Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 2

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Networking Strategies Vol. 2

Understanding Networking

    Networking is one of those general terms that may go misunderstood by individuals.  I believe it extends a little further than the definition of just “acquiring contacts”.  If we think of it in this way though, it is far better than thinking that it is something that it is not.  It has been important in my journey to grow my network that I think of the network as being “mutual contacts with purpose”.  I believe this definition could serve everyone better for several reasons.

    Understanding mutual contacts with purpose requires us to avoid mass-friending and following others on social media.  I believe that defining networking in this way gives us substance to what we are looking for when we refer to the purpose, as well as gives a mutually beneficial relationship with the contact by understanding that you cannot be networked with another without them also being networked with you.

Premature Pitching

    A problem that I have encountered enough to define it as a problem is the act of prematurely pitching your idea to a potential network connection.  This almost always fails in successfully securing another member of your larger team or network because, even if they were on your network, they may not vibe with your current idea.  It is important that we don’t go looking for network connections for professional or even personal use by trying to lure them in with a current pitch or idea.  This is exceptionally important from the entrepreneur’s point of view primarily because when you are salivating over an entrepreneurial idea, this is a natural tendency. 

    The network member relationship must mutually exist between two parties before any ideas, pitches, or opportunities can be presented.  This has been a showstopper for me.  I get all wound up about a recent idea that I have been building on, go to grow my network, cant stop thinking about network applications to this idea, and end up just delivering the idea to someone I am trying to add to my professional network.  Chances are the individual that I’m speaking to thinks that I’m a kook and likens me to a door-to-door amateur vacuum salesman or trying to sell him a life insurance policy via a cold call.

    It is important to deliver your interest in creating a network member relationship during that first conversation and avoid discussing business.  I would also argue that it takes some reinforcement of that relationship further before discussing profession business especially as it applies to entrepreneurial ventures or opportunities.  From the receiving point of a view, if you are trying to sell an entrepreneurial journey cold, the individual on the receiving end of this conversation would probably think that you are very desperate and if you indeed have a following that you have acquired through your methods, you are probably created a cult instead of an organization.

Network Member Relationship Theory

    I like this idea just because it so very well meshes with principles of leadership and team building.  The meat of this meal hovers around individual relationships with members of your network.  It is the difference between a cold call and a warm call from a salesman’s perspective.  This is a theory that describes the process of initially contact a potential future contact, gaining rapport by building a simple relationship, growing that relationship, and then having an integrated network-member that is more likely to actually hear any ideas that you have.  This is important in professional networks because you want as much honest feedback as you can get.  The better you develop relationships with members of your network, the more fine tuned your feedback machine is.

    The powerful application of this is that you can dial in exactly how much effort you plan on putting into various network members before you intend to ask for feedback on an idea or problem.  On giant platforms like LinkedIn, you may find that you must put a good deal of effort to build the relationship of your various connections before you are able to extract any honest feedback.  I have found that smaller forums and message boards of entrepreneurs and professionals usually are more willing to engage you on the short term just because of the common ground of being a part of a smaller community.  I have been capitalizing on this a lot and plan to do so much especially with the number of growing small community forums that exist.

Network Member Roles

    Having a network of contacts is an important part of developing professionally in the world.  We all communicate and exist in and through relationships.  Without doing this would make life a very lonely experience.  As we study building networks for professional purposes, we need to keep some attention on who our network members are and what roles do they fit for us.  When we dive deeper into the realm of building a very large multi-functional professional network, we are going to encounter many different types of contacts and network members.  It will be clear that some members may seem to be better at giving advice and consultation while others tend to be more available to give feedback.  You may find that some are interested in current projects that you are working on and are eager to learn about them.  Some may just be there for the drama, and some may be present to provide negativity or nothing at all.

    The key point in mentioning roles is that while we are focused in growing our network, we should be growing it in the direction that we want to use it.  Over the course of the past year I had read a couple books that mentioned networking, so I sought to network, and network I did.  I was so willing to have followers, network connections, and friends on Facebook and Instagram that I was literally connecting with anyone willing to click the accept button.  The point here is that many of the people who I connected with filled the role of nothing, ergo I never really created a network, rather I created a few internet accounts that had a high number of connections.

    The solution to my problem here was to identify a few roles of network members that I wanted to create and then actively look for network members that could specifically fill that role.  There is still a lot of filtering through people through various attempted connections and contacts, however, it becomes clear when you find someone that can provide at least one aspect of the things that you are looking for.

