The Importance Of Informal Roles And Communication During Collaboration Essay

Working in small groups is either welcomed with excitement by individuals or dreaded with apprehension. However, group work is a fact of life. Whether in a classroom setting or workforce collaborating within small groups are experiences many will interact at some point or regularly participate in. According to the 2010 third edition of the book A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking by Dan O’Hair, Hannah Rubenstein, and Rob Stewart, small groups can be defined as “a collection of between three and twenty people” (321). Small groups, though, are interesting in that while a small collection of people communication role is imperative to the success of the group, but also demonstrates individual’s behaviors when interacting. During small groups, they way in which the member communicates with each other illustrates how individuals perform by taking on specific roles as well as exposing their leadership style. During participation in group work, there is a set of expectations individuals hold for themselves as well as members of the group. Individuals will subconsciously take on a specific role as to how they will help the group achieve their goal, whether that be cohesively or disconnected. Subsequently, the recognition of these acquired roles provides an insight into the individual’s corresponding leadership style. Depending on roles and leaderships style group work can be a consistency of either individual challenging or complimenting one another.

Our group worked on all the components of the project together, which included the research, reference pages, scripts, and the PowerPoint. I believe our decision to not assign specific tasks to a single individual allowed us to fully understand all the information and get along better due to the fact we all were doing the same amount of work. In a group setting, we had to work together and communicate with one another in order to create a suitable presentation. One thing I saw that our group thrived at was listening to one another. Our book defines listening as the “active, complex process that consists of being mindful, physically receiving messages, selecting and organizing messages, interpreting messages, responding, and remembering (Wood, 2016).” Each group member had to

Whether groups are formed for social or task oriented purposes, the ability to produce and maintain a sense of affiliation, peer support and collaboration is important for overall group functioning. The cohesion of a social group is produced through the establishment of a set of group norms, which are later defined as a guide for conduct accepted within a group of individuals. However, in order for a group to perform and produce results, the team leader should guide his/her team through the proper stages of group development, which includes the following steps: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. Although teams should follow all these stages of group development, the forming and the norming stages are the most important,

Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran developed the Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making theory to “offer practical advice on how participants can act to ensure better group decisions” (Hirokawa, 1999, p. 170). They believe that as long as the members in a group care about the issue and are reasonably intelligent, the group interaction will have a positive effect on the final decision. In order for a group to reach a high-quality solution, Hirokawa and Gouran believe the group 's decision-making process needs to fulfill four task requirements they refer to as requisite functions of effective decision making. "Three core assumptions define the functional perspective: (1) groups are goal oriented; (2) group performance varies in quality and quantity, and can be evaluated; and (3) internal and external factors influence group performance via the interaction process.” (Wittenbaum, 2004 p. 19).

There are many factors altering group behavior and effectiveness, such as decision- making, cohesion and communication (Crocker, 2016). The later has also shown a positive relationship with group task cohesion (Smith et al., 2013), and methods of enhancing intrateam

Successful teamwork and collaboration directly affects the efficacy of interdisciplinary communication. When effective communication is achieved within the healthcare team, this increases the amount of positive patient outcomes. Nurses and physicians must cooperate in order to attain a synergetic relationship. Their roles are integral to creating a safe environment for their patients. When all of these elements combine, the quality of care improves and collegial relationships are strengthened.

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

Q1. Using the current exchange rate, what is the initial purchase cost per unit (in US dollars) paid to Dong Hai Supply? (Do not include transportation costs)

C. Padmore discussed “Teamwork” was discussed amongst staff. Staff was given a handout on “Teamwork” Staff also offered up a few examples of teamwork.

The five stage Tuckman’s theory (1965) namely forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning focuses on the way in which a group handles a task from the beginning to completion. The main group work approaches are cognitive behaviourist, feminist, psychoanalytic and humanistic approaches. Knowledge of theory enhances effectiveness of group work.

The Tuckman’s stages of team development (Levi, 2007) will be used as lens to evaluate the work of the group presentation. The Tuckman’s stages of team development consist of five stages of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Levi, 2007). In the forming stage we tend to know each other and figure out how we are going to run the presentation. At this stage, there was discomfort due to unfamiliarity together with confusion on how we will function together. The solution for that case was, everyone had each member contact detail, had a clear ground rules, as well as planned how we will accomplish our tasks. In addition, we also experienced the storming and norming stage. Levi (2007) says that the in the storming phase there are often

Realizing that a group can become a high performance team is important. Accomplishing this goal is invaluable, advantageous and profitable. Once able to operate from a group to the high performing team is a great step into preparation into the big business world. Leaders and members must also realize not only how to accomplish this but that some problems will and can arise from different demographic characteristics and cultural diversity. That is if one is in such a group, which the probability would be quite high.

Teamwork can be complex and challenging given task and interpersonal issues, level of group motivation and expected performance standards. The concrete experience spoken about in this reflection piece is in reference to the effectiveness of myself as a group member and the group, working to write a report outlining the organisation and structure of Volkswagen. Dennison (2009) applies Kolb’s learning cycle (1981, 1984) which suggests that learning moves through a continuous cycle, between having an experience, and then reflecting on that action. This cycle has been developed from Lewin’s (1951) model for experiential learning. Reflection termed by Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985) ‘is a forum of response to the learner to experience’(p. 18). On reflection, the early set group dynamics was a defining factor in the experience, and how the team conducted themselves throughout the task. Meyerson, Wick and Kramer (1996) note that ‘such rapidly converging groups require methods for developing “swift trust”’ (p. 8), which can explain why initial group dynamics are so important. I took on multiple team roles, including group leader, which could be translated into the team not performing collectively on a high level, however, I could view this as a personal ineffectiveness of my leadership style.

How do you collaborate with others eg parents/ carers, school counsellor, specialist services, medical world to make sure you are providing the appropriate support strategies for students?

Levin (2005) suggests that the idea of a team is to share the same objectives. This may not always be the case if team members have never met before and are not fully clear of the task set. This can lead to confusion between members and may mean that some team members are unwilling to be told by their peers what to do. This is an example on ineffective team work.