Group Process - Report Example

Introduction

Group process refers to how individuals in an organization work to get things done .typically, most institutions spend a vast deal of time and their power in setting and trying to reach their goals despite giving little attention to what goes on in the groups.Group development occurs through dynamical processes: either behavioral and psychological development that happens through social groups or among social groups.The study of group dynamics is always useful in knowing decision-making behaviors and tracking contagious diseases among certain groups. It also follows the populism of new philosophies and technologies in a society (Cao et al.,2015). Theorist over time has developed the concept that is used to explain the concept of group development among people which the well-know one by Truckman who identified five stages of development. When broken down, they can be into three phases: the beginning,middle, and end stages. The aim of this paper, therefore, will be to discuss the process of group development under the three phases as well as the characteristics of each group's behavior and the behaviors of each member of a particular group.

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Group Development

The first phase of group development is the beginner stage. Here it entails the forming stage of the group and norming in the forming process different people come together to learn of the opportunities and challenges. After learning about them they set specific goals which, upon agreeing on begin to execute them (Bion, 2013). Here group members tend to act relatively autonomously. Despite most of them being motivated, they are moderately uninformed of the matters and goals of the team.Group members under this stage are always on their best behavior but very focused on themselves. Mature group members start to portray appropriate characters even in this first stage, which is usually underdeveloped. A good example which I encountered this semester is when our class representative in the programming class was instructed by our lecture to form small groups for coding, were all motivated by the desire of wanting to learn how to code and create a data and software ware that we intended to use in tracing of doing contacting tracing especially in these difficult times of the Corona Pandemic. After learning of our set goals we began executing them even though majority of our class members attempted to develop the software by themselves despite knowing about the purpose and the pursuit of us establishing the group.

The places where they meet also plays a significant role in portraying and modeling of initial behavior of each person in the group.And in this stage the primary activity that happens is the orientation, whereby group members try the activities they are supposed to pursue and each other. Discussions are also employed so as each group member can familiarize with the scope of the task, how they should approach it, and similar concerns. Group members are entitled to relinquish the luxury of non-hostility topics and risk the likelihood of fights. Here we had to familiarize ourselves with each other through learning how each member understood the different styles of coding.

Storming Process

The second stage under the beginning stage of group development is the storming process. In this stage group members begin to sort themselves and start getting trust from one another. And it only begins when they voice their ideas(Bion, 2013). Note that in this stage conflict may erupt among members during power and status allocation. However, after the group members start executing their duties together, they start to learn about each other working style and how it feels like working with each other in a group.In this group hierarchy of status and positioning is identified in this section. There is usually delegation and sharing of duties. An excellent example in this stage is in our coding group members had already started getting trust from each one another, even though some disagreements arose when leaders are selected to lead others in the coding process. But they declined after we began coding and developing the software.

In this stage, there is usually a polite and pleasant environment among people and typically have different degrees of excitement, eagerness, and positivity to each other.On the other hand some people may have frames the mind of suspiciousness,fear, and anxiety.In this phase the leaders of every group are supposed to specify duties and tasks to the group they lead and the code of conduct of each team and resolve their conflicts(Bion, 2013). Participants are also entitled to give their opinions if they happen to encounter any behavior that they perceive is suspicious.And quite often question the code of conduct of their leaders regarding their decision making or the actions which they undertake. Differences in opinions and ideologies are resolved in this stage before the participants progress to the next step. At this stage we were all excited and eager as we waited to learn about coding. However, some group members were afraid and developed suspicious of other group members of their possibility of carrying out fraudulent activities. The group members here were able to give directions to each group member regarding the decision-making process as well as solving conflicts of members of the group regarding the different programming methods which we disagreed on.

In this phase, tolerance is highly upheld to make the team fail to progress into the next stage. If the team members are weak and do not tolerate each other, they do not move beyond this stage. However, in some groups, the differences make the team members strong together and progress together and more versatile, thus building teamwork.