    It is important to not be too restrictive in this area.  Chances are if we are honest with ourselves and set out to connect only with those who could help push our current entrepreneurial venture forward, we would all end up with a very small list of connections.  I think diversity here is important.  We need to properly identify various areas that can be occupied by networking members.  I think it is important to create an email or contact list and list them individually by their potential roles to be served in your network.  I think that if you are properly developing a network member relationship then you could even discuss this with them, as well as ask them what roles that they are wanting you to fill as a member of their professional network.

    When thinking of specific roles, I like to broadly define many categories.  Mentors, mentees, those that provide consultation and advice, those that provide feedback, those that are able to help promote a venture, those that may be directly interested in helping a venture succeed, potential partners, other dreamers, general colleagues, and even unknown are all roles that I consider when I initially meet someone new.

Conclusion

    Even if we are going nowhere and doing nothing, I think it is obvious that human beings are social creatures.  Having a network of contacts is essential even in the dull activity of nothingness.  If we escalate this thought to the next level of having goals and working towards them, it becomes even more clear that networking is necessary.  Our success depends on the success of our ability to effectively network.  I think focusing on the effectiveness of network should precede focus towards an efficient system of networking.  I do not believe that we should do one and completely avoid the other, however, I believe that one should come before the other.

    I believe that once we are effective at building our network, we need to continue this into a more efficient vehicle for networking.  Efficiency in networking will be a topic of a future content submission.

Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

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Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

    It should be no secret that I am using this blog to catalogue my journey through business and entrepreneurship as well as being a leader.  I have currently tasked myself with growing my network of connections and contacts to create an environment conducive of easily reaching people that could help me along the journey. 

    One problem that I have ran into recently is the actual implementation of actively networking with others.  It is an easy idea to ponder but grows more difficult the more you think and the less you do.  It seems that I have found myself in a rut of complacency regarding where I am currently at with networking and due to this, I am experiencing some troubles growing my span of influence.  This exists on my personal blog as well as various social media platforms that I use.  I plan to actively shift this by implementing new strategies that I have researched and plan on discussing here.

    One of my end-game goals is to create an entrepreneurial network capable of supporting various ideas and ventures that I may want to pursue either currently or later in life.  In order to accomplish this, I need a pretty broad network of individuals across various fields with various specific and general interests that mesh with my own.  It goes without questioning that convincing people to network with you is a difficult task, as once you exhaust personal contacts the efforts grow rather cold.

The Limited-Platform Approach

    In the beginning, I began looking to network across many different platforms.  I distributed my time evenly across all these platforms, thereby restricting my success on all of them due to my time constraints.  I believe instead of being active on many platforms I should focus on just a few and integrate them with one another.  The downside to this is the potential to miss the big fish because I failed to cast the line into the water.  Unfortunately, I’m afraid that this is an acceptable risk due to the time constraints of not being able to monitor and manage accounts myself with consistency.  If the neglect of certain platforms to maintain others results in the missing of a big fish, then all other things aside, this approach may end up being less risky.

    My action in this is to throw away Instagram and any other platforms that I haven’t currently invested a good deal of time in developing.  I intend to keep what I would call my big three: Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  I also believe that it is necessary to keep my Google based platforms, as I am publishing this content on one of Google’s programs.  I believe that the time spent in developing the Facebook Group associated with this blog is enough to justify keeping it as well, if for nothing else, to reverberate content that I publish elsewhere.  I will suspend growing across other platforms for the immediate future and continue to develop these.

Experience with Blogging Circles and Their Exclusion

    In the past months I have become a part of many groups of bloggers promoting their blog.  These are excellent communities to join and they all provide such great tips and learning experience.  My biggest problem with these now is that they are all other bloggers wanting to publish content and have it recognized.  Inherently publishing content and operating a website is a very time-consuming thing.  When I run the math in my head, an active blog manager only has a limited number of hours left in their day.  This led me to the realization that if you intend to produce substantial results from content, you may have to look for horizons outside of others looking to attract people to join their purpose.

    This poses a challenging problem for an entrepreneur with a currently limited network with a low capacity to grow due to time constraints stretched across multiple platforms.  I believe the problem lies in direct relevant engagement and then confirmatory engagement.  Neither of these happen when you are a part of circles or groups searching for something of their own.  I am now going to actively practice limiting my participation in circles of other content creates and try to expand my network in the direction of those actually interested in the subjects that I intend to create a network from.

