• A collection of individuals few enough in number so that all members may communicate with relative ease as both senders and receiver.
• The members of a group must be connected to one another through some common purpose.
• The members must be connected by some organizing rules or structure.
1. Basic Types of Groups
There are two basic types of groups, which are:
1. Relationship and Task Groups
a. Relationship groups (primary groups)
The group in which we participate early in life. Usually these groups serve our needs for affiliation, affirmation, and affection.
Ex. Our immediate family
Our group of friends at school
Our neighbors
b. Task groups (secondary groups)
Formed to accomplish something. Some task groups are put together to solve a specific problem. Once the specific task is accomplished, the group is dissolved.
Ex. A committee of college professors might be formed to hire a new faculty member, select a textbook or serve, etc.
2. Reference and Membership Groups
a. Reference Groups
A reference groups is a group from which you derive your values and norms of behavior. It is a group you use as a standard and against which you compare yourself. In other words, you judge your successes and failures in comparison with the outcomes of other members of reference groups. Ex. Compare yourself with and measure your successes against those of your siblings or cousins later you may look to classmates
b. A membership group is a group you participate in but do not use as a guide or to measure yourself
Reference and membership groups are often the same. For the most part you participate in the groups whose values you share. In some cases, reference and membership groups may differ.
2. Small Group Stages
There are five stages in small group communication, and each stage connect with the other stages. Those stages are:
a. The opening stage is usually getting-acquainted time in which members introduce themselves and engage in social small talk.
b. A feedforward stage in which members make some attempt to identify what needs to be done, who will do it, and so on.
c. The business stage is the actual work on the tasks, the problem solving, the sharing of information, or whatever else the group needs to do
d. The feedback stage, the group may reflect on what it has done and perhaps on what remains to be done.
e. At the closing stage, the group members again return to their focus on individuals and will perhaps exchange closing comments.
3. Small Group Formats
a. The round table
Group members arrange themselves in circular or semicircular pattern.
They share the information or solve the problem without any set pattern of who speaks when. Group interaction is informal.
b. The Panel
Group members are experts, but participate informally and without any set pattern of who speaks when, as in round table.c. The Symposium
Each member delivers a prepared presentation.
Symposium leader introduces the speakers, provides transitions from one speaker to another.
d. The Symposium-Forum
Consists of two parts, which are a symposium with prepared speeches and a forum with questions from the audience and responses by the speakers. The leader introduces the speakers and moderates the question and answer session.
4. Small Group Culture
Many groups, especially those of long standing like work groups, develop small cultures with their own norms. Group norms are rules of behaviors identifying which behaviors are considered appropriate and inappropriate. Norms that regulated a particular group member’s behavior called role expectations, role expectation identify what each person in an organization is expected to do. Cohesiveness means closely connected, and attracted to meet your needs.
5. Power in The Small Group
Power permeates all small groups and in fact all relationships inside the small group. Power is what enables one person to control the behaviors of others. There are six types of power in small group, which are:
a. Legitimate
When people believe you have right by virtue of your position to influence or to control their behavior.
b. Referent
Another person wishes to be like you or identified with you
c. Reward
Have the ability to give a person reward
d. Coercive
Ability to remove rewards or to administer punishments
e. Expert
Increase when having nothing to gain personally from influencing others, decrease when having something to gain from securing the compliance of others.
f. Information
Attributed to people who are seen as having significant information and the ability to use the information in presenting a well reasoned argument
6. Idea-Generation Groups
Idea-generation groups are small groups that exist to generate ideas and often follow a formula called brainstorming. Brainstorming is a technique for bombarding a problem and generating as many ideas as possible. This technique involves 2 stages:
a. The brainstorming period proper
b. Evaluation period
In this group there are 4 general rules:
1. Don’t Criticize
2. Strive for quantity
3. Combine and extend Ideas
4. Develop the wildest ideas possible
7. Personal Growth Groups and Popular Personal Growth Groups
Personal Growth Group is a group that sometimes referred to as support groups; aim to help members cope with particular difficulties.
There are three types of popular personal growth groups:
a. The Encounter group
To facilitate personal group and the ability is to deal effectively with other people.
