Assignment 7: Observing Groups At Work –Hus3201

Instructions: Locate a working group. It can be any type of group, so long as it is working on some sort of task: decision making (a group at work talking about hiring a new person), information exchange (a workshop), judgment (a jury), producing something (people working on fixing a sidewalk, the wait staff at a restaurant), etc. Do not observe an informal group, such as a party or clique of friends, or a class.
Watch the group for 30 minutes. Describe its dynamics, being sure to note the group’s structure (leadership is particularly important).
For production groups, identify any successful resource combination procedures or failures to use group members’ resources adequately. Did you, for example, see signs of social facilitation, loafing, etc? Did the group use all the members’ abilities appropriately?
For decision-making groups, did the group explicitly identify the issues it faced and the procedures it would use to resolve them? Did members communicate effectively with one another?
What role did the leader play in guiding the group during the performance phase?
Analyze the quality of the group’s performance; whenever possible, document what the group accomplishes (e.g., if watching 2 men digging a ditch, note how much they get done). Identify factors that could have been changed to increase effectiveness and/or efficiency.
Compose your answer in short essay format.

Module 5
Introduction
In this module, we consider several important questions about how groups work to “get things done.” We explore how groups actually perform relative to individuals, when individuals fully participate and when they do not. We examine how we can spark creativity in groups. Next, we analyze the decision-making process in groups. We note some of the problems and pitfalls in making decisions—for example, failing to consider all relevant information and denying responsibility for poor decisions. Many of these problems emerge during a defective type of decision-making referred to as “group-think.”Lastly, we turn our attention to teams and their relationship to groups. Teams represent a special type of group—one that exists to achieve specific goals through coordinated action. As Forsyth (2014) notes, few teams existed outside of the military and sports prior to the 1960’s. Today, teams are ubiquitous in the workplace.
Proficient, competent group performance is crucial in many fields—e.g., emergency medicine, education, government, public safety (policing and firefighting) and human services. Forsyth (2014) cites the ditching of US airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River without any loss of life as an example of how proficient groups can work together to cope with emergencies. In this instance, Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff on January 15, 2009, resulting in loss of both engines. The crew quickly determined that they would not be able to make it to an airport, and instead elected to ditch the plane in the Hudson River. As Forsyth observes, all 155 crew and passengers survived this emergency because of effective group coordination. The pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, firefighters, Coast Guard, nearby ferries, and the passengers themselves worked together. The crewmembers subsequently received the Master’s Medal of the Guild of Air Pilots, in recognition for the most successful ditching effort in aviation history.
This outcome is in sharp contrast to the disastrous April 16, 2014 sinking of the Korean Ferry MV Sewol, which resulted in more than 300 deaths. . In this case, the ferry owners regularly overloaded the ferry, the captain and the crew engaged in acts of gross negligence, including abandoning the ferry before the passengers and delaying evacuation, and the Coast Guard did not act quickly enough (Kim, Hanna and Payne 2014; Mullen 2014). The captain of the ferry was arrested for murder, as were other crew members, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye dismantled the Coast Guard, turning some of their duties over to police and to a new national safety department (Kwon, Hancocks and Mullen 2014). This incident shows clearly that simply creating teams or work groups does not guarantee their effectiveness—we have to analyze cases such as these to determine what went wrong and what can be done to improve group functioning.
Some tasks are so complex one person cannot complete them. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, individuals can outperform groups, and in some cases, group members simply do not work effectively. Why is this? Researchers have found that there are several reasons why groups do not always outperform individuals, including the size of the group, social loafing and free riding. Larger groups are harder to coordinate and lead to more anonymity. Social loafing and free riding occur when people take for granted that others will do the work. In combination, these factors may mean that groups work very slowly when they need to be very nimble.
If you have ever participated in a group project for one of your classes, you may have encountered free riders in your group work—peers or students who do not work hard, yet receive the same reward (grade, bonus, etc.) as you. If so, how did you feel about this? Were you motivated to work harder, or put in less work yourself? Consider how free riding or social loafing might interfere with effective child protection services work—in cases where children are endangered by their family circumstances (family violence, substance abuse), failure to work effectively in a group may lead to loss of life.
Next, we analyze the decision-making process in groups. Recall that in Module 1, we noted that groups carry out most of the important work in society. Much of this work takes the form of decision-making. Again, we shall see that sometimes, individuals make better decisions than groups—in some cases, this is because the group is highly cohesive with a very powerful, directive leader. This can lead the group to overlook key pieces of information that should be included in the deliberation process or to take risks that many individuals would not take. This type of consensus building can produce a defective type of decision-making known as “groupthink.” This term applies to policy-setting and implementing groups—given that much of Human Services revolves around policy development and implementation, it is important to beware of the pitfalls associated with this process.
Finally, we turn our attention to the concept of a team—although all teams are groups, not all groups are teams. As noted above, teams represent a specialized type of group. Teams use coordination and interdependency to achieve goals. Many states now use human services workers in various types of teams, including Child Protection Services, Adult Protection Service, Child Fatality Reviews, and Community Services Teams. For example, click on this link to the Adult Protective Services for the State of Texas and this one for Children and Teens Protective Services in the State of Oregon. As you can see, both states use investigative teams, task forces, and committees to handle a wide array of behavioral, criminal, and health issues on a county-by-county basis to underserved populations. It is important to know the different kinds of teams that you may encounter as a human services professional, and to be able to function as a team player.
Learning Outcomes
This module meets the following course Learning Outcomes listing in the Course Outline.
Critical Analysis/ Ethical Thinking
Describe and analyze different types of group dynamics and processes.
Define the concept of leadership and describe different types of leaders and assess effectiveness.
Discuss and analyze decision-making and team-work
Analyze communication processes in groups and teams.
Objectives
Upon completion of this module, students will be able to:
Define, discuss and describe performance in groups.
Identify and explain factors that promote or hinder performance in the group.
Analyze the factors that affect decision-making.
Define, and discuss the concept of a team, and note how it differs from a group.
Readings and Resources
Read: Chapter 10: Performance in Group Dynamics
Read: Chapter 11: Decision Making in Group Dynamics
Read: Chapter 12: Teams in Group Dynamics
Resource: Chapter 10a Performance: Social Facilitation
Resource: Chapter 10b Performance: Social Loafing
Resource: Chapter 10c Performance: Social Combination
Resource: Chapter 11a Decision-making
Resource: Chapter 11b Decision-making, Polarization and Groupthink
Resource: Chapter 12a Team Types
Resource: Chapter 12b Teams Composition and Process
Resource: Chapter 12c Teams Training
References
Ferry Disaster: Too Much Cargo Contributed to Sinking, Police Say. Stella Kim, Jason Hanna, and Ed Payne. Wednesday May 7, 2014.
South Korean president dismantles coast guard after ferry disaster. K.J. Kwon, Paula Hancocks and Jethro Mullen May 19, 2014.