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The Functioning of Groups

Anyone who has ever spent time overseeing small children, business work teams or college class projects knows that such groups can function perfectly well for long periods of time - and then collapse for no apparent reason into chaos and disfunctionality. Knowing how - and even more importantly when - to intervene in a usually highly functioning group is one of the most important skills that any individual who ever has to work collectively with others (which is to say nearly everyone of us) can bring to the group intervention process.

To solve the conflicts that arise in a group - such as the group that we are presented with in our case study in which three students are assigned to complete a group project but one fails to contribute her share of work - it is essential to understand the nature of group dynamics in general as well as the dynamics of the specific group in particular. No group can work efficiently without each member working to establish and maintain efficient communications among the team members, and this in turn is unlikely to happen unless the group (or its leaders) institute strategies and methods taken from mediation and the field of alternative dispute resolution. Getting people to want to work together is the most important step that group members can take in getting them actually to cooperate.

The fact that conflicts should arise among these students is certainly not surprising and arises from two different sources - the structure of the assignment and the general dynamics that obtain in small groups. Conflicts arise in all groups, as Folger etal argue:

Conflict is, by nature, interactive. It is never wholly under one person's controlà Conflict interaction cycles acquire a momentum of their own. They tend in a definite direction -- toward escalation, toward avoidance and suppression, or toward productive work on the conflict (p. 409).

Conflicts tend to be exacerbated when there is the possibility,...

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The Functioning of Groups. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 18:14, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688398.html