Managing Group Working - Coursework Example

Managing Group Working Introduction Managing groups is not an easy task. In groups there are many diverse attitudes, values and personalities. This can lead to conflict and disagreement. Groups have members that come from different cultures and have different skills and knowledge. In groups there are many objectives and goals and all team members must be focus on their individual tasks. When groups do not work well together, it can lead to poor outcomes. Whether the group is working on a special project or problem-solving, knowing how to lead an effective group is important academic skill. Conflict solving is a major need to make a group run successfully (Jehn and Bendersky 2003). Conflict can show itself in the group in the form of change resistance (Ford, Ford and D’Amelio 2008), because of cultural differences, and due to goals not meeting member expectations. Conflict is a problem interpersonal that makes poor results when working together. It is not only conflict in groups that makes managing them difficult. There can be motivation problems and group members that do not want to be productive. There can also be poor communication, people who want to be a leader when others do not want this, and members that do not want negotiation. The many problems with group work management make it important for a group leader or manager to have academic skills to deal with all of these issues. This essay looks at the different problems that happen in teams and discusses the academic skills needed to make groups run better. The essay looks at Belbin’s team roles model to explain some problems that happen in groups. It also gives recommendations about how to be a better team leader and member. These recommendations will show what academic learning has been understood and which learning still needs to be gained to manage a group successfully. The problems in groups Conflict is one of the main problems in managing a successful group. Relationship conflict happens when there is interpersonal disagreement which often happens due to cultural differences. This can lead to stress and strife and problems about deciding how work should be accomplished by the entire group (Behfar, et al. 2008). For example, some diverse groups have members that come from collectivist countries and some from individualist countries. Collectivist societies have much loyalty toward group members and a major value is saving face. This is keeping a positive reputation in front of peers in the group (Cheung, et al. 2008). In individualist countries, people are more open to criticism and there is more need to be recognised for their own work instead of the group. Conflict can happen when collectivist members have their work openly criticised by others in the group. They can feel that their status is being threatened. They can also become less motivated because they want to be seen as skilled and able (Gudykunst and Mody 2002). When being criticised they can feel shame, dishonour and disrespect. However in groups there needs to be open discussion about task quality and open communications that try to make work better. It is normal to be critical of group member work if the project or goal is to have positive outcome. Academic skill needed to manage at this type of cultural conflict is knowledge of cross-cultural psychology. Conflict can also happen in groups because members do not want to contribute. They might be lazy or just unmotivated. This member not giving their all might also have disagreement about the team’s goals and direction. A group member that does not contribute can bring down the morale of the entire group. Academic skills needed to manage this type of conflict is learning how to being a controlling manager or better communications skills. Groups can also be unsuccessful because members each want the same role. Belbin (1993) looks at the role of resource investigator. This role is a person that wants to be the main gatherer of information and is very social (Belbin). In groups others might become angry or offend because they also want to be the main information member. Academic skills needed for this type of group problem include better communications skills and also being a better leader. Belbin also talks about the group role of finisher. This is a person that wants to look at everyone’s work output and sets very high standards for each member’s task quality (Aritzeta, Swailes and Senior 2007). This is a kind of leadership role. In the group there can be many members that want this type of leadership and power which can lead to conflict and anger. Academic skills needed to fix this problem can be better communications or learning how to give everyone opportunities to have power and shared decisions. Yet another problem is that some members are afraid of change and resist it. If people think their power is being threatened they can become less interested in the ideas of others (Skarlicki and Folger 1997). If the group must take a new goal or direction, these members can refuse to do the work or become conflict with other group members. This is another situation where academic skills needed are being a better leader. Resistance to change is a very serious issue in groups. In many groups, change is always present and groups must adapt to these issues. Therefore a team needs a leader that can bring everyone on task and make sure that change is accepted. There are also problems in the forming stage of groups. Blanchard and Parisi-Carew (2009) calls this stage of the group one where people will avoid criticising others. It is a time when the group begins to know one another and discusses direction of the group. Group members during forming stage tend to not be loyal to other group members and stay focused on themselves. Not much usually gets done during the forming stage because of less social and because avoiding conflict is important to group members. This is another situation where leadership as an academic skill is critical. The group during the forming stage needs a person that can give everyone in the group a sense of social belonging. There are also problems in groups that are involved with assigning the right group members to make sure the objective is met. A successful team is made up of persons with the right skills and knowledge needed to make a project get quality outputs. They need to understand their role in the group and discuss what is expected. If a team is not built properly with the right people, it is likely to fail and meet with conflict. Academic skills needed for this problem is a manager that has strong planning skills. Planning is a main part of being a quality manager which leads to better organisation skills. A manager that cannot organize the team properly will meet with poor work outcomes and poor working environments. Yet another problem in groups is value disagreements. Every team member has their own values. This can be ethical values, social values, or expectations about quality and productivity. Values disagreements are very serious problems with making a group run successfully and have all group members build strong relationships. Proctor (2014) calls this value blocks that make a group run poorly when members find problems reconciling different values. Value blocks can lead to bad creativity outcome. These blocks can also cause a group to have members that resist change. Even worse, it can cause motivational problems with group members. Academic skills needed in this situation are good leadership, knowledge of different cultures, and better communications skills and interpersonal skill. Another academic skill might be getting knowledge about different genders because men and women often have different needs, emotions and values. Groups need to have clear roles discussed and have all members reach agreement about how they will contribute to the group. If there is resent about the role, group members will probably not be productive and will find personal offence. Groups should agree on who the leaders should be, what tasks they will take on, and let members discuss the risks that they believe could cause harm to success with the group and outcomes. Again, this makes it necessary to have academic skills that open communications