Freedom to express one’s inner thoughts, fears, and doubts is stressed.
b. The Assertiveness Training group
Aim is to increase the willingness of its members to stand up for their rights and to act more assertively.
c. The consciousness-raising group
Aim is to help people to cope with the problems society confronts them with. This group has one characteristic in common (ex: unwed mother, gay father). The commonality of the group can leads members to help one another. The assumption is that similar people are best equipped to assist one another’s personal growth. This group has no leader or leaderless. Also, all members are equal in their control of the group and their presumed knowledge.
8. Some Rules and Procedures
Each group is likely to develop its own unique rules and procedures. Therefore the group may start each meeting by:
a. selecting topic, usually by majority vote of the group
b. The first speaker is selected through some random procedure(the focus is always individual, no interruption are allowed)
c. The feedback from other members is to be totally supportive
During this time members may relate different aspects of their experience to what other have said. This procedure helps raise members’ consciousness.
9. Information-sharing Groups, Educational or Learning Groups and Focus Groups
The purpose of information-sharing groups is to enable members to acquire new information or skills through a sharing knowledge. The members of these groups shares information or knowledge from one to another. They can share or give information or knowledge to the other member.
Besides, the members of educational or learning groups pool their knowledge to the benefit of all. As an example, in the popular law and medical student learning groups, the members may follow a variety of discussion patterns. Ex: a historical topic.
Focus group is a small group assembled for kind of in-depth interview. The aim is to discover what people think about an issue or product. Ex: think of the new lotion for men between 18 and 25, etc. also, this group tries to discover the beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, and feelings.
10. Problem-Solving Groups and The Problem-solving Sequence
A problem-solving group is a collection of individuals who meet to solve a problem or to reach a decision. It requires not only knowledge of small group communication techniques but also a thorough knowledge of particular problem.
The problem-solving sequence is probably the one used most often. The six steps of sequence are design to make problem solving more efficient and effective. Those steps are:
• Define and analyze the problem
In many instances nature of the problem is clearly specified. Limit the problem so that it identifies a manageable are for discussion. Define the problem as an open-ended question. Appropriate question for most problems.
• Establish criteria for evaluating solution
Before any solutions are proposed, we need to evaluate them, and then identified the criteria. There are 2 types of criteria, which are Practical criteria and Value criteria
• Identify possible solution
Identify as many solutions as possible. Focus on quantity. Brainstorming may be particularly useful
• Evaluate solutions
Evaluate each solutions
• Select the best solution
The best solutions are selected and put into operation. Groups may use different decision making methods in deciding. Generally, groups are use one of three methods:
1. Decision of authority
Efficient methods, its gets things done quickly, and the amount of discussion can be limited as desired
2. Majority rule
With this method the group members agree to abide by the majority decision and may cote on various issues as the group works toward solving its problems
3. Consensus
It is unanimous agreement. In business groups, consensus means that members agree that they can live with the solution. Takes the longest and it can lead to a great deal of wasted time.
• Test selected solution
Test their effectiveness.
Problem-solving groups at work usually used widely in business in a variety of different types of groups. The problem-solving techniques discussed:
a) The nominal group technique
A method of problem solving that uses limited discussion and confidential voting to obtain a group discussion. The nominal group approach can be divided into 7 steps:
• The problem is defined and clarified for all members
• Writes down
• Recorded
• Clarified
• Rank orders the suggestion in writing
• Combined to get a group ranking
• Clarification, discussion, and possible reordering may follow
• Test
b) The Delphi method
A group of ‘experts’ is established. The method is best explained as a series of steps:
• The problem is defined
• Contributes five ideas in writing
• Combined all the ideas,written up, and distributed to all members
• Select three or four best ideas
• Responses another list and distributed to all members
• Select the one or two the best from new list and submit it
• Responses another list is produced and distributed to all members
• The final solutions are identified and are communicated to all members
c) Quality circles
A group of workers whose task it is to investigate and make recommendation for improving the quality of some organization functional. Members investigate problems using any method. The group then reports its finding and its suggestions. In some case, the quality circle members may implement their solutions without approval from upper management levels.
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