Communicating Successfully in Groups

A Practical Guide for the Workplace

Richard Hammersley, Marie Reid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317798132
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This practical guide to the psychology of effective communication is suitable for anyone for whom communication in groups is a key part of their job. No previous knowledge of psychology is assumed and the emphasis is on exercises, key point summaries, assessment and improving your skills in everyday situations like committees, project teams, seminars and focus groups.
Suitable as an introduction for psychology students, it will be invaluable for students of business, medicine, allied health, social work and probation, whether studying on a short course or attending an intensive training session as part of their continuing professional development.

1 Welcome to group communication in the workplace

What is this book for?

If you are looking at this book then we assume that you are interested in how groups function at work and in learning how to communicate more effectively in them. As we will see, group communication is central to and essential for most modern work. Good group communication is not easy to achieve, requires skill and attention, often goes wrong and is fundamentally intersubjective, which we will explain shortly. The two main aims of this book are:

1. To provide an understanding of the nature and functioning of groups at work.
2. To provide suggestions that will help you to improve your group communication skills at work and deal more effectively with problems.

We hope that the book provides an accessible introduction to group communication in the workplace, which is readable without being simplistic.

Who is this book for?

Anybody who is involved in groups in their workplace, which means almost anyone who works. This includes people who work in business, health care, education, social services and criminal justice. We believe that there are general principles and skills for group communication that apply to all workplaces and will date quite slowly. In contrast, specific advice about, say, building a health care team, or a tele-sales operation, will tend to date quite quickly as technology and current practices change.

Intersubjectivity

All communication is intersubjective – involving exchange between two or more people – but the difficulties of intersubjectivity are particularly serious for group communication. Many books on communication list simple techniques that are likely – but not guaranteed – to have specific effects on another person. Effects on group communication are less predictable for two reasons. First, because everybody involved in a group has an effect on the group dynamics, which in turn affects how the group members behave. The more people are involved, the more difficult it will be to understand the group, control it, or predict how it will turn out.

Second, because the nature of social interactions is fundamentally open, rather than being fixed by unchanging laws of psychology or biology. For a start, people can and do read books like this one, then modify their behaviour in groups, changing how the groups function. The current popularity of management teams has altered how many workplaces are organised and how groups are likely to interact. By comparison, the basics of how two people talk to each other remain fairly constant whatever their knowledge, social setting and culture.

A third aspect of intersubjectivity is that all the people involved in a group communication come to it with equal rights and responsibilities as people. In consequence, effective group communication requires flexibility, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and the ability to communicate openly with other people. It is not possible to write out a simple list of effective group communication techniques, to be applied to all situations.

Objectives of this book

The book can be divided into three parts. The first part (Chapters 2–4) covers basic communication skills. Chapter 2 looks at the basic nature of interpersonal communication. It covers the difficulties of defining ‘excellent interpersonal skills’, the different channels of communication that are used, the differences between literal or denotative, connotative, action and social meaning, and how the formality of a social setting is indicated. Chapter 3 looks at non-verbal channels of communication and covers the different channels, the idea of leakage in communication, the presentation of self in the workplace and suggests methods for improving non-verbal communication. Chapter 4 goes on to look at verbal communication, covering questioning, listening and acknowledging emotions and feelings, self-disclosure and assertiveness.

The second part (Chapters 5–8) looks at the nature of social interaction and how and why groups come together and function. Chapter 5 discusses the myths of personal identity, suggesting that personal identity is socially-constructed and that people are different in different social situations. It covers five-factor personality theory, problems with the dualist view of there being a stable ‘self’ independent of actual social behaviour, and looks at the communication difficulties that can arise by assuming a stable self. Chapter 6 goes on to look at the social construction of identity. It proposes that: identity is fluid, dynamic and negotiable; identity is communicative; we signify our social identities to other people, interpret feedback from them about what we are like and may modify our identities on the basis of that feedback; our stable personal identities are constructed to make sense of what has happened to us and how we have related to other people; people’s identity constructs are usually socially functional for them, and this can apply even to deviant, damaged or spoiled identities; identity involves identification with specific groups of people, but also contribution to the nature of those groups – this is a fundamental aspect of social activity; people routinely adopt different identities in different social groups – hence the idea of a social role. Chapter 7 looks at how groups form. It emphasises the importance of groups at work, covers different stage models of group formation, as well as the main psychodynamic theories of groups. It looks at group cohesion, formal and informal norms and at the importance of open communication in groups. Chapter 8 looks at social influence in groups, covering the main forms of social power, the nature of authority and leadership and the main mechanisms of social influence, which include normalisation, conformity, obedience and de-individuation.

The third part (Chapters 9–12) looks at the functioning of groups in the workplace. Chapter 9 looks at decision-making in groups. It first examines the advantages of group decision-making then looks at the main problems that can occur, including risky shift, polarisation and groupthink. It looks at the group processes that underlie decision-making, some common traps and how to avoid them, it also suggests some techniques for making better decisions in groups. Chapter 10 looks at working beyond the group, covering negotiation and conflict resolution, as well as some of the problems and difficulties that can arise in inter-group and inter-agency working. Chapter 11 looks in detail at the workplace team, examining the importance of teams, different roles within a team, how to build a team and get it to work effectively, why teams can be dysfunctional and some of the disadvantages of team work. Chapter 12 looks forward into the twenty-first century and the nature of group communication in a network society. It sketches how work has changed in network society, relying more upon electronic communications, looks at how communication works in cyberspace, provides some advice for communicating effectively there and suggests a continued need for face-to-face groups at work.

