(A group picture of my colleagues at our BBQ. some have already left the company)A group is a collection of individuals who, as a result of interacting with one another over time, become interdependent, developing shared patterns of behavior, and a collective identity. Most of the time, people form groups to meet interpersonal needs. According to William Schutz (psychologist), we have 3 interpersonal needs - the need for inclusion (to establish identity by associating with others), need for control (to prove one's worth by making effective decisions), and need for affection (to develop close, caring relationships with others). Cohesive groups also provide support and commitment, making individuals feel encouraged when faced with complicated tasks.
Most importantly, groupwork enables group synergy to occur, whereby every member in the group is encouraged to do their best to complete the task. Personally, I feel group synergy is especially critical in work groups. I would like share my part time working experience to help illustrate this point. Currently, I am working as a part time service crew at a well-established café, with about 29 branches in Singapore. The particular branch that I am working at is located in the Central Business District area, meaning that our customer pool is mainly the working adults. Besides that, our branch is one of the few 2-storey outlet, with a cosy bean bag seating ambience on the 2nd level. Heres a few pictures of my workplace:
(Level 1)
(Level 2)
As our outlet is a double-storey shophouse, effective communication is important to ensure that we are able to run our daily operations smoothly. Besides that, our kitchen is located on the first level only, meaning that someone has to be always sending the food to the second level once it is ready. On the contrary, drinks are prepared on each individual level on the spot. In my work group, everybody plays a different yet important role. Due to limited pictures available, I will just touch on a few prominent roles to give you all a gist of what I am trying to illustrate.
(Picture drawn by a fellow colleague, Goh) 
(From L to R: Miss M.F, me, Miss E., Mr J., Mr M., Miss F) Quite evidently, my managers (Miss E & Miss F) take on the role of Standard Setters. A standard setter is a person who express maintenance standard and applies standards to group process. Miss E. always ensures that the services we provide is up to standard, and the food and beverages that we serve are of high quality.
Mr J., a fellow part-timer, takes on the role of an Encourager, encouraging all of us to cheer up and persevere whenever we encounter difficult customers and have to find proper solutions to satisfy them.
Mr M., on the other hand, acts as a Gate-Keeper, always very open to new ideas on ways to improve our service quality and the way we interact with customers.
Our Harmoniser, would definitely be Miss M.F, a very bubbly lady with no tempers at all. Her friendly disposition makes everyone feel happy even though there may be disagreements. With a positive and enthusiastic mind, she is able to relieve tensions and mediate disagreements. For example, an angry customer may be frustrated at having to wait for quite some time for his order. Miss M.F. would approach him and patiently explain to him (in her sing-song voice) the situation and not make the customer feel that we have forgotten his order. 
Most of the time, the remaining bulk of us take on the role as Observers, Followers, and Information Seekers. When encountering a difficult situation where we (part-timers) are not able to make a decision, we usually have to seek information from our managers who will then advise us on what to do. As Observers, we also play a very important role of observing our customers and offering feedback on how to deal with specific customers. Not forgetting, our Energizer, Mr E., who never fails to make funny faces and dance along our music just to make the atmosphere more lively and not make us feel so tensed up when handling large crowds of customers.
Most of the time, the remaining bulk of us take on the role as Observers, Followers, and Information Seekers. When encountering a difficult situation where we (part-timers) are not able to make a decision, we usually have to seek information from our managers who will then advise us on what to do. As Observers, we also play a very important role of observing our customers and offering feedback on how to deal with specific customers. Not forgetting, our Energizer, Mr E., who never fails to make funny faces and dance along our music just to make the atmosphere more lively and not make us feel so tensed up when handling large crowds of customers. As we all can see, communication is a need, especially when we are working together as a group. With efficient communication and increased interaction, we will be able to understand each teamplayer better, making work much easier and pleasant. Most of the time, we need the help of other people to accomplish a task. In this case, a service crew would need to be informed by the kitchen crew about the correct table number to serve the food to. Thus, it is essential for us to learn to work well in groups.
Lastly, I will just briefly mention about my wonderful and enriching group experience I had during secondary school. My CCA in secondary school was Guzheng (a type of Chinese musical instrument) Ensemble. As the whole ensemble only consists of one instrument, playing a piece of music requires great group cohesion and teamwork.
(Front Row: Chairperson, Vice Chairperson)In the ensemble, we had a Chairman, also known as a Coordinator in this case. She is always the one sitting at the front first position, cueing us on when to start playing the first note and when to pluck the last note. The rest of the team are mostly followers and observers, occasionally taking turns to contribute our opinions on how to improve. In our ensemble, our girls are a closely knit group as we have a small group size, making interaction with each other relatively easy and comfortable. Besides that, we are very interdependent on each other because if someone is a beat slower or faster, the whole piece of music will be ruined.
In order to stimulate bonding, we often organize practices and gatherings together after school. Furthermore, as we are all from the same cohort, communication is unproblematic as we get to see each other quite frequently. When preparing for competitions, our teacher-in-charge, and fellow schoolmates from the Military Band steps in to act as Evaluators/Critics to evaluate our group performance and identify areas of improvement. Needless to say, every single member in the ensemble acts as precious acts Contributors because with one member less, the music piece may not be as perfect as before. With a common goal and a common passion for music, our ensemble was able to work towards achieving group synergy. As a result, we managed to clinch a Gold Medal for the Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging Competition! CHEERS!
(SYF 2003, Gold Medal) Having written so much, do you think group communication is important? Or do you prefer to live in isolation? Do share your opinions and Comment!
