Group Dynamics
Coming into Group Dynamics this semester I thought it was going to be a class where I did a lot of group projects with a big project at the end of the semester. I honestly did not realize how much I would learn about the inner workings of groups and how many different types of groups there are. Four concepts that have stuck out the most so far for me during this class are the different forms of groups (centralized, decentralized, and decentralized with aggregation), coordination within groups, play, and emotions are contagious. Groups can take on different forms and in chapter four of the book Wisdom of Crowds it talks about different groups being centralized, decentralized, and decentralized with aggregation. If a group is centralized, this can cause frustration from the other people; for example with my current job at Campus Security, Chief will tell us to
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start doing something that goes against what all the student workers know, a specific example of this is when he tells us not to sign in the Board of Regent members, but everyone else needs to be signed in properly. If a group is decentralized, everyone is basically doing their own thing and not coordinating with one another, this I feel creates chaos. When I go into ministry I do not want to be a part of a church where everything is separate (children’s, middle school, high school, and adult). I like when different ages are working together and learning together; if there is one person in charge of high school and I am in charge of middle school I want to work with them and not be doing my own thing. I really prefer decentralization with aggregation because it allows for a diversity of ideas, but gives the ability for one thing to be decided; it helps eliminate the chaos of just decentralization. Coordination within a group is all about how a group flows. In chapter five of Wisdom of Crowds it gives different examples of coordination within groups of people and even birds. On page 101, James Surowiecki explains how a giant flock of starlings exhibit coordination. Starlings, while flying, “keep [their] shape and speed,” when a bird of prey flies into their formation the starlings scatter, but “quickly reassembles itself.” When thinking about coordination with people I think of people walking down the street, people are able to position themselves and walk without bumping into one another naturally; we can see the advancement of this phenomenon with people who are looking at their cell phones while walking and still seem to miss running into people, though this is not perfected by all because there are people who run into others, as well as, things like poles. Now thinking about coordination within an actual group, members of a group tend to work smoothly together when assigned different roles for a project, especially roles they excel at. With my group in this class, we each have different skills that allow us to do our best and we divide each project up based on these skill sets; Gabe is comfortable speaking in front of the class so we make sure to give him the main speaking roles for projects, as I am a detail oriented person so I format our documents and make sure we have all the information needed for a project. We each play our part to create the finished product. In my future career I feel coordination will be evident and if not hopefully I can share its importance to my future groups I will be working with. Coordination in ministry would help so much, like I said in the previous paragraph, I do not want to work in a church that has a huge separation between age groups, I would love for the whole church to be following the same curriculum in Sunday School in order to give families the opportunity to really talk to each other about the lessons they go over. In order for something like this to happen, the group of leaders, for each age group, need to be able to work together towards this common goal. Work, work, work, and no play does not sound like a good day. In elementary school, my favorite part of the day was recess; it was the time that I got out of the boring classroom and could exert all my energy. Incorporating play into a group allows for everything to not just be work and also helps get the brain thinking of fresh new ideas. When it is all work and no play I believe you and your group will get stuck in the same old routine of things and nothing new comes out of it. Play allows you to break up the routine and recharge your brain. I have seen with my group this semester that too much play can be a bad thing to where we have many ideas that are not related to the task at hand and it also makes it hard to get work done. My future career as a DCE, incorporating play in the work place will not be hard. I have seen with past DCE’s at my church where they will play pranks on the pastor or other office staff which makes for an amusing environment, but it does not hinder them from completing their daily tasks. My current job at Campus Security, our “play” is mainly just joking around with each other and talking about non-work related topics and many of us have become friends and hangout outside of work; this is what makes the job fun and inviting, it is this environment that makes me want to go to work, even at two o’clock in the morning! Emotional contagion is a concept I had never heard of until this class, but it makes complete sense.
Since reading this chapter in the book Social Intelligence, I have begun to see this concept in work in my life. I have noticed that when I am talking to someone who is in a bad mood and they are complaining to me, I am beginning to be in a bad mood as well, no matter how great of a mood I am in. There are also cases when emotional contagion can be good, which is when someone who is in a great mood can pull you out of your bad mood. With how contagious emotions can be can affect a group and how they work together. My group this semester is really relaxed and for me I am stressed and want to get work done so I do not have to feel as stressed, but going into meetings most of my stress goes away because of the atmosphere the majority of the members create. As a DCE, especially working with middle schoolers, I have to be sure not to get caught up in all their mixed emotions, instead I need to be the one influencing their emotions which I feel will be hard because at that age they have such strong
emotions. I cannot think of a job where you will not work in or with a group. Learning how groups work and members of a group work and influence each other would be beneficial for anyone. Just from the four concepts I talked about above, I can see how they work within my school groups now, my team at Campus Security, and am able to see how I can apply them to the future groups I will work in with my future job as a DCE.
