As a result of the global and technological factors, a need for combining competencies while building strong teams has emerged. Through the combination of various employees into strategic groups, an organization that operates in a team manner creates synergies through the team process. During troubled times, the significance of teamwork and engagement becomes paramount at all organizational levels. The organization thus gains communication commitment aimed at carrying out the business strategy while directly impacting on its capability to drive results and attain its goals. Poole & Van, (2004) assert that all teams comprise of groups of people but not all groups are teams. They argue that two or more people make up a group which has common interests or characteristics and the members identify with each other over similar traits. A team differs from a group basing on five key areas of task orientation, interdependence, familiarity, purpose and the formal structure, etc. A group has only one person as the head while a team may comprise over one person at the helm.
Team members share responsibility while group members do not, group focus on attaining individual goals while team members aim for attaining them goals (Anderson, 2012). Hence, a team generates collective work outcomes while a group generates individual end results. The process of a team is to talk about a dilemma and decide on the best way of resolving it in a collective manner while a group process is to discuss a problem, decide and delegate tasks to specific members. This shows that group members are independent while team members are interdependent. According to Anderson (2012), group dynamics entails the attitudes and behavior patterns of a group and it concerns with how groups are formed, their structure and the processes inherent in their operations. [“Write my essay for me?” Get help here.]
These are the interactions and forces within, between and among groups. Group dynamics lead to a series of relations, common goals, and norms that distinguish a specific social group and define its boundaries (Cummings& Worley, 2013). The formation of a group begins with an emotional connection between persons. According to the social cohesion theory, ties of interpersonal attractions lead to the formation of groups (Forsyth, 2010). The social identity theory on the other hand states that groups are formed when a group of individuals believe they share a common social category where interpersonal appeal serves to enhance that connection (Poole & Van, 2004). This leads one to identify with some persons while not associating with others. By interacting, individuals can then build up group attitudes, roles, and norms that characterize the grouping and are internalized to control or shape behavior. Forsyth, (2010) argues that the beliefs within the group are based on how the members of that group perceive their other members.
Likable group members are upgraded while unlikeable group members are deviated from. This makes them be a separate group and the effect is known as the black sheep effect. According to (Poole & Van, 2004), these Intergroup dynamics are what is referred to us the behavioral and emotional association involving two or additional social groupings. They include perceptions, opinions, behaviors, and attitudes generated towards one’s own group and to other groups. It sometimes is pro social, beneficial, and positive, while sometimes it generates conflict. The social identity supposition states that intergroup conflict begins with a practice of contrast among individuals within a group (in-group) to those of a different social group (out-group). This comparison is subjective and biased and enhances one’s self-esteem (Schuman, 2010). The result is a person ends up favoring the in-group over the out-group resulting into stereotypes, discrimination, and prejudice.[Need an essay writing service? Find help here.]
Intergroup disagreement can be very aggressive, particularly for societal groups with a long record of disagreements. This conflict is common among, ethnic, religious, racial and political groups (Schuman, 2010). Improving Performance in teams and groups is undertaken through measuring output undertaken in at least four ways. The first two ways quantify performance at the personal level while the other two gauge performance at the team level. Performance is enhanced through measuring individual member’s behavior e.g. participation in teams meetings, volunteers, constructive communication etc. A measure of individual results is done through analysis of work products as a collective end result. Also, problem-solving skills improves the team and group performance as it entails discussions, thoughts, decisions and actions that occur right from the initial consideration of a problem situation to the final goal.
Group decision making may appear fair and democratic but they are just a gesture that covers up because certain group leaders or members have already decided. Group decision making is cumbersome, time-consuming compared to individual decisions (Schuman, 2010). Despite this, group decision is more informed as all group members share a common understanding. Effective communication is thus central to a team’s success as a big part of teamwork entails written and oral communication. Teams establish the norms, frequency, and timing of communication between and among its group members where a mixture of decentralized and centralized patterns of communication is used (Anderson, 2012). The barriers to effective team communications include poor oral communication, lack of a shared vocabulary, poor writing skills, insensitivity to diversity and differences plus time constraints. Therefore effective response skills are important for the feedback process in a group or team to yield the desired impact or results.
The feedback ought to be about behavior and not personality and should describe the impact of a person’s behavior on the team or group. The feedback should be specific, timely where soliciting for feedback is done at the right moment i.e. when people are susceptible to feedback. This will go a long way to avoid the intragroup or intergroup conflict. Intra-group conflicts arise out of the disagreements that arise between individuals within a group e.g. a project team while intergroup conflicts arise out of misconceptions between work groups e.g. two project teams. Intergroup and intragroup conflict process models are used to resolve, or circumvent conflict to prevent it from becoming damaging (Cummings& Worley, 2013).
These include simple avoidance, changing certain variables at the place of work, problem-solving, and in-house alternative dispute resolution programs. The resolution method used depends on why the conflict occurred, its severity and type. Face to face is very effective in problem-solving especially conflicts that involve language barriers and misunderstandings. Another method to group conflict resolution is through authoritative commands for situations where a satisfactory resolution to command is not there. An authoritative command does not deal with the underlying cause of the conflict but is a quick fix to it (Cummings& Worley, 2013). These strategies will go a long way in resolving most of the group conflicts inherent within organizations.[Click Essay Writer to order your essay]
References
Anderson, D. L. (2012). Cases and exercises in organization development & change. Los Angeles: Sage.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2013). Organization Development and Change. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group dynamics. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Poole, M. S., & Van, . V. A. H. (2004). Handbook of organizational change and innovation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Schuman, S. (2010). The handbook for working with difficult groups: How they are difficult, why they are difficult and what you can do about it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
