Group Development within Apollo 13 - Movie Review Example

Group Development within Apollo 13 When a group of individuals seek to engage with one another, the resulting outcome can bring about repercussions for those involved, both positive and negative. By taking part in forming, they wish to be involved with the formation of a group structure that would come together with a shared purpose and a similarly held desire for the outcome. As each individual group member would become used to one another's behaviors and approaches that in turn would be referred to as the norming stage of the group relationship.

Before this can occur, the phase just prior would be that of storming. A stage at which, before awareness sets in and individuals become used to one another, they in turn seek out to compete with one another, in the quest of seeing their ideals heard by the collective masses. Lastly and in many cases, most important, would be the stage of performance, or performing. This would be the stage at which individuals within the group would truly come together as one and be able to effectively execute that which they would wish to do so.

From a cinematic standpoint, the movie to consider for this exercise would be the Ron Howard directed 'Apollo 13'. Based upon the events that occurred for the Apollo 13 crew that almost did not return home from their mission, the three primary characters are as follows: Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert. With formation, the final group of men on the mission would be re-formed together, after the discovery of the potential illness of one of the original men selected for the crew. With Lovell and Haise, they would have already been through the forming process together and as such, would have grown more accustomed to one another, than they necessarily would have been with the new addition of Jack Swigert.

The storming phase would be most apparent between Swigert and Hase, with Lovell serving as the intermediary. Feeling the presence of resentment toward his placement on the crew due to the health related removal of the initial astronaut chosen, Swigert in turn would feel as if he was not seen the same and would have to try that much harder. In the time following the famous utterance of "Houston, we have a problem," ("Apollo 13", 1995) by Jim Lovell, the crew aboard the spaceship, would ultimately find themselves evolving into a norming pattern of group behavior.

By doing so, would increase their chances for ultimate survival, which in this case, would have been the safe return back to Earth. This ability for the three men to norm their behavior together, in a time of considerable chaos and uncertainty, would allow them to align their performance levels to the points needed for success and safe return. As the leader of the group, Jim Lovell would execute his role with great strength. From his documented experience in previous missions, he would come to be the more legitimate answer to the question of providing the strongest leadership.

After all, he would have been the one with more expertise in matters having to do with the ship and general space travel. He would coerce the other men when needed and rewards them when the situation called for it, even if it would have been to do something simple as being grateful for the work that they did and expressing it verbally. With regard to referent, Lovell would do so when called for, in terms of referring to issues and information that he would ultimately find to be the most useful for the mission itself.

For any group to be the most successful, the need would remain for a leader that would not only act as one but also, would be able to discern the points in time when they would need to be a dominant player but also, the points where a more secondary role would be needed.Reference"Apollo 13". (1995). Memorable quotes for Apollo 13. Retrieved April 18, 2010 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/quotes