The purpose of this paper is to analyze the communication processes and the stages of development of my task group during the completion of an assignment. The task group (Group Five) consisted of four members. Our task was to prepare a paper on the pros and cons of the topic of providing compensation to organ donors. The communication and collaboration of the group during the six face-to-face meetings were also documented. Most significantly, the analysis of the communication and development of my task group within the context of small group communication theories such as Eric Berne's Transaction Theory and group development theories such as Fisher's Model will be presented in this paper. The four stages of group developmentùentering, encountering, engaging and endingùwill be used an organizational framework to discuss the small group communication and development of my task group.
During the entering stage of the group development, also known as the forming stage of Tuckman's theory or the orientation stage of Fisher's Model, group members meeting each other for the first time are primarily concerned with overcoming their discomfort with one another. In this phase, the group members are engaged in establishing boundaries and group norms for communication (cited in Egolf 102-3). In contrast to this theoretical description, my task group did not experience a high level of awkwardness with one another because three of the four members were close friends who had known each other for many years.
Due to the familiarity of the three members with one another, the task group moved swiftly into the encountering stage of group development, also known as Tuckman's storming or Fisher's conflict phase. Tuckman's theory focused on the interpersonal conflicts that erupt among the members as they compete with one another for leadership roles. From Tuckman's perspective, the interpersonal conflicts that typically include personal c...