Lesson 6: Group Communication Analysis

In Lesson 6, we learned that the characteristics of individuals in groups affect communication in many ways, and in turn that communication affects the ways in which a group develops. Working in a restaurant for almost 12 years, I’ve seen the work environment change many times, while each of the members seemed to act in a certain way, those unique characteristics affected the way others interacted with them. Each individual’s characteristics created a positive or a negative work atmosphere, and ultimately either made, or broke the group.

When I began working at the restaurant, there were usually only 5 servers on the payroll. Upon my departure, there were at least 9 servers, and I was the last original server. Although the list of servers grew, we usually tried to keep just the amount we needed, as every time we needed to add a new server, it seemed to be quite the experience trying to adjust to the new member. According to our textbook, a group should be as small as possible, so long as it has all the expertise and diverse points of view necessary to complete the task well (Galanes & Adams, pg 117, 2013). As the restaurant got busier and busier, we needed to accept new members into our group, and with each
There seemed to be some competition between the older servers and the younger ones. It seems as if groups who have a variety of characteristics have a more difficult time communicating effectively. The regular behaviors of the group members were fairly stable most days. Each day, the girls expected that some wouldn’t talk too much and keep to themselves, others talked too much and didn’t quite contribute enough, and on days when we witnessed someone acting opposite of their usual selves, it was incredibly