Group Dynamics Cohesiveness Social Psychology
Social relations group dynamics may be referred to as a system of behaviors occurring within a social group. Studying group dynamics is always useful for one to understand decision making behavior, to track the spread of diseases in a given community, create good therapy techniques and follow the emergence of new ideas. Evolutionary theory tells us that humans’ evolvement is best equipped to survive when working in groups (Toseland & Rivas, 2012). However, as humans strive to work in group, there are factors that affect team cohesion making it unproductive. These factors are environmental, personal or leadership factors. This work plan is going to address the probable problems that might be in existence within ACE team of specialists and the possible suggestions to correct the situation.
One of the problems that bring a negative group dynamics is poor leadership. A team with a weak leader will always have one member more dominant and may eventually take charge. This can lead to lack of proper direction, fighting among members or wrong priorities being focused on. Under leadership, there rise other problems that limit team cohesion (Toseland & Rivas, 2012). There are instances when a leader lacks skills to deal with a particular group of people. There are leaders who can effectively manage a smaller team than a bigger and when given a bigger team, he or she may fail to control it fully brining negative effects in the team. Leaders are also sometimes characterized by intolerable behaviors unfamiliar to the team for example being so rude and strict to the team, ignoring the important opinions from the team and creating a bigger gap with the rest of the team members. This kind of environment is not healthy for cohesiveness hence might be one of the reasons why the ACE team is not productive.
Bad communications may also affect the productivity and effectiveness of the team (Toseland & Rivas, 2012). Communication may be amongst members or between members and their leader. This can be observed during team meetings and other activities occurring within the team. If members can share important views then come into agreement, then they are most likely to be productive, whereas members who always collide in their communication, are always less productive. With good communication, an effective leader can assign tasks to team members and hold them accountable for their contributions hence inciting good communication and preventing social loafing.
Excessive deference to authority may also affect the cohesion of the team (Forsyth, 2010). This happens when people want to be seen agreeing with the leader’s opinions hence holding back from their own opinion which could be more helpful and important for the team. Sometimes, people tend to keep quite with their opinion if the leader is authoritative and strict and cannot consider their views even if aired out. Similarly, people tend to hold back their opinions in fear of being disapproved by the leader.
Blocking is also another way one can limit cohesion within a team. This occurs when team members behave in a manner that disrupts information flow within among the team members. This can be done in several forms; one may act as an aggressor by usually disagreeing with the views of others. The negator is a member who is always criticizing other people’s views (Forsyth, 2010). Withdrawer is a member who does not always take part when it comes to discussion. There is also a recognition seeker who is boastful and always tends to dominate the session. A joker is that kind of a person who brings in humor in a wrong time. A team consisting of such people becomes difficult to control and faces hard time when it comes to decision making.
Group thinking is also a dangerous factor that may affect cohesion within a team. This occurs when people put their desires first when placing a desire for consensus to reach the right decision. This mentality prevents them from exploring alternative solutions and can also lead to social loafing (Forsyth, 2010). This will normally cause disagreement when it comes to decision making.
Free riding may also lessen productivity among members of a team. In this case people tend to take work with a slight concern and can leave their colleagues to do most of the work. Free riders have a tendency of working hard on their own but detain their contributions in group situations (Forsyth, 2010). Having such members in a team reduces productivity.
Evaluation apprehension may also affect team cohesion. This occurs when team members have negative perceptions like a feeling that they are being treated harshly by other members (Levi, 2011). With such perceptions, they tend to hold back their views hence limiting collaboration within the team for better results.
To sum it all, team cohesion in a team can be limited by lack of focus. A team leader should be responsible of keeping the team focused for instance by assigning duties to members and enforcing accountability, using an agenda and distributing it to members earlier before the meeting (Levi, 2011). This can help to prepare members on the topics to be discussed in order to come with proper views helpful to the team.
Certainly, every situation has possible ways on how they are corrected. To reestablish productivity in the ACE team, it must start with the leader by implementing the following; the leader must know the team he or she is leading. This is by analyzing all stages of development that a team may undergo. This can help him preempt problems most likely to arise in the course. Secondly, the leader must be able to notice a problem and tackle it quickly (Levi, 2011). If he notices a certain behavior affecting the team by any of the members, the leader must act responsibly and quickly to challenge it. After noticing a behavior from a team member, a leader must always provide a feedback to show that particular member the impact of her actions so that she may be able to reflect and change for the better mate of the organization.
It is also important to define roles and responsibilities to every team member such that every member is accountable to a particular duty. This can encourage hard work hence observable results. Improve on communication since it is vital for good team dynamics, therefore it should be ensured that everyone is in good communication within the team (Levi, 2011). This can be done by including all forms of communication used by the group for example emails, shared documents so that every member is in position to air out his or her opinion about the team and all members are able to get all the information pertaining the team. It is also important to observe how all members in the team interact so as to improve in case unfavorable. Therefore with these suggested views, the situation of ACE may be corrected.
References
Toseland, R. W., & Rivas, R. F. (2012). An introduction to group work practice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group dynamics. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Levi, D. (2011). Group dynamics for teams. Los Angeles: SAGE.