14 comments:
Well written! =)
I feel that communication is vital in our daily lives. we need it to inform, instruct, and understand each other.
sometimes it's better to live in isolation. in that way, i won't have to be responsible for what i say, and worry about how others think of me. we all need a break at times. however, human are communcative creatures and it is hard to isolate from people.
i encounter group communication frequently in school, espcially in film productions where effective communication is particularly important! director, producer, camera-person, sound and lighting operator, and the post-production team needs to work as a group and communicate ideas to each other to ensure a smooth filming process. the film will not be completed if there's no teamwork. arguments and miscommunication are unavoidable, but we can prevent it by communicating as a group. hence, group communication is essential to me even though i enjoy isolation at times.
thanks to the advancement of technology, if not i won't be able to read your interesing posts~! =)
I too agree that communication is crucial in our daily life whether is it a project or in an organization.
Even if the person prefers to live in isolation, a person who works alone will never be able to do a better job than these that are working as a group no matter how talented he or she is.
To do so, people have to develop bonding among each other for better understanding where the people need to have each other playing a different role working towards a common vision with commitment.
very forced examples..
hi Regina,
Group communication definately plays a vital role in our life. No man is an island and everyone have their needs to be met.
It will be good if everyone of us are able to adjust ourselves in the roles we play in different groups at different circumstances!
Hi,
my opinion differ greatly from the 3rd comment made by "anonymous". i feel that the examples given were actually daily, real life examples that many of us can relate to. besides that, i believe that the writer is given the liberty to choose what she wants to write and how she relates her learning to her daily experiences. not many of us are actually able to identify the different roles that we play in a group. for example, sometimes i feel like i am the initiator, yet sometimes i feel like i am the follower. the examples given are actually what she has experienced herself. forced or not, it is not up to you to decide, because at least she succeed in linking what she've learnt in her day-to-day experiences. on the overall, i feel that this is a good post, which not only exposes us to the importance of different roles in a group, it also allows us to get to know a bit about the writer.
its true that we cannot run away from group communication. even if we are the boss of a certain company, there is still a need to communicate with the people who are working under us. i think the examples given are very clear and it also helps me to identify the roles i play. for me, i feel that we have to play different roles in different situations depending on what the goal is. for example, if i were appointed to be the leader of a group, naturally, i would take on the role of an initiator to help start the ball rolling. but if i am working in a company where i am just one of the many staff, i may choose to be just a follower and just listen to instructions. personally, i feel that the harmonizer and encourager are the most important roles in a group. encourager helps to bond the group and motivate the group to move on when faced with setbacks. on the other hand, the harmonizer seeks to resolve conflicts. this is very very important because we do not want to have tension in a group. thus, it is indeed beneficial for us to know the different roles that we all play in order to make full use and maximise our efficiency,
indeed, we all cannot live in isolation. group communication is important not only in our school life but also in our daily lives. we should never live in isolation, and instead we should try to find ways and means to communicate with others because we never know when we will need their help.
i feel that nonverbal communication is the most impt aspect in grp communication because not everyone in a group is very vocal and some of them may feel shy/awkward to speak up. thus, a person's body language and facial expression tells a lot about what he or she is trying to say. more importantly, i feel that nonverbal comm is an aspect where many of us often neglect. this often leads to group think and may even cause tensions to arise in a group.
of course group communication is important! no man is an island. That is also the reason why when God created Adam, he also created Eve - because he saw that Adam needed a companion, someone to talk to and share his life with.
We all need to communicate. The only difference is how we communicate. Some people are blunt and direct while some people are sensitive and full of empathy.
Communication is 1 of the most vital tools and a skill that not many has mastered. Can you imagine living in a world with no communication? Everything will be so cold. If we were meant to live in isolation then God would have made us machines and not human beings..
we definitely shouldnt be living in isolation! group communication is so important that some of us find it difficult to communicate in a group as compared to communicating with just a single person. in a group, we have to take into consideration the feelings of many other listeners, as well as be open enough to their opinions and criticisms. we ought to be flexible enough to take on different roles in different groups as mentioned by the writer. for me, isolation is definitely a no.
i think the role of the initiator in a group is the most important one because he/she is the one who starts the ball rolling in every situation. if everyone was reluctant to make the first move or initiate new ideas, the group may stagnate and not improve. of course, everyone in the group plays a substantially important role. but i feel the at every different stage, every member is able to exhibit his/her importance. for example, when a conflict arises, that is where the harmonizer comes into play. a great break down of all the different roles in a group and use of real life examples to illustrate!
group communication is also important in ensuring efficiency and getting the best possible solution. like mentioned in the blog post, we get to achieve group synergy in a group which is defnitely crucial in creating the best outcomes or solutions. working alone also has its own benefits, but i guess it is also dependent on the scenario. if a situation requires one person to make a decision, it would not be very wise to seek the opinions of many people to avoid conflict.
most of us here admit that group communication in important and essential. i too, agree with this point. not only are we able to achieve group synergy, in a group, we also get support and assurance from our other group members. when we work alone, we may sometimes feel insecure and not confident. working in groups provide us with the support that only group members can provide. thus, i agree that we should not isolate!
wow. the adam and eve example is definitely something that has never come acrossed my mind. similarly, i feel that no one can live alone because we need to have a channel where we can express our own thoughts, opinions and feelings. communication can take place in many forms, mainly verbal and nonverbal. we talk to people to satisfy our need to talk. at times when we cant say things out, we write or blog about it so that other people can read and get to know about how we are feeling. this is also a form of communication.
Post a Comment