Group Communication Essay

In my opinion, group work is a type of cooperative learning that helps people to accomplish a certain task in a faster and more effective manner. Team working also helps to achieve the tasks that are impossible to finish by one individual. However, if people in a group have a lot of conflicts, group work will not be able to achieve as much as we expected. There are many reasons which lead to dissatisfaction in group work such as individualism as well as conflicts in opinion and time. Initially, I had a negative view on group working because of the challenges that I had. When I was in high school, my five other friends and I used to work together in a music competition. Although we were supposed to get together to practice for the event, we were only able to meet up once a week. In addition to having a hard time with time scheduling, we often did not have a consensus of opinion. Whenever we had a discussion, we usually ended up with no results. So it always took a long time for us to make a decision. Consequently, the performance did not turn out as well as we expected. Because of this initial failure, I thought group work was time consuming and ineffective. However, I have changed my opinion lately because of the successful results in some of my laboratory classes. In each laboratory assignment, it is nearly impossible to work by myself because there are a lot of steps and each step needs to be very precise and accurate. Therefore, a group of two or three students will work more effectively compared to an individual because they can help to remind each other and finish the assignment faster. Based on those experiences, one more time I give myself a chance to work in a group and figured out how work effectively. Finally, thank to the Small group communication class, I found out that group work can become very productive if all the members in the group cooperate and follow the principles of small group communication. In this paper, I want to talk about my recent success in my current group regarding the effectiveness of our group communication as well as my communication competence during the last four months of working together. First, I want to discuss about how we follow the principles of small group communication. Fortunately, our group usually does not have a lot of conflicts because our opinions often support each others’. While other groups need thirty minutes to make a decision, our group can make it in half of that time. I think it is one of our group biggest strength. Besides, we always favor majority viewpoints, but we also listen and analyze the idea which is different from others. For example, when we were working together in the winter survival exercise, most of the members agreed that compass is the second importance. However, Phong thought that in a heavy snow, compass was useless. After discussion, we decided to make it the sixth importance. Thanks to Phong’s opinion, we lost fewer points because compass turned out to be the most useless one. Phong is an expert with cold weather because he used to visit his friend in Alaska where the temperature usually drops under zero degrees Fahrenheit. Phong is also the most quiet group member. He only shares his opinions in the topic which he is expert of. The others group members can be considered as verbal group members because they always contribute their ideas and experiences to all discussions in the group. Regarding leadership, we only have one leader throughout because we want the leader to get used to her role. Thus, she and the group can work more effectively. Finally, I have to admit that our group is not a creative group, but we have one member who is such a creative person. Again, in the winter survival activity, I thought the old newspapers were totally useless, but Lan came up with a creative idea that it could be used to keep warm. She said she often see people who are homeless use old news papers as their blankets. At last, it turned out that the newspaper worked even better than clothes. Because of following well those principles, our group has gradually worked more effectively. Secondly, I want to mention our group climate. In my opinion, our group has a supportive climate. Each member is willing to help other members in the group to complete their tasks. Our group favors description compared to evaluation. Instead of criticizing others’ behaviors and ideas, we often tell our feelings about problems. All the group members always encourage each other to share their opinions and feelings with the group. Even though some opinions are too conflicting, the main purpose is trying to give all the members equal opportunities to talk about their ideas. Thus, the success of the group is the consequence from the equal contributions of all the members. Besides, in most of the discussions of our group, we are oriented toward problem solving; therefore, we look for the consensus of the ideas in order to solve the problems effectively and quickly. Because our group has many members who have senses of humor, we always maintain an interesting and comfortable atmosphere to gain assertiveness in the group. Sometimes, Ngoc and Phong share their experiences of how they solve their families’ problems. Through perceiving more deeply about each member’s own life, we have gradually gotten closer together; therefore, we are always honest and open to each other. Also, we do not criticize when a group member cannot finish his or her task as expected because there are always personal issues out of the class. In addition to empathy, I think that provisionalism is one of