Foundations of Group Behavior Essay

conventions send word be as small as two heap or as capacious as the number whitethorn r severally purge in hundreds of thousands. They argon organize for distinct reasons and serve divergent benefits to their divisions and also to their compositions. However, there whitethorn be some drawbacks too as it will be seen in this paper. buckram and Inlump ag multitudes Groups give the axe be divided into two types Formal companys and In dinner gown separates. Formal conventions be those sort outs which allow been recognised and created by the organization. (Robbins 2004, p. 164) They arrest a longer life duo and check a more noble favorable organization.They also have specific jobs that argon to be hand guide and the efforts of the class atomic number 18 directed in such a way that they will spark advance to the bring throughment of the organizations objectives. (Robbins 2004, p. 164) These classifys be organize after extensive externalisening regarding their volume and constitution of the assemblage. Waiters in a restaurant fecal matter be thought of as a formal free radical. On the opposite hand, informal groups argon groups that ar non do formally by the organization and do not have a specific expression that is recognized by the organization. (Robbins 2004, p.164)These can be formed by genial moveion between prevailers in an organization and can be diverse in their nature in any sense. For example, four employees who met in the mobile canteen can extend a sort of relationship with to individually one different although they may not be required to interact with for to each one one new(prenominal) to accomplish any organizational objectives. This group has formed without any formal structure that can be identified in the organizational structure and is an example of an informal group. Command, Task, Interest, and Friendship Groups Groups can also be categorized into mastery groups, job groups, matter to grou ps, or acquaintance groups.(Robbins 2004, p. 164) Command groups ar created formally and they are recognized in the organizational hierarchical structure. These groups hold in of members who are answerable to one manager. Although task groups are also made by the organization and interact to achieve organizational objectives, their members are not alship canal answerable to their immediate managers. Workers who receivedly report to different managers can be combined by an organization to accomplish a received task and during this task, these individual members can skip the original organizational pecking order if required.For example, an organization can ask employees from the software bumpment police squad to interact with members of the human resources team to decide roughly vacancies in the organization. Both command groups and task groups are types of formal groups as both of these groups are formed formally to achieve organizational objectives. On the some other hand, an interest group is a type of an informal group that can be formed to achieve some particular goal that has a common interest for all of the group members. (Robbins 2004, p. 164) For example, a few workers can join hold to ask for a salary increase.Similarly, friendship groups can also be categorized as a type of informal groups as they are formed by members who share some common characteristics that led them to develop friendship with each other. (Robbins 2004, p. 164) Moreover, friendship groups can also interact outside the dimensions of the workplace. Both interest groups and friendship groups are types of informal groups as they are not made formally by the organization, are not recognized by the organizational structure, and do not necessarily meet to accomplish organizational objectives.The aim of informal groups is more inclined towards pull throughing social requirements of the individuals in the group. (Robbins 2004, p. 164) However, the relationship between members of informal groups has significant impacts on their work executing and their actions. A group in the past was normally associated with some social activity where a number of people from the smart set would join each other for a specific reason. These social alliances, widely know as informal groups, fulfill the social needs of the members.In interest groups, society members from different fields join each other for vested interests succession friendship groups are characterized by the common characteristic(s) of the members. The member of these groups may meet in health clubs, cafe, and public parks and so on. Since these groups lack a formal structure and rules and guidelines, the chances of conflicts are high provided once the members get along, the group may be able to fight for their interest blush in the worst situations. External and Internal Factors asking GroupsWhen we hear the word group, we opine it to a slangion of people in an organization that work in concert to a chieve a desired specific goal. These are the groups in which the members are confined to work at bottom the boundaries of organizationally set guidelines and rules to achieve a goal or number of goals. They may face the problems of time limitations, resource(s) restriction, or the group may not be empowered with authority to arrive at closings on its own, or the organizational culture may not be aligned to that of the group.Similarly, the organizations selection and rewarding policies may affect the cognitive process of the groups as groups are composed of individualnel that are hire and rewarded by the organization. These limitations are not under the groups reserve and can be called as the external factors affecting the groups transactance. Internal factors affecting the groups performance may be those factors that form the structure of the group. The reason is that these factors affect the appearance of the members.Group leaders that serve as a mentor, facilitator, conf lict manager, and so on may bring about the desired changes in the members deportment and therefrom may increase the groups performance. Tuckmans Five-Stage sample It was in 1965 that Bruce Tuckman revealed his four-stage model comprising of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing. Afterwards, he added a fifth stage, Adjourning, too to his original four-stage model. (Clark 2005, n. p. ) (Clark 2005, n. p. ) Forming Forming is the first stage where individuals in a group get introduce with each other.In the beginning, the group members are careful not to exhibit any behavior that may be considered as unacceptable for a group behavior. For example, at this stage, a group member may come to an end from pointing out mis cons of some other member as he might be afraid that it can give rise to some conflict. During this stage, members interact with each other to exchange basic concepts and primary matters. It can be knockout to figure out all of the problems at this stage as individ uals within the group can get distracted by the different situations in which they try to adjust themselves.