Group Communication and Conflict Essay

Communicating in Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

     What is groupthink? There is a simple definition for it, but is it truly that simple? The term groupthink refers to the inclination of group members to have the same opinions and beliefs; it frequently leads to mistakes. It often occurs without an individual being aware of it. Conflict is considered to be a harmful element when related to groups, but conflict is good when considering groupthink because it helps to eliminate the existence of a groupthink. The explanation sounds simple enough, but it is more complex than the description given.

People work in groups or teams everyday whether in their career, education, political organization, church, or any other social setting. Conflict while working in teams or groups is inevitable. When taking people of different backgrounds, personalities, moral, and ethical beliefs and putting them together in a group, conflict will arise. The key to achieving your team goals is to construct and conquer your goals with keeping the greater good of the team in mind. Conflict as it arises should be combated and abated through swift and thorough resolution techniques. When dealt with properly conflict resolution can give rise to a cohesive and productive team.

In my opinion, group work is a type of cooperative learning that helps people to accomplish a certain task in a faster and more effective manner. Team working also helps to achieve the tasks that are impossible to finish by one individual. However, if people in a group have a lot of conflicts, group work will not be able to achieve as much as we expected. There are many reasons which lead to dissatisfaction in group work such as individualism as well as conflicts in opinion and time.

It is essential that there is effective communication to build an effective team. Effective teams need to work well together and that team cohesiveness depends on building strong relationships among team members. Communication is crucial and is driven by the team leader who will work with the team to establish ground rules and work to bring the team together so that it can accomplish its goals. All teams will go through expected stages of development, from forming to storming to norming and eventually performing according to Tuckman. Navigating through these stages effectively will help teams build relationships which in turn improves communication. Effective team communication can lead to both personal and professional development. Some examples of good communication are the holding of regular catch up meetings, active listening (by management and team members), regular feedback, clear vision and goals. In contrast to the above poor communication skills can have an adverse effect on team working. If team members are not communicating amongst themselves then

Group communication follows slightly different ‘rules’ to communication in one-to-one situations. There is often more going on in a group, with a number of different people trying to speak, get their point across and their voice heard. Turn-taking can be more complicated; relationships and power issues between group members can also be more complex than in one-to-one contexts. As a communication context, groups can have a number of benefits for participants: • a group can be an effective way of sharing responsibilities • groups can improve decision-making and problem-solving because they draw on the knowledge and skills of a number of

Next, the barriers that exist in group communication are premature evaluation of ideas, poor physical surroundings, too many people, poor timing, and stinking thinking. The different ideas made from the group need an evaluation at a certain time; this is done only after all the ideas have been made from the group. Poor physical surroundings can be a problem for group disruption in communication. In some cases the room could be too hot, too cold, too noisy, not adequate enough seating and lack of technological needs for the group to function. If the group is too large then the communication can be lost and equal participation will not occur (Beebe &Masterson, 2006). Poor timing also can be a hindrance to the group by not

Group communication is getting a small group of people together who share the same problem to talk about it. These work better when the group is small as the leader can interact better than working with a large group. In health care, group communication can range from AA meetings (Alcohol anonymous) to drug abuse to various phobias which people want to overcome. There are a number of factors we need to consider when working with a group, things such as group atmosphere, group leaders, thinking about what you are going to say, taking turns and the use of space.

Communication is a fundamental relationship building skill in the workplace. If people don’t communicate well they limit their ability to connect on any meaningful level. It’s important that I show respect to those I work with. Communications should be conducted in an appropriate, open, accurate and straightforward way. Workplace relationships become a lot stronger when people can clearly and effectively communicate what they need and allow others to do the same. There are many barriers to effective communication, the first barriers to check out are:

The other factor hard to repair in this case was the conflicting role given to team members by officers. Role conflict is defined by Robbins and Judge as “when compliance when one role requirement may make it difficult to comply with

In this week’s assignment we as a group, were to watch the two videos “Planning a Playground” and “Politics of Sociology”, discuss them as a group and write a summary. Being that this is my first online class that I have had to work with a group in I was very nervous about it. When doing discussions online, without prior physically meeting and getting to know one another, things can always take a turn that is not intended or needed. My team/group was great! Not only was the intent of our discussion clear but I also liked how we all posed questions within our discussions that made you really think. We challenged and

Nor can effective use of power be reduced to wise control of our personal powers, though that may be a good start.  Social power, including our own, is concentrated, channelled, and distributed by the culture and structure of our families, communities, organizations, countries, etc.  Personal power is limited or extended by such cultures and structures.

Working within a group or team is unavoidable for most people. We are involved in sports teams, assignment groups, work teams, social groups and a variety of other groups and teams. Each of these groups share one thing in common, that is each requires us to communicate in some way in order to reach a shared goal or target. Therefore, it is imperative to know and understand how to work and communicate effectively with others to maximise outcomes and productivity.

When doing so the other group members were active listener, by using their whole body verbally and nonverbal. Like facing the speaker and giving eye contact and try to avoided interruption. The group also acknowledges the thoughts of the speaker by giving constructive feed back. Due to the effectiveness of the group communication, we were able to build trust, respect and understand the issues and make decision for effective change. We illustrate this by coming together as a group one again to accomplish the goal we initially wanted to accomplish. Since the first organization that we had chosen was incorrect, so we had to make the necessary changes to accomplish our goals. The other effective feature is the purpose of the group. Kozier et al (2010) stated that the effective group purpose is when “goal, task, and outcomes are clarified. Understanding and modified so that members of the group can commit themselves to purposes through cooperation” (p.401). For instance, each individual was assign a task and knew what was to be accomplished. As group we all decided to meet at suitable day and time which was beneficial to all team members, because we could commit to the group and focus on what needed to be achieved.

Effective group communications come in forms of verbal and non-verbal techniques. Essential parts of the entire group’s contribution are that the group contains full participating members, the group is diverse, and that the diversity is recognized and respected (Hartley, 1997). In the videos viewed, three were evaluated on the effective and ineffective communication skills of the participants and suggestions made on how they could improve. The videos are titled, “Planning a Playground”, “Helping Annie”, and "The Politics of Sociology.