Group Communications Essay

Three videos of different assembly and team up interaction will be reviewed for this paper. After they arrive been viewed they will be discussed on matters of the relationship among assemblage parts, member conversion and communication style.The off commemorate case study to be reviewed is Helping Annie. In this video a school cling to has c every(prenominal)ed a meeting with a psychiatrist and a cordial role player to discuss the case of a High school student, Annie, who possibly suffers from depression and an eating disorder. advanced off the bat the school nurse is interrupted by the psychiatrist before she can wind up giving the backg rophy reading on Annie. He wants facts immediately non impressions. He makes a active decision as to her line and her treatment within minutes of their meeting and seems to believe that they are done, no more needs to be said.The Social worker does not agree with his decision and offers a restoration solution but is again interru pted by the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist wants to utilize medication and the Social workers wants to first talk to Annie and see if they can understand what the teenager is going through and through. The psychiatrist sees this as a good waste of time. There does not seem to be any real facilitator of these meeting, and no one points step forward the psychiatrists constant interruptions of the social worker but the social worker herself. The school nurse is totally intimidated into silence by both of their doingss.The psychologist seems to train the communication traits of what the test calls thinkers, and the Social worker has the traits of a feeler. harmonise to the text, Thinks are task-oriented. They take pride in their ability to think objectively and logically, careless(predicate) of if those thoughts are correct. (Reeve, 2007, Ch. 3, pg.69, para.2) Feelers are people-oriented. The psychologist is very direct and analytical. He seems to want to remove any feelings or human from Annies case while the social worker is taking a more subjective, humane flack to Annies problems and is obviously more concerned with the girls well-being than a quick fix.The diversity that exists in this group is both gender and classify. The group consist of devil women and one old(a) man, the older man, the psychiatrist,seems to believe that the social worker and school nurse are not in the same class as he, his age, experience and profession making him superior to them on all levels, therefore, their opinions are not tabulay considering. This diversity is a hindrance in their communication because the psychologist is not earreach to the two women and continues to interrupt them because he doesnt have much time here. If using a high context perspective the security guard could draw the conclusion that the psychologist does not agree with the social worker by watching his nonverbal behavior such as his gestures and facial expressions.In a high-context culture l ittle meaning is expressed through words. Meaning can be conveyed through status such as age, gender, education or title. (Reeve, 2007) single method that could have been apply to improve communications would have been to have a facilitator present to project that from each one party had the same amount of time to express his or her opinions. Another improvement would have been a change of setting from the informal setting to a more professional set line of battle that whitethorn have dish uped foster communication between all parties present, such as a round table or face to face seating.The second video reviewed is Planning the Playground. The group consists of three males and two females three Caucasians and two minorities. The video case opens with two new members, one a younger male, spear and one older woman, Betty, meeting the team for the first time. There seems to be two slightly unskilful moments when Ray first only offers to shake the hands of the men at the tabl e and when he has fear pronouncing the name of the minority female Iesha. The moment was defused quickly when Iesha decided to make a small conjuration well-nigh her name to ease the tension and held out her own hand in greeting. Betty seemed uncertain about speaking and said she only joined the team to make friends. Communications between the team started out stiff and slow but by using team talk, (the nature of the language that group members use as they work together.Not only does team talk enable group members to share information and express opinions, but analysis of team talk also reveals where the team is coming from and where the team is headed.) (Reeve, 2007, Ch. 5 pg. 124, Para. 2), team leader David kept the discussion flowing and moved it to the curtilage they were there. The role the diversity of the group played in their communication was the differentexperiences each had to bring to the discussion. Iesha obviously liked research and set numbers and offered not only a sound dollar amount to strive for but reason out behind it. Ray countered that he thinks the amount should be higher but offered no real reason as did Phil who wanted the amount lower. After deciding to compromise they moved to fundraising. The immediate response to Bettys suggestion of having a Bake sale was obvious. They did not take her input seriously at all but again the team leader chimed in before their dismissive attitude could be considered uncivil and insulting. Diversity was also not a strong hindrance to the group even though the potential drop was there.Conflict management techniques were used by the group by expressing interest in solving the problem and keeping their tone and language non-threatening, using phrases like well, yes but lets look at it from a different angle or thats a good idea but may not be exactly what we need now.The use of team speak was a very sound communication tool that kept the team focused and on track. Another important tool that was us ed was nonverbal. The seating arrangement at the table permitted members to have their personal space but still be able to have direct eye contact. According to Reeve, each persons choice of seating position in groups has a direct effect on interaction and influence. A number of studies have demonstrated that group members prefercorner-to-corner or side-by-side seating for cooperative activities. Such an arrangement allows them to be close complete to share materials. (Reeve, 2007, CH. 5 pg. 138, Para 1) The team in this case study did show good communication skills on the whole but the one improvement would have been to ensure that before the meeting took place, that each member understood what the reason for the meeting was.The last video reviewed is Virtual Communication. This video is a introduction of three people meeting as a team via conference call. The third unseen member is not listening to what is being said by the manager or his coworker. This is obvious because when th ey ask him a question he pauses or stutters, then repeats something that neither of the other participants actually said. Listening is important in any group so that you can be sure to get all the available information as well as know exactly what isexpected of you. This is even more so in the virtual business work when team members are not actually sitting face to face. Charlie is neither listening to what is being said or to the messages that were contained in Ellens netmail or voice mails to him. According to the text, Effective listening in virtual groups requires adapting to a different medium of expression Your only adaptation is making sure that your microphone is on or off at appropriate times. In an email discussion, however, you can neither see nor hear participants, but you still must listen to their messages. (Reeve, 2007, Ch.6, Pg,.168)The disadvantage of group meetings using a virtual medium is that you can fake listening by answering I agree or a non-committal sound . You can also pretend you didnt hear something that you dont want to address as Ellen does in this video when Charlie tries to place the blame on her.Charlie did not effectively use any of his listening skills while on this call. It was apparent by his distracted non-answers that he was not listening. The entire fault is not necessarily Charlies it is not known if he ever fully understood what was expected of him from the first meeting. If he had at any time used one listening skill such as paraphrasing he might have had enough clarification to get his grant done in time.Paraphrasing is a form of feedback that one lets the speaker know you are listening and gives them the fortune to clarify their statement. Paraphrasing can be used for multiple purposes such as To ensure comprehension before evaluation to reassure others that you want to understand them to clear up confusion and ask for clarification and to help others reach their own conclusions. (Reeve, 2007)ReferencesEnglebe rg, I. Wynn,D. 2007. Working in Groups Communication Principles and Strategies (4th ed.) Allyn & Bacon Publishers.The Collaboration Tool Box. 2002-2003. MIT. Online resource. Retreived online January 12, 2009 from http//web.mit.e