the factors that helps the group to do well. In life, there is nothing certain, so we do not expect everything to be absolutely perfect. We only try our best and hope for a deserved result. To sum up, with a supportive climate, our group can take advantage of group work regardless of difficulties that people usually have when working in a group. Also, our group does not have a difficult group member because we are cooperative and responsible for our tasks. Moreover, all the members are always willing to cover the missing roles to get the work done. I think that the supportive climate in our group really helps us to work better. In addition to the success of the group communication, I think that my communication competence is one of the most important factors. In most of the Vietnamese family, parents often attempt to have their children follow some particular rules especially being polite and respecting elders. Because I am not an exception from those Vietnamese children, I always follow those rules whenever I communicate to others in the family and in the society as well. For example, when I work in my present group whose members are different ages, I usually listen to the opinions of the older members before sharing mine. I feel that they have more experiences than I do about life. Also, I truly respect others ideas even though sometimes they are really opposed to mine such as the idea about the importance of the rope in the moon survival. I thought the rope was useless but it was thought to be the most important tool which was used to connect people together by another member. I thought it was actually reasonable in some way. Another rule in my communication is that I try to keep myself from being different. Therefore, if my opinion is opposed to the others, I hardly argue with them because I think it is best to keep a friendly and peaceful environment in a group. Accordingly, my present group always has less conflict. Thus, I think that the way I work and communicate in the group also helps the group to perform better. In the last part of his paper, I want to mention the roles and leadership in our group. Each member in the group has their own roles and tasks. First, Trang, our leader, is an energizer and a tension reliever. She loves to joke around her group members. In addition, she always gives funny ideas to make other members laugh and relieve tension. Next, Lan is a summarizer and a process observer who often listens to the ideas of all the members in her group. Then, she collects information and summarizes the group’s opinions. Besides, She usually laughs and makes jokes which helps to release the tense atmosphere in the group. Ngoc is an information and opinion giver and a communication facilitator who often shares her ideas and speaks clearly to help other members in the group easily understand her. Also, when an idea of a group member sounds too complicated and confusing, she is the one who makes it simpler to understand. I am also an information and opinion giver and an encourager of participation. I love to give my opinions of the group activities. Also, I often ask questions to have other members participate in the group. Finally, Phong and Chau are information and opinion seekers. While Phong researches information online, Chau often represents our group to communicate with other groups for more information and ideas. Lan and Trang are considered themselves as clowns because they are the funniest members in our group. Every one of us kept laughing with their interesting ideas. Because all the members have specific tasks to focus on, whenever the group is assigned, each member tries their best to accomplish their tasks; therefore, this increases cohesiveness in the group. Working this way, we ask for the responsibilities of each member in the group. Therefore, we always encourage and help each other to do things better. Finally, I want to mention the leadership role in our group. Initially, Lan was assigned to be our leader in the ball tossing activity. However, Trang emerged as a leader in the winter survival activity. She always encourages the group members to work harder, and she gives interesting and funny opinions to relieve our tension. At the end, she is the one who summarizes the group opinion and makes the final decision. We as a group think that Trang is a democratic model with participating style. When the group members are willing to share their ideas, Trang becomes a listener. She respects the others’ ideas, and her decisions always fit most of the members. Therefore, with a good leader and a specific role for each member, all the assignments have become easier when we work together. Through four months working together, I finally realized that if we all cooperate and follow the principles of small group communication, group work will be an excellent approach to solve any problem. I have experienced and learned many things from my present group. At the beginning, I was considered as a quiet group member because I rarely shared my ideas with others. However, there were some cases that my ideas might have helped if I had shared. I kept thinking about it and I had been trying to communicate more often; and eventually, I am the one who gives most of the ideas to the group. Also, I have learned that we need to be responsible for our tasks. If a person in the group does not finish his or her task, it will affect everyone in the group and the initial task cannot be accomplished. If I have a chance to work in a group in the future, I will try to follow all the factors that help my current group to perform really well.