THE GIFT AND SKILLS TO MANAGE GROUP DYNAMICS AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES ARE KEY COMPETENCES WITHIN A WORK-GROUP SESSION. EXPAND ON THIS STATEMENT FROM A FACILITATION PERSPECTIVE.
Group dynamics rule the group life, and how individuals enter and leave groups. Among people’s needs there is the search for a greater sense of belonging, especially to the groups that well represent the personality of the individual. Humans are social beings, they cannot avoid to gather together in groups and they have satisfaction in doing it. This is important because a group widens the perspectives of the individual, a group makes possible the cooperation among individuals to achieve goals together and more easily.
Groups work well when they are not too small or too big, a good number is between 3 and 9-11. Less than that cannot be considered a proper group, and more than that is likely that the group will fragment in subgroups, people will feel less satisfied because they lose their identity in such big groups.
Every group has their own norms, usually unspoken, like dressing codes or behaviours, and if a group member breaks them then the group will punish him. The punishment can be any sort of things, from a more direct exclusion, or penalty, to a more subtle, unspoken, bad consideration.
Sometimes group’s unspoken norms can be very strict, and people who, willing or not, are part of this group has to conform to these norms, although they does not accept them. These groups, where the conformity is very high, are very likely to be subject of the groupthink effect, when everybody conforms to the opinion of outstanding elements, without having the sense of safety or the willingness to argue. On the other hand, if the conformity is too low at any stage, the group cannot act as a whole therefore there is no sense to be part of this group. Consequently, a good balance between agreement and disagreement has to be present if the group has to work correctly.
Effective groups, especially in working environments, are the ones that make use of individuals differences. Diversity inside a group is important especially when the group is facing new and challenging tasks. Diversity means different backgrounds therefore the group can utilize different viewpoints while elaborating a solution. Diversity also means different behaviours, different strengths and weaknesses for each member, therefore anyone can find their best position inside the team.
Individual differences could be seen in many ways, one of them is the Jungian typology, that individuates 4 types of tendencies, introvert thinker, extrovert thinker, extrovert feeler and introvert feeler. Everyone of these characters has their own strengths and weaknesses, people can be more task-oriented, more people-oriented, more focused on putting things in the right place, etc…
All that has been introduced is important to understand how people work together, and the person that is leading these meetings has to be aware of them in order to get the best out of these dynamics.
Groups are not, normally, doing their best. They need a leader who can show them the way and facilitate them to operate in the best way they can. As long as the group acknowledge the authority of the leader, the leader, acting in a facilitative way, will have the knowledge and the attitude to make them work effectively. Group dynamics can be changed, group norms can be modified if this is helpful for achieving established goals, conformity can be promoted or not in case it is helpful or dangerous.
In addition to this, a facilitative leader will recognize the strengths of each member of the team and use these differences. Let’s just think to how bad will be the impact of a wrong choice of person as a salesman.
Both aspects previously mentioned are key points for the effectiveness of the group, and the facilitator, in quality of leader, is the responsible for making this happen.
Federico Marani's Blog 