start doing something that goes against what all the student workers know, a specific example of this is when he tells us not to sign in the Board of Regent members, but everyone else needs to be signed in properly. If a group is decentralized, everyone is basically doing their own thing and not coordinating with one another, this I feel creates chaos. When I go into ministry I do not want to be a part of a church where everything is separate (children’s, middle school, high school, and adult). I like when different ages are working together and learning together; if there is one person in charge of high school and I am in charge of middle school I want to work with them and not be doing my own thing. I really prefer decentralization with aggregation because it allows for a diversity of ideas, but gives the ability for one thing to be decided; it helps eliminate the chaos of just decentralization. Coordination within a group is all about how a group flows. In chapter five of Wisdom of Crowds it gives different examples of coordination within groups of people and even birds. On page 101, James Surowiecki explains how a giant flock of starlings exhibit coordination. Starlings, while flying, “keep [their] shape and speed,” when a bird of prey flies into their formation the starlings scatter, but “quickly reassembles itself.” When thinking about coordination with people I think of people walking down the street, people are able to position themselves and walk without bumping into one another naturally; we can see the advancement of this phenomenon with people who are looking at their cell phones while walking and still seem to miss running into people, though this is not perfected by all because there are people who run into others, as well as, things like poles. Now thinking about coordination within an actual group, members of a group tend to work smoothly together when assigned different roles for a project, especially roles they excel at. With my group in this class, we each have different skills that allow us to do our best and we divide each project up based on these skill sets; Gabe is comfortable speaking in front of the class so we make sure to give him the main speaking roles for projects, as I am a detail oriented person so I format our documents and make sure we have all the information needed for a project. We each play our part to create the finished product. In my future career I feel coordination will be evident and if not hopefully I can share its importance to my future groups I will be working with. Coordination in ministry would help so much, like I said in the previous paragraph, I do not want to work in a church that has a huge separation between age groups, I would love for the whole church to be following the same curriculum in Sunday School in order to give families the opportunity to really talk to each other about the lessons they go over. In order for something like this to happen, the group of leaders, for each age group, need to be able to work together towards this common goal. Work, work, work, and no play does not sound like a good day. In elementary school, my favorite part of the day was recess; it was the time that I got out of the boring classroom and could exert all my energy. Incorporating play into a group allows for everything to not just be work and also helps get the brain thinking of fresh new ideas. When it is all work and no play I believe you and your group will get stuck in the same old routine of things and nothing new comes out of it. Play allows you to break up the routine and recharge your brain. I have seen with my group this semester that too much play can be a bad thing to where we have many ideas that are not related to the task at hand and it also makes it hard to get work done. My future career as a DCE, incorporating play in the work place will not be hard. I have seen with past DCE’s at my church where they will play pranks on the pastor or other office staff which makes for an amusing environment, but it does not hinder them from completing their daily tasks. My current job at Campus Security, our “play” is mainly just joking around with each other and talking about non-work related topics and many of us have become friends and hangout outside of work; this is what makes the job fun and inviting, it is this environment that makes me want to go to work, even at two o’clock in the morning! Emotional contagion is a concept I had never heard of until this class, but it makes complete sense.
Since reading this chapter in the book Social Intelligence, I have begun to see this concept in work in my life. I have noticed that when I am talking to someone who is in a bad mood and they are complaining to me, I am beginning to be in a bad mood as well, no matter how great of a mood I am in. There are also cases when emotional contagion can be good, which is when someone who is in a great mood can pull you out of your bad mood. With how contagious emotions can be can affect a group and how they work together. My group this semester is really relaxed and for me I am stressed and want to get work done so I do not have to feel as stressed, but going into meetings most of my stress goes away because of the atmosphere the majority of the members create. As a DCE, especially working with middle schoolers, I have to be sure not to get caught up in all their mixed emotions, instead I need to be the one influencing their emotions which I feel will be hard because at that age they have such strong
emotions. I cannot think of a job where you will not work in or with a group. Learning how groups work and members of a group work and influence each other would be beneficial for anyone. Just from the four concepts I talked about above, I can see how they work within my school groups now, my team at Campus Security, and am able to see how I can apply them to the future groups I will work in with my future job as a DCE.