Group Formation and Development

Group Process

The healthcare field provides numerous opportunities and an imperative for continuous learning given its focus on inter-professional teamwork and collaboration. Collaboration and teamwork have become common in today’s healthcare settings given their contribution toward enhanced patient safety and outcomes (Epstein, 2014). Therefore, the modern healthcare setting is characterized by establishment of different work groups or teams with specific responsibilities and goals. One of the groups I’ve been involved in in the healthcare setting is a social care group in my current healthcare organization. Since this organization provides community healthcare services, it has established different work groups including a social care group. The group comprises of medical social workers whose goal is to work in collaboration with other healthcare providers and clinicians to provide patient and family-centered care. Some of the responsibilities of this group include providing grief counseling, crisis intervention, supportive counseling, child advocacy, and community resource networking for community members.
As a critical part of healthcare delivery processes in the organization, this social care group has experienced smooth progression in the different stages of group formation. During the forming stage, discussions were centered on identifying the scope of responsibilities given to the team by the management and how to approach these responsibilities. These discussions helped the group to progress to the storming stage in which members started gaining each other’s trust and the various tasks were shared based on individual competence, passion, and abilities. During this process, members of the social group started learning about each other’s working styles and differences in opinions and views. As tension and occasionally conflicts started to arise, the group progressed to norming where measures for handling the conflicts were developed (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). This helped in resolving intragroup conflicts, which in turn enhanced intimacy and realization that each member should take responsibility for the success of the team. I feel like the social care group is currently stuck in the norming stage because team members are beginning to accept and tolerate each other in attempts to prevent conflict.
My task or group-leading role that I typically play in this team is facilitating open communication between team members as part of developing beneficial relationships. Open communication among team members is crucial toward addressing intragroup conflict and enhancing group performance (Chun & Choi, 2014). However, there is need for more to be done since the group is still stuck in the norming stage and needs to progress to the performing stage. Based on what I have learned from this course and the learning resources, I can improve group participation, facilitation and functioning enhancing the leader’s participation in team activities and establishment of group norms and roles. This is a crucial step toward enhancing the focus of the group members in achieving common goals at high levels of performance. While group leaders enhance their involvement, each member should be given the liberty to make competent and autonomous decisions for the benefit of the entire team.
The overall leader of this social care group has played the problematic role of the Dominator, which has negatively impacted interactions between team members. The leader has always asserted his superiority over some members of the team and even manipulated them. I have tried addressing this problematic role through encouraging autonomous decision making by individual team members and giving them an opportunity to express their views and opinions. Team members have addressed the enactment of this role through expressing their concerns and discontent with the leader’s working and management style. Going forward, I will address the problematic role through acting as an encourager by accepting the input of others, as a gate-keeper by facilitating open communication, and as harmonizer by mediating emerging conflicts.
Reference
Chun, J. S., & Choi, J. N. (2014). Members' needs, intragroup conflict, and group performance. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(3), 437–450. doi:10.1037/a0036363
Epstein, N.E. (2014, August 28). Multidisciplinary in-hospital teams improve patient outcomes: A review. Surgical Neurology International, 5(7), S295-S303. doi: 10.4103/2152-7806.139612
Jehn, K.A. & Mannix, E.A. (2001). The Dynamic Nature of Conflict: A Longitudinal Study of Intragroup Conflict and Group Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2), 238-251.