Group Development
From Jsarmi
The goal of most research on group development is to learn why and how small groups change over time. To do this, researchers examine patterns of change and continuity in groups over time. Aspects of a group that might be studied include the quality of the output produced by a group, the type and frequency of its activities, its cohesiveness, the existance of conflict, etc.
Different theoretical models have been developed to explain how certain groups change over time. Listed below are some of the most common models. In some cases, the type of group being considered influenced the model of group development proposed as in the case of therapy groups. In general, some of these models view group change as regular movement through a series of "stages," while others view them as "phases" that groups may or may not go through and which might occur at different points of a group's history. Attention to group development over time has been one of the differentiating factors between the study of ad hoc groups and the study of teams such as those commonly used in the workplace, the military forces, sports or many other contexts.
Linear Models of Development
Kurt Lewin's Individual Change Process
An early model of *individual* change, which has served as the basis of many models of group development, described change as a three-stage process: unfreezing, change, freezing.
| Unfreezing: | This phase involves overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing "mind set". Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed. |
| Change | In the second stage change occurs. This is typically a period of confusion and transition. One is aware that the old ways are being challenged but does not have a clear picture to replace them with yet. |
| Freezing | In the third stage the new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to previous levels. This is often misquoted as "refreezing" (see Lewin, 1947). |
Tubbs' Systems Model: Orientation - Conflict - Consensus - Closure
Stewart Tubbs "systems" approach to studying small group interaction led him to the creation of a four-phase model of group development:
| Orientation: | In this stage, group members get to know each other, they start to talk about the problem, and they examine the limitations and opportunities of the project. |
| Conflict: | Conflict is a necessary part of a group's development. Conflict allows the group to evaluate ideas and it helps the group avoid conformity and groupthink |
| Consensus: | Conflict ends in the consensus stage, when group members compromise, select ideas, and agree on alternatives. |
| Closure | In this stage, the final result is announced and group members reaffirm their support of the decision. |
Fisher: Orientation - Conflict - Emergence - Reinforcement
- Orientation: During the orientation phase, Fisher says group members get to know each other and they experience primary tension, the awkward feeling people have before communication rules and expectations are established. Groups should take time to learn about each other and feel comfortable communicating around new people.
- Conflict: The conflict phase is marked by secondary tension, or tension surrounding the task at hand. Group members will disagree with each other and debate ideas. Remember that conflict is good, because it helps the group achieve positive results.
- Emergence: In the emergence phase, says Fisher, the outcome of the group's task and its social structure become apparent.
- Reinforcement: In this stage, group members bolster their final decision by using supportive verbal and nonverbal communication.
Bruce Tuckman: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning
Tuckman's model states that the ideal group decision-making process should occur in four stages:
- Forming: Group members learn about each other and the task at hand.
- Storming: As group members become more comfortable with each other, they will engage each other in arguments and vie for status in the group. These activities mark the storming phase.
- Norming: Group members establish implicit or explicit rules about how they will achieve their goal. They address the types of communication that will or will not help with the task.
- Performing: Groups reach a conclusion and implement the conclusion.
- Adjourning: As the group project ends, the group disbands in the adjournment phase.
- Transforming: A team that lasts may transcend to a transforming phase of achievement. Transformational management can produce major changes in performance through synergy and is considered to be more far-reaching than transactional management.
It has also been suggested, most notably by Timothy Biggs, that an additional stage be added of Norming after Forming and renaming the traditional Norming stage Re-Norming. This addition is designed to reflect that there is a period after Forming where the performance of a team gradually improves and the interference of a leader content with that level of performance will prevent a team progressing through the Storming stage to true performance.
Tuckman's stages of group development are similar to those developed by M. Scott Peck for larger-scale groups. Peck describes the stages of a community as: Pseudo-community, Chaos, Emptiness, True Community. In his view, communities may be distinguished from other types of groups by the need for members to eliminate barriers to communication in order to be able to form true community. Examples of common barriers are: expectations and preconceptions; prejudices; ideology, counterproductive norms, theology and solutions; the need to heal, convert, fix or solve and the need to control. A community is born when its members reach a stage of "emptiness" or peace.
Marshall Scott Poole: Task Track - Topic Track - Relation Track
- Task track: Marshall Scott Poole and his colleagues have found that group development is often more complicated than the three previous models indicate. He has argued that groups jump back and forth between three tracks: task, topic, and relation. The three tracks can be compared to the intertwined strands of a rope. The task track concerns the process by which the group accomplishes its goals.
