| Decision-making groups are everywhere,
and you will almost certainly have opportunities to participate in them. Your skill in
doing so can make a significant contribution to your group's success and to your own as
well. A decision-making group is any collection of three to eleven individuals who share a
common problem or goal and interact with each other and are mutually dependent. |
| People join groups because groups
collectively provide more resources than individuals and tend to be better at controlling
error. Participation in groups means giving your best effort, behaving rationally, playing
fair, and participating fully. These things are essential to a group. They imply that you
must learn to be flexible and democratic, that you value group processes over individual
enterprise, and that you plan carefully. |
| Leadership is an individual's ability
to assess a communication situation and provide the ideas and information needed by the
group. Decision-making groups need leadership in identifying and understanding problems
and solutions. An effective leader knows when to focus on task concerns, when to focus on
relationship issues, and when to focus on procedures. |
| The three most common problems that
decision-making groups have to face: membership dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflict,
and a phenomenon called groupthink. These problems call for effective leadership. |
| When tension levels are too high, talk
about the sources of the tension. When they are too low, talk about procedures. When they
are just right, stay with an agenda that contributes to effective decision making. |
| A group usually has to report its
findings, either in oral or written form, or both. The components of a report and the
formats for presenting a group's thinking: ( 1 ) forum, ( 2 ) panel, ( 3 ) symposium, and
( 4) colloquium. These public formats are different from decision-making groups because
they are audience centered rather than problem centered. |
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