Guthrie - Groups Part 1

hi my name is dr jennifer guthrie and

today we're going to talk about working

in groups so before we begin i want you

to take a bet

and think to yourself do you enjoy

working in groups

have those experiences been positive

have they been negative

and if so what made those experiences

positive or negative

well if you thought to yourself i

absolutely hate working in groups i

can't believe i have to do this project

you're not alone unfortunately a lot of

people

despise working in groups in fact so

much we even have a name for it

it's called group hate the idea that

people do not like working

in groups well here's the deal if people

have a lot of group hate when they

actually

do work in groups sometimes they can set

up a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy

so hopefully today

after this video you'll have a bit more

positive attitude about groups and we'll

give you some tools for how to work

better

in groups so again as mentioned there's

this idea of group hate in fact there's

even a

popular meme out there that says when i

die

i want the people i did group projects

with to lower me into my grave so that

they can let me down

one last time well here's the deal

there's actually a lot of research that

shows that working in groups can have

tremendously

positive effects i myself avoided every

small group class

possible in my undergraduate until later

in life i realized

that would have been a great experience

for me i had to do a lot of group

presentations and projects

in the workplace and now as a researcher

i write in teams

so i've been able to see the real life

effects of how wonderful

it can be to work in groups so

to begin first working in groups it

makes sense right and think of it

as a puzzle where if you have different

unique smart brains coming together

usually groups have better

problem solving than an individual so

you're able to bounce ideas off one

another

come to more creative solutions also

having

different opinions at the table can

result in more

innovative solutions and better projects

which makes sense you're smart you're

capable

but imagine what you can do if you're

working in a powerful team with

other smart capable people and you have

folks you can test your ideas with

and make sure you have the best ideas

possible

so working in groups even though it does

have its challenges

can be tremendously beneficial

so today we're basically in this first

video

going to talk about what makes up a

group and then the typical group

processes so

first of all what distinguishes a group

from working autonomously

is its size anything with three or more

people is considered a group if you have

two

we usually think of that as a dyad and

the dynamics are different

as soon as you add a third person

there's the potential to form what we

call

coalitions which is basically where you

can have

some folks teaming up against another

person

so in a dyad to people you can of course

have conflict but as soon as a third

person is introduced

one person may feel like the other two

are ganging up on them so

that's what makes a group special or

different so coalitions little heads up

we'll talk about this later

can be a positive thing in groups

usually they end

up being negative no one likes to feel

like they're being ganged up on so be

careful of that when you're working in

groups

make sure that you don't have one group

member who thinks everyone else is

against them that usually doesn't go

well

think if you've been in that position

it's hard

right um the second aspect of working in

a group is interdependence

everyone in the group depends on

everyone else to do their job

in the next video we'll talk about

problematic group situations

and one of those is a social loafer that

means that someone in the group is not

doing what they're expected to do

so to be a good group member remember

everybody's

depending on you like you're depending

on them

so make sure you meet deadlines you keep

in communication

that sort of thing the third aspect of a

group

is a group identity so one thing you can

do to

inject some positivity in your group

work is come up with a name

even if it's a silly name and it's just

for you all

have that group identity if you feel

like you're a group you may

act like you're a group the fourth part

of any good group

is to have goals in terms of your group

project

talk amongst yourself on what your goal

is is the goal to

get an a is the goal to learn from the

experience

is the goal that you want to have fun

with your group make your goals

explicit to your group members what

you're hoping to get out of the project

and then keep each other accountable in

kind ways make sure your goals are

reasonable there's something you can

actually achieve

but being clear about what you want to

get out of this project from the start

will help you plan the next aspect is

having structure

every group needs structure we can have

formal roles as well as

informal roles joey and keaton a

prominent group comm scholar

recommends that you have at least three

formal roles in your group

the first is to have some sort of a

leader if you appoint a leader or elect

a leader

right off the bat that can make things a

lot easier that person can be in charge

of over

or making sure you meet deadlines of

making sure the communication runs

smoothly

etc you can break up those leadership

roles but

make sure someone is behind the scenes

organizing what you all are doing

also you should have somewhat of a

secretary role

someone to keep track of your meeting

minutes and notes

scheduling appointments so that way you

can keep track of those critical

documents

perhaps you set up a google drive and

that secretary function the person can

make sure you all stay on track

and then finally joanne keaton

recommends that each group should have

what we call a critical advisor

another way to think of this as a

devil's advocate

which sounds bad but it's not basically

if

everyone in the group understands that

you should have at least

one person who plays devil's advocate

with ideas

like okay i like that topic for the

speech

but here are some potential negative

consequences what do you all

think just having someone to question to

toy

to maybe look at other aspects of an

idea can go

really really well so try to have some

sort of leadership

going on some sort of organizer who's

taking care of your written notes and

documents

and then someone who's either appointed

elected

you can even rotate that role who's

playing critical advisor

meaning they're gonna test ideas in a

kind way

to make sure you have the best

innovation so that's basically the

components of a small group

and the next video we'll talk about

dealing with

not so great group issues