- Topic track: The topic track concerns the specific item the group is discussing at the time.
- Relation track: The relation track deals with the interpersonal relationships between the group members. At times, the group may stop its work on the task and work instead on its relationships. When the group reaches consensus on all three tracks at once, it can proceed in a more unified manner as the three previous models illustrate.
- Breakpoints: Breakpoints occur when a group switches from one track to another. Shifts in the conversation, adjournment, or postponement are examples of breakpoints.
Hare/McGrath Role formation/differentiation
Work in the field of small group research (SGR) has theorized a number of possible patterns of changes for groups over time. In particular, research that concentrates on the concept of roles states that the organization of a group may vary over time for at least three reasons: "One is that, in a newly formed group, it may take several periods of conflict before an informal “pecking order” can be established. A second reason is that newmembers may join the group or old members drop out, requiring a newdistribution of roles.Athird reason is that the activities required in each phase of the development of a group may call for a different constellation of roles and a different group structure." (Hare, 2003, p. 129)
To carry out a group task, McGrath (1991, pp. 152-153) identified four modes of activity, for which Hare uses the terms meaning, resources, integration, and goal attainment.
Mode 1: Inception and acceptance of a project (goal choice) [meaning]; Mode 2: Solution of technical issues (means choice) [resources]; Mode 3: Resolution of conflict, that is, of political issues (policy choice) [integration]; Mode 4: Execution of the performance requirements of the project (goal attainment) [goal attainment].
McGrath (1991) noted that all processes begin with Mode 1 and end with Mode 4, but that Modes 2 and 3may or may not be needed depending on the task and the history of the group’s activities. Modes within modes are also identified. McGrath offers a set of propositions about the ways in which time influences various aspects of group activity. Group members step up their activity as a deadline approaches or even change their pace when the allotted time is half gone (Gersick, 1989).
Other theories of group development add a fifth phase that includes evaluation (Tschan, 1995) as group members, either as actors or audience, reassess their understanding of “the meaning of all this.” The fifth phase is sometimes called termination (Keyton, 1993) or adjournment (Maples, 1988). I suggest that the fifth phase is actually a return to the same processes found in Phase 1, as group members redefine the situation to consider its implications for them as individuals if they are to take their separate ways or to begin a new task if the group is to remain together.
Not everyone agrees. Some observers of groups over time do not identify phases but evolution and maturation as group members learn to perform assigned tasks and to enhance the quality of their interpersonal interactions (Crouch & Yetton, 1988; Krayer, 1988; Morgan, Salas, & Glickman, 1993; Wekselberg, Goggin, & Collings, 1997). Others conclude that face-to-face groups reach a pattern of equilibrium, balancing task and social-emotional concerns, which is occasionally “punctuated” by a deadline (Seers & Woodruff, 1997)—including an awareness that the group is not immortal (Sokol, 1992)— or some other environmental cue (Arrow, 1997). However, I still go with the phase hypothesis originally suggested by Andrew Effrat, assuming that sequences of phases could be identified if one were to take a closer look at the data provided by those who describe continuous maturation or punctuating deadlines.
REVIEW GenPlore, Creation/Evaluation Divergent/Convergent
Scheidel and Crowell [39] identify two cognitive patterns which are central to various phase models of group decision-making. These are:
i) the divergent phase, which is described as an activity for searching and generating ideas where ideas are developed, explored, perspectives are enlarged. As the divergent phase proceeds individual opinions as they form diverge farther and farther apart. The purpose of this phase is to promote diversity in opinions so as to maximize the possibility that the best solution emerges. Exemplar activities that support divergent group processes are brainstorming [35], Delphi Method [29], and the Nominal Group Technique [6].
ii) the convergent phase, which is described as an “arena of conflict” [39]. In this mode the problem of conflict of individual interests and viewpoints are resolved. The focus is on obtaining a closure. The exemplar activity that reveals convergent thought processes is the evaluation, preening, merging, and selecting an element of a list of group alternative actions.