Finally, Chapter 13 provides a brief summing up.

How we wrote this book

The book is based on our teaching of communication to a variety of student and professional groups. We have drawn upon three types of information. First, there is a research literature in social psychology that looks at how groups work, often by conducting experiments that manipulate group behaviour to see what happens. While this research has been criticised as being artificial, some of the main phenomena discovered appear to apply also to real workplaces. However, we feel that previous books on group communication have tended to rely too much on this literature and over-emphasise theoretical details at the expense of practical advice. Second, there is a large literature in management and organisational psychology, as well as psychotherapy, describing how groups and teams function, as well as prescribing how they should function. This literature can be criticised for having a weak evidence base. Some ideas are well-researched, some are based on extensive work and observation in real organisations and groups, but many ideas seem to have been invented by the authors. Third, we draw also upon our own experiences working and teaching in large organisations – universities in our case. While we also may be criticised for invention, we hope that drawing upon our own experiences brings the more academic material to life.

What is good group communication?

We shall deal with this in more detail throughout the book, but it is worthwhile to take a minute or two to reflect on what good group communication means to you. Write down some phrases or words that spring to mind. Compare your list with ours:

• Speaking well in groups, and listening to others effectively.
• Observing communication between others in the group.
• Understanding ourselves and our relationships with others in the groups that we belong to.
• Getting on well as a group.
• Making sound decisions quickly as a group.
• Providing emotional support for each other.
• Acquiring key communication skills to make the group function more effectively; offering praise, helping the group to relax, sharing ideas and information, inviting opinions, summarising ideas and information, suggesting action.

Can group communication skills be learned?

You may think that you already have good communication skills based on how you communicate with friends and family and that you should therefore have no problems in dealing with colleagues in a group setting. However, an individual’s communicative style may differ depending on the situation and set of expectations that he/she takes along to the situation. For example, meeting as part of a group in the pub with close friends is completely different from a business meeting with colleagues, which means your behaviour and communicative style will also be different. A word of caution: it is often those who are overly confident who tend to be the least competent at communicating in groups.

There is clear evidence that communication skills can and should be learned. The need to acquire these skills is becoming more and more a priority in undergraduate courses ranging from degrees in business to degrees in medicine. We hope this book will help you develop such skills or improve on existing skills. There is evidence that students learn communication skills most effectively if the following conditions are met:

• Specific tasks are set and instructions are provided on how to practice skills.
• Students are given the opportunities to practise these skills in real life settings or in role play scenarios.
• Feedback is provided on performance (it is helpful if positive feedback is provided before negative).
• Self-monitoring is used (e.g., use of audio or video tape, self assessment exercises, constant self reflection).

It is obvious, then, that a book alone cannot improve communication skills. The ideal use of this book is as background reading for a specific training on group communication at work. It is also possible for the reader to use the book to design their own self-instruction programme. To do this you would have to work with others so that practice and feedback can be obtained. The exercises at the end of each chapter are designed with this in mind.

What is a group?

Finally, it is appropriate to introduce groups. What does the word ‘group’ mean to you? It might be worthwhile jotting down a definition of a group and the purpose of a group before you read on.

You may have discovered that defining the word ‘group’ is not so simple. Group behaviour is often different from the sum of individual behaviours. A collection of people is not necessarily a group. A group presumes communication within the group. The word ‘group’ can carry many different meanings and associations. Different types of group have different functions and qualities. Some groups are formal (a class, a committee meeting, an annual general meeting, a conference presentation), some are informal (friends in the pub, the family holidays). Some groups are reasonably stable and long lasting (family, school), others are more short-lived (party gathering, conference). Some groups are highly organised (Scouts or Guides), others are barely organised at all (skate boarders on their favourite steps). Some groups are small in size (4–5 people), others are large (several hundred). Some are local, others are international. It would seem that the key component is that there is some common interest or purpose that brings them together. Sherif and Sherif (1969) believed that the key component to groups was the presence of a social structure, generally in the form of status and role relationships. The family is a good example of a group with implicit social structure, as each member has very well defined relationships with each other and with these relationships normally come clear roles and status differences.

Harré and Lamb (1986) provide a dictionary definition of a group as:

Two or more persons who are interacting with one another, who share a set of common goals and norms which direct their activities, and who develop a set of roles and a network of affective relations.

This definition refers more to small groups or ‘face-to face’ groups of about three to eight people such as family, social and working-group relationships rather than larger groups such as the members of the Labour Party. Smaller groups are the specific focus ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Welcome to group communication in the workplace
• 2 The nature of interpersonal communication
• 3 Non-verbal channels of communication
• 4 Techniques of verbal communication
• 5 Myths of personal identity
• 6 The social construction of identity
• 7 The formation of groups
• 8 Social influence in groups
• 9 Group decision-making
• 10 Working beyond the group
• 11 Teams and roles
• 12 Group communications in networked society
• 13 Summing up
• Notes
• References
• Index