(Clark 2005, n. p. ) Therefore, only minimal progress is bring home the bacon as far as the accomplishment of organizational objectives is concerned, but this is normal at this stage. (Clark 2005, n. p. ) This phase ends when individuals within the group begin to perceive themselves as constituents of the team. (Robbins 2004, p. 165) Storming During the nigh stage, storming, group members gradually significantize that they have achieved little so far. distributively and every member has his own acquaintances of how things should be done and a capable knowledge sharing environment is not formed yet.This can be considered the most troublesome phase as members start to recognize that the jobs to be done are not as easy as they seemed previously. Interactions with other team members are often limited to arguments about what should the group do as a whole. (Clark 2005, n. p. ) Conflicts may arise as team members do not want to have their individual freedom limited. (Robbins 2004, p. 165) At this stage, members do not trust others and do what seems appropriate with respect to their own experience. (Clark 2005, n. p. ) A lot of energy is consumed in these issues and not much is attained during this stage.However, members start to develop a mutual understanding amongst themselves. This stage ends when an taken for granted(predicate) and established hierarchy of command forms inside the team. (Robbins 2004, p. 165) Norming The next stage is Norming where the group begins to share information with each other. Good associations build up amongst employees and the team shows gummyness. (Robbins 2004, p. 165) Members resolve their conflicts and collaborate with each other. During this phase, members also start to rap others in a productive way so that the critique benefits instead of creating conflicts.For example, a senior member can explain the correct w ay of doing a job to his juniors while supporting arguments from researches published in peer-reviewed journals. At the equivalent time, the senior member can brief the juniors about the consequences of doing things wrong and the benefits of doing things in the right way. Junior members are also more likely to discover as they start realizing the importance of achieving organizational objectives while working in groups. As conflicts are avoided and minimized, most of the energy and time is spent on accomplishing organizational objectives.This phase ends when team members develop an attitude that matches the members mutual perception of acceptable group behavior. Performing The fourth stage Performing begins with members having developed good relationships with each others. Now, team members can identify problems, solve them, and implements the alterations successfully. Finally, group members have learned about the strong points and weak points of their fellow members. (Clark 200 5, n. p. ) The group begins to perform very well and is now a successful and cohesive group. This is the last-place phase for enduring work groups although temporary work groups have another phase.Adjourning The last stage, which is for temporary work groups like task groups, is known as Adjourning. (Clark 2005, n. p. ) The work is wrapped up in this final stage. whatsoever team members are happy due to the accomplishment of the task. Others may be sad to leave their fellows with whom they had developed cordial relationships. Some relationships may even continue even though the team may be dissolved. Roles The manipulations that are played by team members also affects their behavior as different teams are formed for different reasons and therefore demands different behaviors in different situations.Several characteristics may alship canal be associated with a image and these form the role identity. Similarly ones perception of how to behave in a reliable situation and others expectations of a certain behavior in a situation may also fashion ones behavior. This phenomenon of Role Expectation is visible in the real life where employees and employers form expectations for each others. (Robbins 2004, p. 169) Failure of exposing an expected behavior by any party may cause damage by delivery about an undesired behavioral change that might not be acceptable by the other party.Managing divergent role expectations arising from different employees and employers can result in a role conflict where meeting the role expectations of one group member may hinder with meeting the role expectations of other members, and this situation results in frustration for the group members. (Robbins 2004, p. 169) Norms and place The norms that a group possesses explain its members how to behave in a different situations and thus should be possessed by all the members to avoid conflicts. For example the performance norms tell members how to work, how much efforts to put, how to i ncrease productiveness and so on.The appearance norms acknowledge things like appropriate dress code whereas social arrangement norms fulfill the social needs within the work groups by creating social interaction among members. (Robbins 2004, p. 169) Then there are allocation of resources norms that demands members to avoid wastage of time and resources and tells about salary and job. Working in groups also comes with problems called deviant workplace behavior where other members disturb others by a number of ways like harassment, verbal abuse, spreading rumors, stealing their goods and so on. Such behaviors may even make a member not only to leave a group but to leave the job.We see many women who leave their jobs as their boss or colleagues sexually harass them. These behaviors are found to be prevailing in people that have been members of groups whose norms support such behavior. Managers should plan and work to avoid such behaviors so that group members do not have to leave th eir group/job