T. Scheidel and L. Crowell, Discussion and Deciding. New York: Macmillan, 1979.
Group Negotiatoin Models
Less abstract and more experimental phase models have been furnished in the context of group negotiation [8]. In these models different phases entail sequence of actions directed to different cluster of goals. Stephenson, Kniveton, and Morley [42] confirm a threestage model through interaction analysis, and Carlisle and Leary [2] set forth a five-phase model. These phase models attempt to capture the dynamic orientation of interaction by casting goals and objectives as changing during different phases with clear breakpoints at the end and beginning of each phase. In particular, Douglas [9] claims that in the initial stages participants define issues and settle on the agenda, while in the later stages final agreements are obtained through exchange of proposals which include offers and concessions. C. Process of Coordination Following Douglas [9], we hypothesize that the process of coordination cycles through four distinct though overlapping phases (as depicted in Fig. 1). We now briefly describe each of the four phases in the coordination cycle. The Dejnitional Phase: During this phase conflicting sources of information and inconsistent belief systems among participants are brought to focus. Inconsistencies in perspectives are an inevitable result of different experiential background of individuals and their bounded views of the world. A high degree of commonality and consistency about the problem definition is brought about in this phase by changes enacted in the individual belief systems of the participants as a result of exchange of messages. The computer based support for the process of “assumptionsurfacing” in group decision support systems (GDSS) is thus an attempt to aid groups through this definitional phase. Similarly, the gIBIS system developed by MCC [5], helps define the differing perspectives of individuals on the problem in terms of their individual positions and thus aids the group in arriving at a common definition of the problem at hand. The Conflict Resolution Phase: In the first phase participants arrive at a common definition of the problem, whereas in this phase a common course of action is decided upon for the group. But since participants are autonomous their goals conflict. Different solutions to the common problem affect participants differently. The focus in this phase is on the conflict of goals among individuals and the attempt to arrive at a consensus solution. In the context of game theory [12] in the first phase the definition of the game is settled upon, whereas in this phase the equilibrium solution is worked out. This conflict resolution phase is dominated by exchange of proposals, where a proposal from a member denotes what each member of the group has to do in order that the group problem is satisfactorily resolved. The above two phases are similar to the concept of “due process” [19], [20] which are described as: “the activity of humans and computers for generating sound, relevant, and reliable information as a basis for decisions. . . .due process is inherently reflective in that beliefs, goals, plans, requests, commitments, etc., exist as objects that can be explicitly mentioned and manipulated as an object.” Conflict Consensus Action Fig. 1. Four phases of a coordination cycle. We differ from Hewitt [20] in that we differentiate between getting agreement as to what the problem is about and getting an agreement as to what the common solution to that problem should be. Following Douglas’ [9] model of negotiation, we can call the first and second phases in each coordination cycle the negotiation stage of coordination process. The Consensus Action Phase: During this phase the commonly agreed upon decision is enacted. The consensus action is viewed as a transformation process, i.e., transformation of inputs to outputs. In an office environment this is primarily informational in nature. Information of some type and sources is transformed to another and is communicated across time and space. In the context of a software customer support context, action would imply preparing the revised software (as agreed upon in the first two phases) from an existing version and communicating the same to the customer. The Adaptation Phase: This is the final phase in the cycle. During this phase the participants observe (or receive messages about) the outcome of their joint actions and draw their own conclusions. Many of the management audit systems, cost control, and variance reporting systems are part of the informational feedback mechanisms instituted within organizations so that individuals and the group can adapt through experience.
A. Douglas, Industrial Peace-Keeping. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
J. Carlisle and M. Leary, “Negotiation groups,” in Groups at Work, R. Payne and C. L. Cooper, Eds. New York: Wiley, 1981, pp. 165-188.
References
- Fisher, B. Aubrey. (1970). Decision emergence: Phases in group decision making. Speech Monographs, 37, 53-66.
- Hare, P. (2003). Roles, relationships, and groups in organizations: Some conclusions and recommendations. Small Group Research, 34 (2), 123-154.
- Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1 (1), 5-41.
- McGrath, J. E. (1991). Time, interaction, and performance (tip): A theory of groups. Small Group Research, 22 (2), 147-174.
- Poole, Marshall Scott. (1981). Decision development in small groupsI: A comparison of two models. Communication Monographs, 48, 1-24;
- Poole, M. S. (1983). Decision development in small groups II: A study of mutiple sequences in decision making. Communication Monographs, 50, 206-232
- Poole, M. S. (1983). Decision development in small groups III: A multiple sequence model of group decision development. Communication Monographs, 50, 321-341
- Poole, M. S., & Roth, Jonelle. (1989). Decision development in small groups V: Test of a contigency model. Human Communication Research, 15, 549-589.
- Poole, M. S., & Holmes, M. E. (1995) Decision development in computer-assisted group decision making. Human Communication Research; 22(1) p. 90 -127
- Tubbs, Stewart. (1995). A systems approach to small group interaction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.
- Tuckman, Bruce. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399.