lines and how to build better social relationships. These skills are very difficult and not all people have them already built into their personalities. It would seem that therefore there should be practice in communications and interpersonal skills for people that are not as social or who have difficulty in public presentations. Recommendations Good leadership is important as an academic skill for group management. This was shown in many problems that happen in groups in the essay. There is a model called transformational leadership that could be very powerful as a group leader. This person makes a vision, always discusses this vision to get all team member on board, tries to get others to communicate, and acts as an inspiration teacher (Fairholm 2009). Transformational leadership makes it easier to get people to follow the leader’s direction and ideas. It would be a good recommendation to be an effective group leader to read journals and studies on transformational leadership and how to apply it. Barker (2006) talks about studies done on transformational leadership with nursing teams and found that it made nurses more motivated and committed to the group and its goals. Academic interpersonal skills are more difficult to learn. They are however necessary to make groups be managed properly. It is first important to learn about empathy which is putting the manager into the position of others and trying to see things from their point of view (Weiten and Lloyd 2010). There are many journals and studies in psychology done on empathy in the workplace that can be found in databases and in school libraries. If a leader is to show empathy, they must have compassion and something called emotional intelligence. None of these can be learned without practice. It would be a good recommendation for a group leader who is trying to learn empathy practices to volunteer in a counselling centre or other charity where people have needs and require help. To learn about communications that are important for a group, it means practicing listening clearly to others ideas. Managers of the group need to speak clearly and be respectful. Managers should also practice good body language, non-verbal skills. This means good eye contact that shows respect, avoid crossing arms that shows defence, and using positive facial expressions. For example, if a manager tells the team that they had a great idea, but does not make eye contact, team members will lose trust in the manager. It would be a good recommendation for group managers to practice these body language cues in the mirror so that they can see for themselves if they are believable. One main skill to avoid conflict in groups is to gain knowledge in cross-cultural psychology. Many models such as offered by Hofstede tell about different cultures and what their values and beliefs might be. These can be found on the Internet and also in journals studying culture in real life work organisations. Hofstede has created a cultural dimensions model that talks about factors such as individualism, power distance, short-term orientation and other factors common in many societies. In diverse teams, Hofstede’s model (and others) might give a group manager important skills that help to deal with the values of another culture. It is very important to know these values if teams are to work together proper. Conclusion Groups are very difficult to manage and there are many problems which happen. To manage a group means being a leader, a person who can communicate, practicing interpersonal skills, and being a planner. Whilst it seems that managing a group is more about leadership, it is also about being a traditional manager. Planning, controlling and organising will make sure a group is productive. It is a blend of management and leadership and knowing what group members want, expect and value. Groups do not work well together without knowing tasks, having clear roles given, having a common goal and vision, and respecting others and their diverse difference. This is why academic skills in cultural psychology, management and leadership are so very important. Every team member needs a chance to be participants. They will want to have the right to make decisions and give their ideas freely. When there are differences in culture, there must be a blend of criticism and empathy to make sure that people do not lose face and so that their ideas are respected. Many studies on leadership make this seem easy, but it is not. It means practicing different strategies and reading on how certain strategies have worked in real groups in different environments. Managers of a group must be aggressive and passive at the same time. This is because some groups have members who do not want to contribute. At the same time, some group members are very skilled and want very much to contribute. These contributing members want their ideas listened to and have their ideas respected. To make a group reach its goals and get all tasks completed proper, the team needs a leader and a manager who can be both roles. This will lessen conflict when it happens. It will also make team members motivated and want to commit to the project and goal. There are many different strategies in academic literature about how to manage teams. It means being flexible and open to new experience. It also means being a controller to make sure that tasks are completed and all members reach their task goals. It is not easy to show empathy and also be assertive at the same time. Some of these skills can be learned through reading on studies and others need rehearse. It means knowing how to build trust and also show authority when the group needs this. No group is the same and will have different members with different values. It will also have motivated and not motivated group members that can slow reaching goals. This is why being able to blend traditional management and leadership are so critical for a group to run successfully. This blend also makes sure that interpersonal relationships are positive. This essay shows how difficult groups can be and the skills needed to make sure conflict is less, people get along, and that tasks are completed proper. References Aritzeta, A., Swailes, S. and Senior, B. (2007). Belbing’s team role model: development, validity and applications for team building, Journal of Management Studies, 44(1), pp.96-118. Barker, A. (2006). Transformational nursing leadership: a vision for the future. Fairfield: Jones & Bartlett. Behfar, K.J., Peterson, R.S., Mannix, E.A. and Trochim, W.M.K. (2008). The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: a close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes, Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), pp.170-188. Belbin, R.M. (1993). Team roles at work. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Blanchard, K. and Parisi-Carew, E. (2009). The one minute manager builds high performing teams. William Morrow. Cheung, F.M., Cheung, S.F., Zhang, J., Leung, K., Leong, F. and Yeh, K.H. (2008) Relevance for openness as a personality dimension in Chinese culture, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39(1), pp. 81–108. Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and organisational strategy, The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), pp.26-27. Ford, J.D., Ford, L.W. and D’Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story, Academy of Management Review, 33(2), pp.362-377. Gudykunst, W.B. and Mody, B. (2002). Handbook of international and intercultural communication, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Jehn, K. and Bendersky, C. (2003). Intragroup conflict in organisations: a contingency perspective on the conflict-outcome relationship, Research in Organizational Behavior, 24, pp.187-242. Proctor, T. (2014). Creative problem solving for managers: developing skills for decision-making and innovation, 4th edn. Abingdon: Routledge. Skarlicki, D.P. & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the Workplace: The Roles of Distributive, Procedural and Interactional Justice, Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, pp. 434-443. Weiten, W. and Lloyd, M.A. (2010). Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21stCentury, 8th edn. Wadsworth Publishing. Read More