When I tried to create the startup with my friends, the group dynamics within our group was quite weak. We were maximalists and majority of us accounted ourselves as the most brightest and advanced members of the group. Almost everyone from us wanted to be the leader of the group. The leader of our group was constantly changing and this resulted in loose of direction, constantly changing priorities and blocking. There were a lot of jokers (people, who introduce humor in unappropirate ways) and aggressors (people, who often disagrees with others) (Mind Tools Editorial Team, 2015). So it was not surprise that at the first our project we didn’t have success, although all of us were talented and hard-working.
We was too nervous to speak with each other directly, so we used different Internet resources (Google Drive, email, messengers) to communicate. Some of us were jealous about their ideas and didn’t share with them. So not all members of the group knew all available information. Group’s ideas generating was not appropriate, because it was not productive and efficient. Every member defenced own ideas though the correctness of the idea itself. The main motivation was not the startup development, but the self esteem of group members.
Later, one more specialist joined our group. Tim was not so quick-witted and talented. However, he was very communicative and friendly. Moreover, he had well organizational skills. At the beginning we thought that he is the worst member of our group, however, we underestimated him. When Tim came, he persuaded us to gather together and disscuss, why our first project failed. He prevented us arguing and asked us to present our opinions one by one. Tim wrote all listened to the blackboard and we collectively summarized the previous experience and understood that the problem was not in our expertise or skills, it was in the lack of communications between us.
Tim was wise person, and he noticed the tenderness and some aggression between group members. So in order to bring all of us together, he was always convincing us, that now we are not separate individuals, we are team, who create something interesting and nice. He cultivated mutual respect in the group by presenting every member results in the special planning meeting in the beginning of the week. The ice began to melt and the degree of tenderness noticeably decreased.
Appearance of Tim solved the problem of volatile leadership in our group. We all know that Tim was not the best specialist in the group, however, we all appreciated his organizational skills. So he became the leader of the group, who directed group’s activities and occupied with planning and customer negotiations. The startup productivity and quality increased, and it was naturally determined result. The collective team intelligence can noticeably exceed all its members’ contributions, while in case of dysfunctional team, the collective IQ may be visibly lower than the lease of the individual’s scoring (Mehta B., 2013).
The project grew, both organizational as well as pure technical overhead increased. More members joined the team. But I would like to write about Laura, who was very accurate and rigorous. She noticed that accumulated knowledge of our group was scattered to a lot of places: hard notes of specialists, different Word and Notepad++ files, stored locally in the specialist’s computers. Also more and more time was needed in order to bring novices up to date, since all of specialists was always busy and had not enough time to explain thoroughly known materials.
Laura convinced us that it is necessary to have information warehouse for needed data. We all delivered new knowledge to her, and she thoroughly put it into our knowledge database. Moreover, she wrote down instructions for novices, which contained all the main information about projects and this results in their quicker injection to the group activities. Laura was a note taker (scribe), who documented every meeting, what is an important issue in productive team development. A note taker helps to team get up to date with past notes, so almost no time is spent remembering last meeting details. By documenting and distributing notes from every meeting, all team members were equally informed (Wikibooks, 2015).
Norms represent the accepted standards of behavior, shared by members of group. They are usually created to help group survival and avoid improper situations (Chand S., 2015). Our group was not a exception, we also created own norms and group standards. The main rule was doing work with appropriate quality and in time. Other rules were not so obvious, but they were also important. These rules include mutual respect of all group members, mutual help and support to each other. We didn’t have too much rules and weren’t bureaucratic.
Proxemics is a term which describes measurable distances between interacted people. Proxemics describes personal space, which can be understood as the “area with invisible boundaries surrounding an individual’s body” (Glicken, 2015). In our group we supported good relations, so the personal space needed to person was not great. When we discussed important issues we set around ellipse table and collectively thought about deals and problems.
There was a rule in our team, that if person doesn’t know how to do the task, he or she should not spend too much time trying to do this, he or she should ask other’s team members’ help. This rule noticeably increased the productivity of the work, because team mate instead of dashing against the rock quickly and effectively resolves problems with the help of more experienced and skilled member.
If during corresponding and chatting we couldn’t come to decision because of disputes, then we all got together to conference room and discussed the problem. This approach is much more effective, than endless chat or bunches of letters. Also in the meeting all people more quickly became involved into the problem decision, for them it was more complex to be disturbed by other things.
Generally, the algorithm of the problem solving for complex situations was following. Firstly, we defined the problem, by considering three elements: current situation, desired situation (what we want to achieve, or goal) and actions (what we should do in order to achieve the aim). At this stage we collected all the information about problem without provision of any solution. At the end of this stage we could summarize the problem and create problem statement in one sentence. After that we analyzed the problem in order to find out its causes and consequences in case if when don’t do anything to resolve it. Then we did some brainstorming, when all who had any ideas could present them. At the next stage all the solutions were considered in more detail and evaluated. Sometimes not only one solution was applied, but the combination of the two suggestions was the best choice. After that, we defined the executors of the solution.
Also it is important to take notes of the decision of meeting, where all the member should subscribe in order to approve their agreement with the solution. This will help to remember later the solution in details, as well as will be evidence in case of any future discords. However, it is always important to note, that the aim is not too many papers about anything, the aim is performing effectively and with high quality. Overhed bureaucratics is also deleterious, because, people occupied by papers too much, forget about the main objectives and spend too much time to unneeded actions.
In conclusion, the team coherence and well organized functioning is the key factor of success. In this paper I presented some experience from my life about group dynamics. The role of leader is important. In any group should be leader, who coordinate the member’s work or inspire them.
References
Mind Tools Editorial Team. (2015). Improving Group Dynamics. Retrieved from: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/improving-group-dynamics.htm
Mehta Bella. (2013). Understanding group dynamics and leadership. Retrived from: https://www.i-l-m.com/Insight/Edge/2013/May/understanding-group-dynamics-and-leadership
Wikibooks. (2015). Managing Groups and Teams/Group Dynamics. Retrived from: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Managing_Groups_and_Teams/Group_Dynamics
Chand Smriti. (2015). Group Dynamics: it’s characteristics, stages, types and other Details. Retrieved from: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/management/group-dynamics-its-characteristics-stages-types-and-other-details-management/5363/
Glicken. (2015). Understanding Group Dynamics and Systems. Retrived from: http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/27380_Chapter3.pdf
