Individual Decision Making vs Group Decision Making

There are many problems that hinder good group dynamics. We don’t usually have the luxury of picking who we are going to work with on a team; dealing with different personalities and personal agendas are common challenges in working within a team. Other commons challenges like, poor leadership, bad communications, and lack of focus can be helped or eliminated by establishing team roles.

In today’s world teamwork is being utilized by companies across the globe. Employers are seeing the value of teamwork and what can be accomplished when people put the strengths together. These teams consist of people from different cultures with different personalities. Conflict is inevitable when it comes to group dynamics. Conflict resolution is necessary to keep the group functioning efficiently. This paper will analyze group dynamics and focus on conflict resolution by way of communication.

In the problem analysis phase of effective decision making, group members should recognize any obstacle that may arise that needs to be improved or changed and determine the characteristics, magnitude, and possible cause(s) of that obstacle confronting them. This phase lays the groundwork for what the group should be prepared for as they work together (Hirokawa & Salazar, 1999 p. 170).After analyzing the problem, the group should then discuss and establish goals and objectives in order to generate proposed solutions of

3. Group think is a concept that involves individuals abandoning their critical senses and agreeing to group process even when they know it will have disastrous consequences. (Challenger disaster, Enron, Iraq war, etc.). Your will encounter these pressures in your work life and need to be prepared. Have you ever done something in a group that you would not have done if you were alone? What happened? How did you feel? What have you learned from this chapter that might help you avoid this behavior in the future, and avoid group think?

Decision making is affected by the Group Think because of the lack of openness that should be displayed and offered by everyone involved. The development of the organization is dependent on the ability of the group to make decisions that are thought through and not made solely on pressures and accepted or narrow minded ways that are not thought out.

Brockmann, Erich. (1996, May). Removing the paradox of conflict from group decisions. Academy of Management Executive. v10n2, p. 61-62.

Disagreements are unavoidable in any business. A humble stage of disagreement can be helpful in creating enhanced thoughts and approaches, stimulating apprehension and resourcefulness, and motivating the appearance of long-suppressed tribulations. Conflict resolution approach must intend at keeping disagreement at a stage at which different thoughts and viewpoints are completely voiced but uncreative conflicts are discouraged. Encouragement of conflict situations is suitable if the project leader recognizes circumstances of 'group-think.' Group-think is a circumstance where disagreement hardly ever occurs because of high-minded group unity, which results in poor choices and insufficient production. Group-think conquers when there are a large number of members in a group that just agree with anything, with the outcome that there is no grim assessment of the circumstances and innovative thoughts are not recommended. Group members connect larger significance to status, stillness and calm in the group relatively than to procedural capability and capability. Members are unwilling to voice their impartial outlook in order to shun away from offending the

Conflict usually occurs when individuals within a group or organization has differences in opinions. When individuals are in a disagreement about something like policies and procedures or even the overall direction of which an organization or company is heading it can become very frustrating. As we all know conflict the process of conflict usually begins when an individual or party has perceived the other part and it has showed a negative impact or will affect something that another party cares about.

When reviewing the concepts of groupthink, it is important for one to realize that not all group based decisions are necessarily bad decisions. The concept of groupthink and the negative results that arise are based on the reality that group decisions are made without regard to alternative measures, validity of information, or risks and consequences associated with such decisions. Groupthink seems to dispatch the critical thinking skills of the individuals in the process and decisions made can have disastrous results. The following essay will discuss the results of groupthink decisions made by the United States government that lead to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as critical errors made by US command that greatly increased the impact

The text book describes conflict as “a process that begins when one party perceives another party has or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about.” There are different views on dealing with conflict. There is the traditional view that seeks to eliminate any conflict and the interaction group that seek to use conflict as a stepping stone to greater things. Conflict can arise in any situation and, following the managed conflict view, it is not necessarily something to be push under the table but something to

The importance of groups and teams have become a major focus in the business world today. Organizations have started to realize that the evolution from an individual to a team management approach is a priority in present day. The reality is that much of an organization’s work is accomplished directly or indirectly through teams, which are used as means of growing effectiveness and efficiency. Any organization is constantly changing and evolving (Scarnati 2005). Naturally, group procedure and conflicts are influenced by the choice of team member selection and directly impact required

Many authors have highlighted the inevitability of conflicts on the other hand it is said that disputes can be prevented or at least can be minimized through proper management. Conflicts are ubiquitous where ever a large number of people are involved i.e. where the human relationships proliferate (Kumaraswamy, 1997). People are the principle resource for any commercial project today. Different project managers, engineers, surveyors belonging to different organizations and having different needs, goals and each of them looking to maximize their benefits are brought together to form a team. Because of these differences in the individuals the conflicts and disputes become inevitable in a project. Conflicts are generally perceived as a negative term but it has both positive and negative sides. Positive conflicts can be helpful to generate new ideas, make innovations, helps people to ‘Be real’ and creative. But this conflict has to be maintained so that it does not get out of control and bring about dysfunctional consequences. There are large numbers of potential sources that makes conflict inevitable in a project. Some of them are explained below: - (scribd)

Teams without conflict tend to be less innovative due to the creative function of conflict. Conflict’s creative function comes from the necessity of varying perspectives to reach a consensus. Indeed, “teams tend to make higher quality decisions when dissent exists about the wisest course of action” (Sidle, ρ.75). Dissent and conflict forces team members to think outside of the normal realm of experience and knowledge to realize a collaborative solution.

Conflict is inevitable and at times stimulates beneficial or creative thinking. Often conflict is a signal that people are miscommunicating and making different assumptions about what has gone unspoken. The conflict in itself is not the problem. It is the team’s reactions to it that determines the impact, thus causing it to be a negative experience. Conflict or divergence can be destructive or it can be constructive. It is up to the people involved in the conflict to manage the outcome. This gives them an opportunity to articulate their assumptions and figure out a way to come to agreement. In a learning team situation, conflict can arise when the original agreement to work together does not address

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success