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Lesson 1: Introduction and Understanding Group and Team Facilitation

The Evolution and Importance of Group Dynamics

Although our understanding and appreciation of groups has increased tremendously over the years, an obvious gap still exists between our understanding of teams/groups and our understanding of group dynamics. As you may know through your own experiences, being on a team or being part of a group does not automatically guarantee high performance. The group's team dynamics play a critical role in the performance of the group. In order to understand the concept of group dynamics, let's take a look at the how we came to appreciate the social science aspect of groups.

At the turn of the century, studies done by Norman Triplett (1898) led to the concept of social facilitation.

Social facilitation explains the notion that the presence or actions of individuals in a group facilitates (or increases) performance.

Early team-related studies in psychology continued to focus on the individual and how groups affected individual performance or attitudes. In this research, groups were not treated as entities appropriate for scientific study. This thought process changed with the introduction of research done by Kurt Lewin (1951).

Kurt Lewin (1951) introduced the now long-standing term, group dynamics (the positive and negative forces within groups of people) to show interest in the group as a unit of study. Lewin's innovations and methods in this area of study anchor much of what we know today about organizational change and group dynamics. Lewin's studies led to the idea of action research.

Action research is an approach in which scientists develop theories about how groups operate and then apply this understanding to improve the operations of groups (Lewin, 1951, p. 169).

By the 1990s, research had moved from social psychology studies of small groups in laboratories published in psychology journals to studies of groups that were performed and published by other disciplines (Stewart, 2010).

Today, models of group-based research focus on the conditions that help groups manage their own processes rather than simply noting the cause–effect relationships of group dynamics. Instead of searching for the best approach to manage group behaviors, contemporary work in the field focuses on equifinality—an understanding that there are many ways for groups to operate successfully.

References

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York, NY: Harper.

Stewart, G. (2010). The past twenty years: Team research is alive and well at the Journal of Management. Journal of Management, 36(4), 801–805.

Triplett, N. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pace-making and competition. American Journal of Psychology, 9, 507–533.


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