Group Management and Group Behavior of Individuals - Essay Example

A group can be defined as an association of two more individuals who interact and work independently to achieve particular objective. Groups can be further divided into two categories, formal and informal groups. Formal groups being those groups that are formed by an organization, whereas informal groups are those that are formed by people based on their common interests on some other motives. In the recent years, group management has become very important topics as more and more organizations are moving towards group work philosophy. In this philosophy, organizations divide most of their work in groups which work at its own accord to meet out the objective set out by the organization. Since, group composition is an independent factor and organizations chose groups randomly, often there are conflicts among these groups. Many management groups have cited that these conflicts occur because people working in these groups have different motives, personalities, perceptions and motivations. This theory has been promulgated from the fact that no two people are alike and every human mind is different from other. In this essay, we are going to examine this claim by looking at how different personalities, perception and motivations can affect group working. Let's first look at the role of perception and how does it affect an individual's behavior in a group. Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. There are many theories that tell us how are perception works and affects our behavior in a group. According to attribution theory, our perception of people differs from our perception of inanimate objects. We judge people by their actions and by determining the root cause of their actions. The theory assumes that people think that actions are caused either internally or externally, depending on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus of these actions. This attribution theory affects a person's behavior in a group. For example, he might perceive that people in his group are lazy because they have cancelled a meeting. This might not be the case because there might be some important emergency that have forced them to cancel a meeting. Thus, this leads to a fundamental attribution error and affects a person's group behavior. His actions towards them might become as if they are "lazy" and does not like work. However, if a person considers that they have cancelled a meeting due to some external factor, his behavior will be different. This is how perception plays an important role in the behavior of a person while working in a group. Similarly, fundamental attribution error will also occur when person will attach the group's success due to his own efforts, while he will consider that failures have occurred because of other group members. This will make him act unjustly to other group members and he may become rude which will affect the behavior of the entire group. As discussed above, Halo effect might also affect a person's behavior in group working. If someone in the group has done something wrong and he always get the stick for that things and not the praise for so many excellent contributions he had made for the group. In this case, person's behavior in a group will be negative because he will always think that no matter whatever he does he will always be remembered for one mistake(s) he made. Similarly, people also use shortcuts in judging others and selective perception is the prime example of this. If someone has done something wrong then he won't be given an important task again, as people will perceive that he will again mess it up. This is how people's behavior might get affected in group work because biased perceptions of others. Similarly, many perceptions about people's behavior in a group are made by contrast affect, projection and stereotyping. If there are two strong members in a group then it will be perceived that the third member will be a weaker member. However, this may not be true as group composition is an independent factor in an organization. Now, the feeling of two stronger members will be to exploit the weaker person despite the fact that he might have more knowledge than they have. Sometimes people try to project their characteristics to other and this might affect their behavior in a group. For e.g. In order to establish their authority over a group people might act in a bossy fashion or the one in which they project that they know more than other. Similarly, often people judge others in the way other people perceive that person. A group may be biased in exploiting one member and other member may also adopt same feeling for that person. (Robbins, 2008) Similarly, an instructor or head of the group may use same perceptions in order to judge the behavior of the group. He may treat people according to the perceptions about them and may not look at their potential or the contributions they have made in the group. Like perception, personality plays an important role in determining people behavior in a group. Personality is a dynamic concept and can be defined as the growth and development of a person's whole psychological system. In other words, personality is the aggregate or sum of one's entire features that a person carries. Much works has been done to determine the different types of personality that people have. There are certain classes of personalities that have been acknowledged and they include: Introverts and Extroverts Sensing or Intuitive Thinking or feeling Perceiving or Judging These types of personalities can classified as internal and external. Internals believe that they are master of their own fate, whereas externals believe that they are pawn of fate. A group can also be made up of internals and externals. Internals will consider the success of their group as their own feat, whereas externals will consider that everyone has played their part in the success of the group or people have played their natural part in the group. This is how different personality will lead to different group behavior. Internals do more information search before making a decision whereas externals will make random decision. Therefore, most of the times internals are chosen to head a group whereas internals are made to follow orders. Then there are people who are termed as Machiavellianists. These people are pragmatic people and they know how emotions can distort the right decision making. They, therefore, keep themselves away from emotions. People who are high Machs are persuaded less and persuade others more. These people will persuade other group members to follow them and think on their view point, whereas low Machs will not be able to persuade others and work as cogs in a machine. Similarly, people with high self-esteem will behave differently than those who are on a low self esteem. People with high self-esteem trust them and also make others trust them. When working in a group, these people will make more sound decisions than people with low self-esteem. It is no surprise that these people are the ones who are decision-makers in a group. (Daft, 1994) Another factor that affects people behavior in a group is the level of motivation. Motivation is the interaction of the people with the situation. Many group members will behave differently depending on what motivates them the most. For example, those people who are motivated mainly by money will take up jobs that financial in nature. For e.g. these people will become cashiers, financial managers etc. Similarly, those people who want to make up friends and contacts will take up those jobs where their exposure to the outside world is more. These people will take up jobs like meeting others, interviewing others and will keep themselves involved in the PR (Public Relationing) activities. Similarly, people who are motivated by self-actualization will spend more time in creative jobs in order win praise of others and to know that they have done a good job which is like by others as well. Similarly, if the group leaders believe in Theory X or Theory Y as promulgated by McGregor, he will act accordingly. For e.g. if he believes in theory X, he will supervise the work of others and asks for a lot of reports, whereas, if the group leader believes in Theory Y, he will ask people to make their creative contribution in the project at hand. This shows that motivation is indeed an important factor in the group behavior and role of motivation is very important when examining how well a group is work. Good managers do give a lot of importance to motivation when trying to control a group behavior. (Drucker, 1993) In the end, we can safely conclude that perception, personality and motivation do affect the group behavior of individuals. All of these factors lead a group to act in certain and if these factors are ignored by a manager or a head of the group, then he can face some adverse consequences. References: Robbins, Stephen and Judge, Tim. (2008) Organizational Behavior. Prentice Hall Richard L. Daft. (1994). Management. The Dryden Publishing Peter Drucker (1993). The Practice of Management. Collins Read More