Building a Group among a Highly Diverse Workforce - Essay Example

Building a Group among a Highly Diverse Workforce Rationale Nowadays, organizations are composed of highly diverse people. They have different experiences, values, characters, and backgrounds. Bringing them together into a successful team is now a key leadership challenge. This proposal discusses the potential value of forming an informal group composed of five people designed to regularly prepare avenues for open discussions about issues between management and employees. The rationale of this proposal is the importance of bridging the gap and resolving conflicts inherent in an organization composed of people with diverse backgrounds. The group will be named ‘Wall Breaker’. This proposal recognizes the fact that if the relationship between employees and the management is weak or conflict-ridden, it will eventually cause problems, inefficiencies, and poor performance. The group is thus designed to provide employees a chance to assemble and talk in a secure setting where issues about management can be talked about truthfully and openly. Objectives Groups evolve through stages. Having an accurate knowledge of these developmental stages can assist members of the group and leaders formulate specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic objectives or goals. Tuckman (1965) had developed one of the most widely accepted group development theory (as cited in Trotzer, 1999, 83). He proposed that there are four stages of group development, namely, (1) forming, (2) storming, (3) norming, and (4) performing (Trotzer, 1999, 83). The first objective of the group—forming-- is to encourage socialization among members and other employees in order to create appropriate activities and tasks, and determine the issues, problems, and opportunities which they may face in trying to build a good relationship between the management and employees. The second objective—storming—is to effectively and permanently resolve any conflicts within the group. Since the group is made up of people with diverse backgrounds, it is highly likely that conflict will arise. Thus, in order to strengthen the group personal issues and conflicts among members must be resolved. The third objective—norming—is to learn from past errors in order to resolve any existing and/or future problems. In particular, the goal is to clearly specify the roles of each member and expected behavior inside and outside the group. The last objective—performing—is to accurately evaluate the performance of the group toward goal attainment. Practical Considerations Members of the group will come from five different departments. The members will be elected by the employees. This democratic form of membership is likely to encourage participation from and confidence among employees. The frequency of meetings will be at least once a week and the members will decide the length of every meeting. All members must express sincere commitment to attend every meeting and to carry out the needed preparation before the meeting. If any of the members turn up unprepared it will affect the outcomes of the meeting. For example, if the group turns up unprepared the attendees might get the impression that the members are unreliable and irresponsible. The leader then should organize and assign the tasks for each meeting in order to avoid wasting time, and must give constant reminders on subsequent meeting schedules and important issues that have to be discussed. These weekly meetings will be helpful to the growth of the entire group through constant socialization. A great deal of the literature on group dynamics concludes that members come together and the entire group grows together. Sadly, this is not true in the real world. People go to other groups, transfer, shift jobs, or get promoted. Therefore, it is very important that the members are socialized and motivated in order to prevent needless changes. Procedures In order to attain the objectives specified earlier, certain procedures have to be carried out. For the first objective, since the members of the group need explanations of their goals and roles the leader should provide detailed information about their plan, tasks, deadlines, and others. The leader will then conduct a regular weekly meeting with the group members wherein s/he will listen attentively, keep the members of the group responsible for daily reports of the current and ongoing interaction and activities between the management and employees, and provide encouragement, support, and motivation. For the second objective, members of the group need a considerable level of direction and support. The leader should pay attention to issues within and outside the group, build ties, provide incentives and rewards, promote involvement, and manage and resolve conflicts (Corey, Corey, Corey, 2008). The leader must build opportunities for involvement, especially in major decision-making process, reiterate vision, mission, goals, and main concerns, develop tentative goals, and give accurate and honest information. For the third objective, group members should better understand the mission and goals and are motivated give their best efforts to attain these goals. At this stage, the leader can conduct group sessions that will focus on problem-solving activities in order to determine the analytical capacity of each member. The leader should promote creative and systematic thinking, especially in actual situations. For the fourth objective, the leader has to find resources, recognize accomplishments, place emphasis on teamwork, and eliminate hindrances. The leader at this point should develop a performance evaluation instrument that would be administered once a month. This performance evaluation will help ensure that the set objectives are followed and accomplished. Evaluation The performance of the group should be founded on the group’s accomplishments against established objectives, not against the task of each member. Performance evaluation that is task-oriented sends out an erroneous message, that is, the outcomes of group effort are irrelevant (Nagin, 2005). Group performance will hence be evaluated in two ways: (1) The performance of each member will be evaluated through peer evaluation. This form of evaluation is useful because members of the group are the ones who are well-informed about the influence of the behavior or actions of others (Corey, 2011). The evaluation will be both verbal and written and will take place in a group and individually. This is to ensure that all the members are given the opportunity to hear, clarify, and address issues about them; and (2) The group all together will evaluate their progress and accomplishments against the established goals/objectives. This will be done through progress checklists derived from the original objectives and the agreed timeframe will be evaluated and adjusted by the group on a regular basis. Recommendations While striving to attain objectives and realize goals, it is important that the needs and concerns of each member are heard and attended to. Membership should be an opportunity to help the management and employees have stronger ties and a more productive relationship, to develop self-worth, to generate resources, and to improve teamwork skills. The leader should closely examine and observe how members cooperate, collaborate, which tasks they perform, which functions they serve, and whether members are performing or working equally. Peer evaluation and group process analysis can largely contribute to the identification of issues, obstacles, and problems hence reducing the need for an extensive modification as time progresses (Carson, 2004). Members of the group can furnish a valuable opportunity to monitor group performance on a regular basis. Every member can greatly contribute to the strengthening of group cohesion, performance, and success. The start date of this proposed informal group will depend on the availability of the members, resources, and agreed-on agenda and timetable. The leader, along with some volunteers, will first draft a detailed set of activities, tasks, norms, guidelines, and expectations. After the drafting, the temporary committee will ask every department to elect their representative; these elected representatives will form the proposed informal group ‘Wall Breakers’. When the members are complete, they, together with the leader, will agree on the date of the first meeting where in they will review and modify the initially drafted guidelines. Once everything has been agreed upon by the members the leader will begin the arrangements for the formal recognition of the group. Any delays, such as conflict among members, inadequate resources, goal conflicts, etc, will be addressed promptly. References Carson, C. (2004). Growth and Development through Group Work. New York: Routledge. Corey, G. (2011). Theory and Practice of Group Counseling. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Corey, M.S., Corey, G., & Corey, C. (2008). Groups: Process and Practice. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Nagin, D. (2005). Group-based Modeling of Development. New York: Harvard University Press. Trotzer, J. (1999). The Counselor and the Group: Integrating Theory, Training, and Practice. New York: Taylor & Francis. Read More