Group leaders in this stage are always reachable and still give direction to their team members, especially in decision-making processes and their task behavior, making members solve their differences and cooperate more comfortably(Bion, 2013).Making them not to feel being stereotyped, hence making them give their sentiments and opinions. Note that tensions, struggles, and sometimes disagreements happen in this stage.

The second stage of group development is the middle stage and in this phase, it comprises norming and the group performing process.Under the norming fixed differences and individual clashes result in widened intimacy, which triggers cooperation. And this occurs typically when the team members are generally aware of the competition and are brought together and unified by specific objectives that they must accomplish (Bion, 2013).The group members take the obligation and have the desire and determination to work to achieve their goals. And they positively start enduring the notions and fancies of other group members. They accept other individuals as they are and make a lot of effort in moving forward. The only risk in this stage is that team members may be so determined in resolving conflicts that they may be too reluctant to give out contentious thoughts. Here the difference that we had united us together and made us work together cooperatively to develop the software.

Performing Stage

The other stage under the middle phase is the performing stage, here the group culture and duties are always established, and the team members are more determined to achieve common goals rottenly realizing their shared goals and objectives. Here members of a group are driven consistently and aware of what they want.Team members under this stage are still self-directed, experienced, and are capable of handling the decision-making process without being monitored by their team leaders (Bion, 2013). The anticipate disagreements are usually persistent and are generally allowed provided that it is through mechanisms accepted by the group. In this stage we already knew our group's culture was to code and develop the software so we were so determined to create the software for carrying out the contact tracing.

Leaders of the group in this stage are always engaged in the team proceedings. The team in this stage also makes the majority of the obligatory decisions, and the best performing team members will regress to former stages in certain circumstances. Most of the long-standing teams will automatically go through these cycles at times as they adapt to events. A good example is the change of leadership may force the group to revert to storming as the new members in the team challenge and question the prevailing cultures and group dynamics.

End Stage

The last phase of group development is the end stage, and it comprises of the Adjourning step. This stage entails completing the activity and splitting up the team after the completion of the group. This activity mostly occurs after the group members have accomplished their task and they beginning to forming the group again as well as norming whereby they may set other specific goals which would like to attain or fail to continue with the group they may dissolve it completely.

Note that under the first stage which is the beginning stage, the leaders employ leadership strategies such as coordinating behaviors. Here, it is usually the early stage of group development. They have to coordinate different individuals who have joined the group by outlining the objectives or their purpose of coming together,and the leader coordinates the team in choosing the team and also helps them to identify the goals and objectives and goals as well as ensuring the group develops shared psychological model. In the storming process, the leaders use the coaching style in their leadership process where they act by coaching their team members on the activities that they need to be done, mostly in the decision-making process whereby it guides their team members in making up of decisions that they think are best in helping the group to transition to the next stage which is norming and performing.Leaders here act as resource person of the team. They also allow group members to gain mutual trust in each other through reduction of suspicious activities. They also resolve disputes among different members by calming the environment where they are.

In the norming and performing stages which usually lie in the middle phase, leaders use the self-centered approaches through empowering behaviors where they empower all the team members by encouraging them to make decisions without supervising them and even the members do not even need to be managed, so much. Here the leader objectives key objectives in ensuring the group's progress to the other stages are getting feedback from fellow staff. They also facilitate the transition of leadership to the next step. They also aid in setting time for planning and engagement of different groups.

Conclusion

In the last stage, which is the end process leaders here use leadership strategies of supportive behavioral traits where they support each group member, and the key to success of these groups is though the leaders are allowing for flexibility in team roles and aiding in the mastery and assortment of new members into the group.These leaders also assist in the creation of future leadership opportunities.

References

Bion, W. R. (2013). Experiences in groups: And other papers. Routledge. Retrieved from: https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HPnCW6mDm-AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=related:mHggmlH0TPUJ:scholar.google.com/&ots=lf6ViI_lJn&sig=QZSXnBSSuJd93QW1G2APCKkDRqY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Cao, L., Zhang, C., Joachims, T., Webb, G. I. B., Margineantu, D., & Williams, G. (2015). KDD'15: Proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Retrieved from:
https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/kdd15-proceedings-of-the-21st-acm-sigk.