Group Cohesion

Group Dynamics From the inception of the group at the beginning of the group work engagements, the team had little idea about the personalities of the members of the group, there was a lose relationship that was purely based on the issues to be discussed or the research to be conducted and each person went his way after that. This changed with time as the group members got more and more acquainted with each others' personality and there was more understanding that grew among the group members.

This meant that the group members did not just talk about the real academic issue in the meetings but there was opening and closing issues and comments that had nothing to do with the matter being discussed. In the process, there grew several contentious sections of disagreements, discontent as well as too much unanimity on an issue that made it uncomfortable for the group members to carry on before such were looked into. Decisions could be delayed and direction of the assignments derailed during such times.

However, after the team learnt to tolerate the digressions and distractions, there grew a quick way of fixing problems and overcoming obstacles and the group reached a point, I can say it matured and was beyond distractions that were unnecessary.

The roles that exist within the group can be characterized as formal roles since they revolve around the assignments that are give out by the different lecturers, members congregate and divide these tasks among themselves and ensure that the target deadline is met effectively and through the various roles that different group members have taken up, the work progresses on well. The roles came about in the process of group development stages as the group was maturing. This was experienced particularly at the norming phase (Chattillon R., 2013).

At this stage the team members started to respect the authority of the team leader and others began showing leadership in specific areas of group activity hence roles were assigned according to the portrayed ability. At this stage, the team members had known each other better and were socializing capable of asking each other for help and providing constructive criticism. The team had also developed a stronger commitment to the team goal and good progress could be seen as the tasks became easily distributed.

The group has more of norms rather than rules and these are to ensure the priority of the group is cater for in time and the assigned duties done to the level best. When a member fails to give his maximum contribution and makes the entire team lag behind schedule or miss the target, he will be reprimanded in the group meeting and requested to try better next time, this is done in a friendly manner to give the individual encouragement to keep going.

There are personal characteristics that actually derail the group process and the most significant one is the habit of dominating or the dominator challenge. These are the people who feel they must have the last word in everything and their word is binding. Such traits suppressed the dialogue in the team and the contribution of others. Apparently this is also where this group seems different from other groups I have been in, since the way they solve their challenges is unique.

To address enactment of problematic roles of the dominator the group resolved to respect others' skills and knowledge, develop trust between members, develop a commitment to the common goal of collaboration with the aim of accomplishing.