or reduce their efforts. Status as it affects ones norms also affects ones behavior. But this deviation should not be so much that other group members feel that they are treated unevenly as it may affect their productivity and thus may descent the group performance.This decline in productivity is not just because of members sense of equity but also depends on the cultures to which they rifle which consequently affect how they value status. Size, Composition, and Cohesiveness As far as the size of the group is concerned, it may not be the right predictor of a groups success or failure as difference in size depends on the goal to be achieved. succession small groups are good for short time projects, bigger groups are required when diverse objectives are to be achieved. Moreover, the composition of groups affects their performance directly. manifest shows that heterogeneous groups outperform homogeneous groups but in return they take more time as members need to adjust and understand each other. (Robbins 2004, p. 174) Same is the case with groups composed of diverse national or complaisant members. But as the gap between members having common attribute(s) increases, the group productivity decreases. Cohesiveness is also an important feature of groups. It is the tendency to which members are attracted to each other and thus stimulated to work together.It affects the group performance and thus its productivity for the performance related norms are high, cohesive groups will perform highly. (Robbins 2004, p. 175) Cohesiveness can be increased by providing a broader span of time so that members spend more time the size of the group should be reduced as smaller groups make interaction easy. Group Decision Making Groupthink Irving (1972, 1982) came up with the revolutionizing concept of groupthink that is related with the group ending making strategies. (qtd. In Universiteit Twente 2004, n. p.)This theory proposes that a group may develop itself in s uch a way that preserving the integrity of the group may become important than accepting and implementing real facts and optimal dissolving agents. This situation usually takes place when a team is extremely cohesive in its nature, and is led by an authoritative leader where criticism and conflicting opinions are not welcomed. (Universiteit Twente 2004, n. p. ) There are a few drawbacks of having this approach of group decision making. Firstly, the team will restrict itself to only a handful of alternatives.The solution that is proposed initially and is accepted by the majority is not subject to criticism and arguments that may identify some complicated problems. Moreover, opinions from professionals are not set very much. Lastly, the team becomes so overconfident of its practices and opinions that contingency plans are not made. (Universiteit Twente 2004, n. p. ) Therefore, groupthink can hinder the overall performance of the team significantly. (Robbins 2004, p. 179) Group Decis ion-making proficiencys cerebrate In brainstorming, the team leader may mention the problem in a clear-cut way to all members.Afterwards, each member comes up with his own ideas to solve the problem. It is essential during this stage that members do not criticize each other. All the solutions proposed by members are timberd down so that they can be thoroughly discussed in future. (Robbins 2004, p. 181) One obvious avail of this approach is that one opinion from a member gives rise to a number of opinions and members also come up with out-of-the-box ideas as criticism does not prevail. However, according to one research, members may still hold some ideas faring criticism from others although it is clearly mentioned and understood that no one will criticize.(Sample 1984, n. p. ) Nominal Group Technique In the Nominal Group Technique, employees join together as a team to solve the problem, but instead of sharing their opinions with each others, they just do brainstorming on an indiv idual basis and note down their own ideas and solutions to the problem. Afterwards, members discuss their ideas one by one with others and each idea is discussed, clarified, and assessed. Then, on an individual basis again, members rank the ideas and solutions without consulting others. The solutions that are bedded higher by the majority are taken as the final group decision.(Robbins 2004, p. 181) One problem with this approach is opinions of members do not play and the whole process may seem too mechanical. (Sample 1984, n. p. ) Conclusion When people work in groups, their analytical abilities enhances and they think of one thing in different aspects and since members in group are diverse, many new ways of doing a task can be sought. At the same time, those ways can be analyzed and assessed from different perspectives. Another reason for a group may be efficiency as a group can work faster.The chances of errors also reduce in groups as members tactile property at minute details which might be ignored if the task was to be done by a single person. Time is another reason for working in groups. Time is saved when people work in groups. Also decision made by a group is usually better than that made by a single person as a group considers different aspects and follow the technique of brainstorming. entropy gathering becomes easy in groups as diverse people collect the diverse data which makes the work easy. Groups are now vital to an organizations success.They not only save time and other resources but also result in a better decision, but while forming a group, care should be taken as conflict may take place among member which eventually may decline the group performance and productivity and thus not only may waste money but also time and energy that might have been used effectively.Bibliography Clark, D. (2005, September 29) Matrix Teams Internet. Available from Accessed 15 Sep 2007 Janis, I. L. (1972) Victims of Groupthink. capital of Massachusetts Hought on Mifflin. Janis, I. L. (1982) Groupthink, 2nd interpretation. Boston Houghton Mifflin.Robbins, Stephen P. , (2004) Chapter Eight Foundations of Group Behavior, Organizational Behavior, 11th Edition Internet. Prentice Hall. Available from Accessed 15 Sep 2007 Sample, J. A. (1984) Nominal Group Technique An Alternative to Brainstorming. Journal of Extension, 22(2) Internet. Available from Accessed 15 Sep 2007 Universiteit Twente (09/06/2004) Groupthink Internet. Available from Accessed 15 Sep 2007