs.
Main objective of the assignment is to summarize the given article giving my thoughts and opinions on the primary argument of the article. For that activity various sources will be explored including text books, online journal articles plus some other internet sites. And the entire article will be summarized in a critical manner providing my views on necessary things using the research findings and my own experiences on the subject matter.
The Main Discussion of the Article
This article mainly discusses the importance of 10 attributes that contain been recognized by the writer, which is often used to categorize dynamics of categories. Based on the author these features can be used to identify any areas that categories need to improve and areas they are good at. The writer argues that by doing so groups or clubs can work together more effectively and increase their performance levels.
When analysing this article it could be seen that the writer has successfully explained her discussion more clearly with providing examples and covering many supplementary topics which are required to further clarify and make it easy to comprehend the main argument for the audience.
Helene Uhlfelder has protected many technological conditions like Group Dynamics, Group Process, and has described the difference between Group and Team before explaining about the 10 critical qualities.
Although this article has described group dynamics and group process before explaining what is group and team, as I believe in order the article to become more logical the writer could have described conditions like Group and Team first. If the writer has assumed that the readers having the knowledge about those conditions then she could not have covered them later. Anyhow to get started with explaining the word group and team would be appropriate.
Group and Team
The term group is described in this article as situations where two or more people coming jointly in order to attain a common purpose. Further it is stated that in an organization people should work together each other, rely on each other and should have a job to realize.
According to this article the team also an organization, that is a work environment. The writer has mentioned various characteristics that are possessed by teams.
It is and intact sociable system with limitations. Therefore who is in the team and beyond your team can be clearly identifiable. There is certainly interdependency among members.
Members are collectively accountable for the jobs to be performed.
Operates within an organisational context and for that reason members have romantic relationship with other members of the company.
It is clear that the writer has comprehensively discussed the conditions group and team using various resources and in different contexts like systems terms. But she's overlooked the idea of group formation, which could have added great value addition to this article. As the author has talked about various periods during some parts of the article, it might be essential parts to be discussed.
Group Formation
According to (Luthans, 2008) there are five stages that are usually recognized as phases of group development.
Forming - this stage is seen as a uncertainty and dilemma. Members are testing the appropriate behavior for the team.
Storming - in this stage control will be decided. Intragroup conflicts are common.
Norming - Participants settle down into conformity and assistance.
Performing - The group will perform the duty that these were grouped.
Adjourning - After the process is completed group will disband.
Group Dynamics and Process.
According to the writer either positive or negative, group dynamics is accessible atlanta divorce attorneys group and hence clubs. Although author's classification about group dynamics and operations a bit perplexing by the end of this particular section she's given a simple explanation to recognize those conditions distinctly.
According to that group processes are simply known as specific processes employed by group participants and leaders whereas group dynamic is defined as makes and dynamics of the group all together.
It is situated in literature research that the word Group Active has been identified in many various ways. Relating to (Forsyth, 2010) it was first identified by Kurt Lewin, as the techniques of the ways groupings and individuals take action and respond to changing circumstances. Matching (Luthans, 2008) another view on group dynamic identifies it from the point of view of the internal nature of groupings like the way they are shaped, structure and techniques, how organizations function and have an impact on its members
After detailing basic explanations and concepts the author moves her conversation into the main content of the article, the 10 critical characteristics.
Ten Critical Traits
According to the writer, using 10 critical qualities approach it can be done to characterize group dynamics and identify conditions that are experienced by categories. Those 10 critical qualities include, safety, inclusion, free-interaction, appropriate degree of interdependence, cohesiveness, trust, conflict resolution, influence, achievement, and expansion. Helen Uhlfelder has explained them comprehensively using examples to make sure they are easy to understand by the visitors.
Safety - corresponding to this trait associates need to feel safe of their teams and participants of the team should be safe from any disruptive behavior of other associates.
Inclusion - all people should be allowed to participate with equal opportunities. Everyone should be studied as members of the group and efforts should be taken in order to add new and quiet members.
Free discussion - there shouldn't be any restrictions which members interact with which associates and every member should be permitted to interact with others. According to the author teams can become less effective when only few customers are allowed to interact with the first choice.
Appropriate level of interdependence - there should be an appropriate balance between individual needs and group needs. It is mentioned there the key of sense of owed and affiliation that originates from being interdependence as well as retaining individual id.
Cohesiveness - participants should feel as they are an integral part of a team. Minus the fascination of cohesiveness an organization can fall apart. Therefore it is very important that customers having a bond or affiliation among them.
Trust - team members should trust one another and they should trust the first choice. There must be consistency between what they say and do.
Conflict quality - as any team could face conflicts at any stage there should be a way to resolve those issues in order to keep the team work.
Influence - there must be ability for associates to effect other members. They should be able to motivate each other. If there is no method to influence users through consumption of incentive and punishment efficiency could be minimized.
As the writer has mentioned it is vital to make certain that influence will not be perplexed as control because controlling can lead to group problems.
