What kinds of messages should

groups
attend to?
• Group messages fall into three categories:
– • Informational messages focus on content: the
problem or challenge, data, and possible
solutions.
– • Procedural messages focus on method and
process. How will the group make decisions? Who
will do what? When will assignments be due?
– • Interpersonal messages focus on people,
promoting friendliness, cooperation, and group
loyalty.
 Different messages dominate during
the various stages of group
development
• Orientation
• Formation
• Coordination
• Formalization
What roles do people play in
groups?
Positive roles and actions that help the
group achieve its task goals
• Seeking information and opinions
• Giving information and opinions
• Summarizing
• Evaluating.
• Coordinating.
Positive roles and actions that help the
group build loyalty, resolve conflicts
• Encouraging participation.
• Relieving tensions.
• Checking feelings.
• Solving interpersonal problems.
• Listening actively
 Negative roles and actions that hurt
the group’s product and process
• Blocking.
• Dominating.
• Clowning
• Withdrawing
 Leadership in Groups

• Informational leaders generate and evaluate

ideas and text.
• Interpersonal leaders monitor the group’s
process, check people’s feelings, and resolve
conflicts.
• Procedural leadersset the agenda, make sure
that everyone knows what’s due for the next
meeting, communicate with absent group
members, and check to be sure that assignments
are carried out
 Characteristics of Successful Student
Groups
• The leader set clear deadlines, scheduled
frequent meetings, and dealt directly with
conflict that emerged in the group.
• Listened to criticism and made important
decisions together
• Had a higher proportion of members who
worked actively on the project
 Peer Pressure and Groupthink

• The best correctives to groupthink are to :

– Consciously search for additional alternatives.
– Test assumptions against those of a range of other
people.
– Encourage disagreement, perhaps even assigning
someone to be “devil’s advocate.”
– Protect the right of people in a group to disagree.
How to Lead Without Being
Arrogant
 Leading Without Being Arrogant
• Smile
• Share
• Suggest
• Think
• Volunteer
• Ask
How should we handle conflict?
To reduce the number of conflicts in a
group

• Make responsibilities and ground rules clear at

the beginning.
• Discuss problems as they arise, rather than
letting them fester till people explode.
• Realize that group members are not
responsible for each others’ happiness.
 Steps in Conflict Resolution

• 1. Make Sure that the People Involved Really

Disagree
• 2. Check to See that Everyone’s Information Is
Correct
• 3. Discover the Needs Each Person Is Trying to
Meet
• 4. Search for Alternatives
• 5. Repair Bad Feelings
 Responding to Criticism

• Paraphrasing
– Criticism: You guys are stonewalling my requests
for information.
– Paraphrase: You think that we don’t give you the
information you need quickly enough.
• Checking for Feeling
– Criticism: You guys are stonewalling my requests
for information.
– Feeling check: You sound pretty angry.
 Responding to Criticism

• Checking for Inferences

– Criticism: You guys are stonewalling my requests for
information.
– Inference: Are you saying that you need more
information from our group?
• Buying Time with Limited Agreement
– Criticism: You guys are stonewalling my requests for
information.
– Limited agreement: It’s true that the cost projections
you asked for last week still aren’t ready.
 You-Attitude in Conflict Resolution

• Lacks you-attitude: You never do your share of

the work.
• You-attitude: I feel that I’m doing more than my
share of the work on this project.
• Lacks you-attitude: Even you should be able to
run the report through a spell checker.
• You-attitude: I’m not willing to have my name on
a report with so many spelling errors. I did lots of
the writing, and I don’t think I should have to do
the proofreading and spell-checking, too.
How can we create the best co-
authored
documents?
 Collaboration is often prompted by
one of the following situations
• The task is too big or the time is too short for
one person to do all the work.
• No one person has all the knowledge required
to do the task.
• A group representing different perspectives
must reach a consensus.
• The stakes for the task are so high that the
organization wants the best efforts of as many
people as possible
• Collaborative writing means working with
other writers to produce a single document.
Writers producing a joint document need to
pay attention not only to the basic steps in the
writing process but also to the processes of
group formation and conflict resolution.
Planning the Work and the Document

• Make your analysis of the problem, the

audience, and your purposes explicit
• Plan the organization, format, and style of the
document
• Consider your work styles and other
commitments
• Build some leeway into your deadlines
 Composing the Drafts

• Use word processing to make it easier to

produce the many drafts necessary in a
collaborative document.
• If the quality of writing is crucial, have the
best writer(s) draft the document after
everyone has gathered the necessary
information.
 Revising the Document
• Evaluate the content and discuss possible
revisions as a group
• Recognize that different people favor different
writing styles
• When the group is satisfied with the content
of the document, one person—probably the
best writer—should make any changes
necessary to make the writing style consistent
 Editing and Proofreading the
Document
• Have at least one person check the whole
document for correctness in grammar,
mechanics, and spelling and for consistency
• Run the document through a spell-checker if
possible.
• Even if you use a computerized spell-checker,
at least one human being should proofread
the document too.
 Making the Group Process Work

• Give yourselves plenty of time to discuss

problems and find solutions
• Take the time to get to know group members and
to build group loyalty
• Be a responsible group member
• Be aware that people have different ways of
experiencing reality and of expressing
themselves.
• people in a group can think they agree when they
don’t a draft written by one person will
necessarily be acceptable.