This model in essence addresses three issues:
It is common to ask if there is a pattern in the way groups are formed – the answer to this is – “YES” but the pattern depends on the way you look at it. We would study three different models of group formation in this series. The people who proposed these models are:
Forma groups generally gather to perform various tasks and include an executive and staff, standing committees of the board of directors, project task forces, and temporary committees! Informal grips evolve in the work setting to gratify a verity of member needs not met by formal groups.
We had defined “loss of individuality” as a social process in which individual group members lose self-awareness and its accompanying sense of accountability, inhibition, and responsibility for individual behavior. It is also called “deindividuation”.
You would notice that individual group members wouldn’t have a sense of accountability/inhibition or responsibility for their behavior – this could have potentially catastrophic influence. People could engage in morally reprehensible acts and sometimes even violence. Research has noted that – loosening of normal ego control mechanisms in an individual could also lead to a prosocial behavior and one expect heroic acts even in dangerous situations. There could also be the other dimension of a negative impact also seen due to such behavior – in mob scenarios.
What is important it to note that – a group that successfully develops into a mature group may not encounter the issues with the loss of individual identity? What is important is the way the culture of a group gets established.
Norms of Behavior: are lie standards that are used in looking at the behavior of its individual members. These could be written or unwritten, they could even be verbal or nor-verbal, and in some case they could even be implicit or explicit in other cases. In general this specifies what the group members should do and what the group members should not do.
These norms could evolve informally (just by observation of other group members) or explicitly through training. It could even be unconscious within a group; these could have been developed in repose to a challenge that the group faces (think of fire-fighters here!).
Norms could exist in any aspect of work-life. They play a curial role! – One such is the Performance Norms. Performance norms are the most important group norms from the organization’s perspective.
There are 4 important topics that are extremely relevant to the functioning of the group. We shall define these in the current byte.
From the above definition it would be interesting to note – all work teams are groups, but all groups are not work teams.
It would also be good to understand an ideal benchmark – the following table highlights some characteristics:
Thus long we have been talking about modern communication means. These means however could push people to miss their social interactions – they would be working through their system all the while! Their social needs thus could be unmet – this would mean absence of the small talks; they would try to get to the point of discussion right away.
Managers could increase their effectiveness in communication by making note these simple pointers:
With this byte, we complete our discussion on Work Place Communication.
The new technology also enables the mangers get into multiple activities simultaneously – today’s managers can simultaneously make a phone call, reply to emails or even work on memos. These kinds of activities are called polyphasic activities. These activities allow the manager to multi-task; however the advantages are only to a certain extent. The diversion of attention across the various tasks/activities could quickly end up reducing effectiveness. We have discussed in depth about some cues into multi-tasking in the article here.
It could eventually turn out that constantly focusing on multiple tasks could become a habit, and this would make it psychologically difficult for an individual to let go of work.
Modern technology provides speed in execution and this makes people less patient with face-to-face communication too. Extrapolated, the inherent nature of a quick communication using modern technology could build up expectation of higher speed in other forms of communication! It is important to keep a good balance and understand that one might not like to be pressed to make choices just because there is a communication system available.