Accomplishment - team can complete its jobs. They should possess skills, knowledge to do their responsibilities. If indeed they cannot perform their obligations aggravation would lead to conflict.
Growth - As in virtually any situations group members must have opportunities to increase. Also as a team they should be in a position to learn and growth. In any other case boredom can lead to inability in the group.
When looking at those qualities it is apparent that those traits in nature would help groups to attain its goals through the elimination of group issues. But one weakness of the finding is the fact the author has not placed the order worth focusing on of these features. Perhaps one could argue that these all could be equally important. But regarding to my perspective some characteristics are certainly superior or more important than others. For example cohesiveness, conflict image resolution, etc. could be more important than progress or affect, because first, the group must interact and achieve their goals. Other things like growth, etc. comes next to that.
However it can be clearly said these 10 characteristics would (although few traits could be more important than others) help organizations or teams to accomplish their goals and improve shows.
Benefits of 10 Critical Traits
According to the writer these 10 traits can help clubs or groups in great ways by aiding them to recognize weaknesses and strength of their group dynamics.
Therefore she suggests that organisations may use a form which includes those 10 critical qualities in order to evaluate teams. According to the article groups can be evaluated in 5 scores continuum. Also it is important to examine clubs on regular basis in order to keep and improve their performance levels.
As the author explains, this analysis can be carried out by anybody who is not in the team, considering that he has required analysis skills. Further it is noted there that tool may be used to assess a team in virtually any development stage and find out their dynamics and procedures in order to improve them.
There are several steps that need to be taken after evaluation is performed,
The assessor should meet associates and provide reason for the score that they have got for each criterion.
Appropriate actions should be taken for attributes that are obtained below 3. Action strategies can be applied to solve issues.
Team should celebrate scores over 3 and reinforce them in order to hold on to and improve performance.
Last step is to check out this procedure regularly over and over after agreed time period.
As I am aware this is the most important part of the article, because this is really utilized by any team in real world to improve their performances. Instructions are plainly given using cases. Therefore nobody would find any difficulties in implementing this.
Ultimately through this procedure teams can improve group dynamics and group techniques and will be in a position to build powerful groups and improve their performance level.
But there are a few drawbacks in this technique itself as it hasn't addressed all conditions that could affect the performance of communities or groups.
Shortcomings of the 10 Traits Method
When analysing the article in depth it is clear that the writer has failed to identify a few of the important areas of group and team management that are determined by other research workers and writers. Those aspects could immediately affect the outcome of the group in conditions of performance and performance.
For a good example phenomenon like groupthink and groupshift that can hinder the ability of the group to enter into quality decisions by evaluating alternatives objectively. Regarding to (Robbins, Millett, & Waters-Marsh, 2004) groupthink is related to the group norms. It details that with the pressure from group to conformity group may eliminate unconventional, minority or unpopular views from analyzing when coming up with decision. Groupshift is a predicament where when group arriving at a decision they could go to get more high-risk decision as users initial positions are exaggerated toward more extreme positions.
Further (Robbins, Millett, & Waters-Marsh, 2004) has discovered many factors that can affect group shows than the group dynamics that contain been determined by the author of the article through her 10 critical features. Size of the group, option of resources for a group to perform, ramifications of sociable loafing, etc. could affect the outcome of communities greatly.
From the shortcomings mentioned previously it is clear that the trend of groupthink could evidently contradict with cohesiveness trait that she has mentioned in the article. She has described that cohesiveness as an important active in performance. Without cohesiveness a group can fall apart. But she has failed to discuss the limit of cohesiveness because as stated earlier, extreme cohesiveness can cause groupthink and ultimately have an impact on the effective decision making in the group.
Conclusion
Putting some people together and wanting them to work effectively as a group would hardly ever work. Therefore understanding the word Group Dynamics and effectively control them in groupings is important.
The author of the article has mainly mentioned the importance of her 10 traits method in categorizing group dynamics in order to recognize and deal with any areas that a group/team need to improve or they can be good at. The writer argues that in so doing groups or teams will be able to work together more effectively and increase their performance levels.
The article has structured its arguments in a reasonable manner and has presented many theories and concepts that require to understand the primary argument of the article. Aside from few adjustments which i suggested in the research part of the assignment, it could be concluded that the writer has been successful in those aspects. Further this article has written in simple British that is clearly a good point because viewers will be able to understand this content of the article easily. In addition to that the author has provided whole lot of good examples to make readers understand complex ideas and principles more obviously.
When critically evaluating the article, it is found that those 10 critical characteristics are in fact important and incredibly practical in evaluating and controlling group performances except for few drawbacks that were discussed in the body of this task. Those drawbacks are the failure to mention some of the important aspects that could impact the performance of organizations, like groupthink, how big is the group, effects of public loafing, etc.
Finally it could be figured if any organisation follows the technique that the author has suggested to judge group/team dynamics and take care of them with caring for the additional points that I've mentioned earlier, organisations will be able to increase performance and success of their organizations/teams.
