GROUP BEHAVIOUR DESCRIPTIVE

A group refers to two or more individuals engaged in social interaction to achieve some goal. Group
development refers to how groups are formed and how they develop. Tuckman stated that five stages
are necessary for a team to progress, develop and deliver results successfully. These 5 stages are
forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

Group cohesiveness is the degree to of attraction among group members. It is cohesiveness that
explains the team spirit that many work groups possess. Some factors that can result in higher group
cohesiveness is smaller sizes of groups, equality of status, higher member stability and similarity and the
existence of a common threat. Cooperation and competition are also critical to the effective functioning
of teams. This is because cooperation will increase group cohesiveness whereas competition that is
healthy can motivate people to improve their work performance. However, social loafing may occur
whereby individuals working in groups exert less effort than when working alone.

Team building is the process of enhancing the effectiveness of teams by using high interaction among
members to increase trust and openness. For example, Dyers team building model aims to clarify roles,
correct misunderstandings, advocate sharing more information and being more creative to allow
smooth functioning of teams. Some characteristics of successful teams include empowered members,
shared responsibility and a common sense of purpose.

One of the most important processes in work groups is the decision making process. Wedley & Fields
analytical model of the decision making process highlights three important phases: Formulation, the
process of understanding a problem, Consideration, the process of determining and selecting a decision
and Implementation, the process of carrying out the decision. There are four major individual decision
styles, the directive style leans towards simple and clear solutions to problems. Decisions are made
rapidly because they use little information and do not consider many alternatives. Analytical style is
willing to consider complex solutions based on ambiguous information. Decisions will only be made after
careful analysis. Conceptual style is socially oriented and uses the humanistic and artistic approach to
initiate new ideas. Behavioural style is deeply concerned about the development of the organization and
its personnel. While most managers have one dominant style of decision making, thy can use many
different styles for different situations. Research on decision styles reveals individual differences as
people tend to take very different approaches to the decisions they make.

Decisions in groups can be made through autocratic decision making, democratic decision making or
consensus. Although group decision making has many advantages over individual decision making, these
advantages can be countered by groupthink and group polarization. Groupthink is a syndrome
characterized by a concurrence-seeking tendency that overrides the ability of a cohesive group to make
critical decisions. Janis (1972) found 8 symptoms of groupthink in a group decision making process
which includes illusions of vulnerability, illusions of morality, self-censorships and direct conformity.
Group polarization is the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than those
made by individuals. This can happen when individuals are presented with persuasive arguments that
bolster the individuals original positive or negative stance on an issue or when an individual adopts the
values of the group. Strategies that can be used to avoid group think and group polarization include
having some members playing the role of devils advocate, creating a group norm that encourages
critical evaluations of ideas and introducing productive conflict to lower the cohesiveness of the group.

Conflict is behaviour by a person or group intended to inhibit the attainment of goals by another person
or group. There are many sources of conflict. Conflict can be caused by the organizational structure,
scarcity of important resources, great individual and group interdependence in tasks or interpersonal
differences. Conflict can produce both positive and negative outcomes for the organization. Some
positive effects include increasing motivation and energy levels of group members when work tasks
become too dull. It can stimulate creativity and innovation when people challenge an existing system.
Conflict can also improve the quality of decisions as a wide range of opposing views and opinions will
ensure that a decision is critically evaluated before being carried out. This input by subordinates in
making important decisions can also in turn increase member satisfaction and commitment to the work
group. On the other hand, conflict can also erode group cohesiveness, increase voluntary absenteeism
and employee turnover, retard communication between group members and thus lead to lower
performance.

Conflict resolution strategies can be individual or managerial. Individual strategies are those that the
conflicting parties can used themselves to try to resolve the conflict. These include Dominating (Win-
lose), Accomodation (Lose- Win), Compromise (lose-lose) Collaboration (Win-win) and Avoidance
( suppressing the conflict). Managerial strategies are steps that mangers or third parties can take to
encourage conflict resolution. Managers may try to force an end to the conflict by deciding in favour of
one or the other parties. Managers can also act as arbitrators or mediators and try to satisfy the needs
of both parties. Managers can also use their authority to call an issue to a vote in group decision making.
A different approach is by introducing a superordinate goal which the two conflicting parties are willing
to work together to attain.