COMUNNICATION PAPER - Essay Example

The paper seeks to identify the practical significance of the concepts of Problem Solving, Group Decision Making, Group Conflict, and Leadership that relate to Group activities and how members embody them in their actions. Class Concepts Group A’s task was primarily concerned with engaging in research work pertaining to abuse arising from human trafficking. In order to build relationships and bonds to facilitate this research, Group A scheduled a meeting on the 10th of October. The purpose of this meeting was to familiarize the members with each other and draft a plan of action, so as to delegate specifics to the relevant members of the group which in effect would cause them to present their own input towards the goal, thereby dividing the workload between them.

In the meeting, the class concepts of Problem Solving, Group Decision Making, Group Conflict, and Leadership came into play. Problem Solving Problem Solving is the process that centers on accomplishing the group task, which is the primary motive of forming the group. Hirokawa discovered that successful groups tend to start the process of task accomplishment by analyzing it at the outset instead of directly jumping into offering solutions. A similar process was initiated by Group A, as at the very outset, the members were called upon to present their own ideas into the discussion on the subject of human trafficking.

In the ongoing analysis of the research topic, the members shared 6 ideas which were to contribute towards effective research on the subject of abuse related to human trafficking. This was the first step towards Problem Solving that the group engaged in, and it formalized a conduct which would further allow these 6 ideas to be filtered into tasks which can then be dedicated to members of the Group. These 6 ideas were then formulated as 5 topics that were to be delegated to each member of the group.

This allowed each member to be assigned a specific task that pertains to the research work scheduled to be presented at the next meeting. Each topic was to be agreed upon by the respective member so that no topic was enforced upon anyone and there was general consensus on the delegated work. Lauren, a member of the Group who was absent at the meeting, was also communicated his respective topic and given the choice of agreeing or disagreeing to work on it. This conduct allowed each member to enjoy personal autonomy in decision making.

By separating topics in this way, the emphasis was on solution multiplicity as each member would then present their own solution to the problem. This paved way for multiple solutions to the same problem. Group Decision Making Communication within the Group is an essential part of Problem Solving, and is largely characterized by Group Decision Making. Group Decision Making is important when building relationships and is in some part dependant on group size. A group of 20 people, for example, designed to produce a written report can be considered overcrowded and might lead to feelings of insignificance and lack of acknowledgement amongst individual members who may not be actively involved in the project.

Such people are often referred to as social loafers (Comer, n. p.). Thus, adequate size is important for efficiency. In