Defining a Member of My Network

    So far before I officially add a contact to my network, I have declared two requirements.  The first is that I have had a direct relevant engagement with that person.  This would mean that we had an exchange where the basis was topically related to a subject that I am interested in including in my professional network.  The two key factors are engagement and topically related.  The subject of interest must be present as well as enough interest from the other party to engage in discussion.  If these criteria are not present, as I often found, I had a one-sided conversation that resulted in boredom and frustration.  I made it a habit to try to achieve this relatively quickly or try to forecast whether that an engagement would be present.

    I believe once a direct relevant engagement has happened, you can tentatively include that person in your professional network.  I believe full inclusion depends on whether a follow-up engagement happens which proves that they were not just committing a nicety and were good conversationalists.

    Since I have defined these criteria for building my network, I have found that I have a lot of potential networking partners to re-evaluate and categorize.  I found that I had thought a lot of people were a part of my professional network related to my desire to become an entrepreneur, but were friends appeasing me for conversation. (Which are good to have, and I consider myself lucky to have them all!)

Conclusion and Key to Success

    I believe these and many other strategies and networking theories are the key to succeeding with delivering entrepreneurial visions to the world.   None of us is as strong as all of us.  In believing this I truly believe that teams, teamwork, and team building are key to succeeding in a lot of projects.  I believe that especially for entrepreneurs, the secret sauce here is in the quality of networks of people that are built and relied on.  It is for this reason that I will continuing publishing content and progress of my personal networking journey to outline the knowledge that I have gained and demonstrate to myself and others how I intend to apply it.

Organizational Change: Lewin's Model of Change

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Lewin’s Model of Change - Organizational Change in Leadership

    Change is a necessary occurrence for organizations to continually grow.  Change is very important in leadership because it is the leadership that drives the change.  A social psychologist named Kurt Lewin developed a model for change that I am particularly fond of.  I give credit to Lewin’s Model of Change in helping me grow in my own organization as well as helping me tackle problems and achieve goals as I have grown.  I still today think of how to apply Lewin’s Model of Change to situations in my organization and life that require change to happen.

    I intend to further elaborate on the stages of Lewin’s Model of Change at a future date, because so much can be said about the technique used to apply them.  I really enjoy breaking down his ideology of change because it is extremely applicable to situations where the change is required because of stagnation due to culture.

Overview of Lewin’s Model

     To summarize, Kurt Lewin proposed that change should encompass three steps.  A step of unfreezing, a step of actual changing, and then a step of re-freezing.  We can generally understand this by thinking about what it is that we need to change and what change is.  To need change that means we must have some established practices that seem to be the norm that are undesirable.  The norm may not even be undesirable, rather, we may want to do things differently to achieve a different result.  Often, we are met with much resistance.  The core of Lewin’s Model focuses on breaking this resistance.

    To successfully apply Lewin’s Model of Change, we must understand the series of events that need to happen for us to effectively change some normal practices within our organization.  First, we must identify what it is that we want to change, and then unlearn those norms.  After we have “un-frozen” the normal practices, we can then begin to introduce the new norms that we want.  Once we have introduced the new normal, it becomes our job to further normalize this, and freeze this into permanency.

My First Application - an Anecdote

    During what I would call one of the most important interviews of my life, I had the opportunity to sit in front of two of my mentors and try to convince them that I was the best candidate for a job.  During this time a very key questions in the interview came up, as my department and organization required someone to help drive change, as many changes were required to succeed in the coming years.  I did not yet know the terms or the direct strategy that Kurt Lewin proposed, however, I used the word “normalize” and it stuck with my interviewers.

    I believe that we intrinsically understand what Kurt Lewin lays out for us, and that we know that to drive change to a situation where there has been a reinforced culture of doing things, we must first un-learn the autonomous repetition, introduce the new material, and then set in place a program to establish the new material to become autonomous as the old pre-change material was. 

    My mentor held me to Lewin’s final step in his model for change and quoted me following my promotion.  He has said to me many times since then, “Normalize Josh, normalize.”  As I further study topics of organizational management and come across strategies such as these that I sought to apply in the past because of what seemed like common-sensical knowledge, I am really pleased that I have been given the chance to grow and apply what I have learned in life.

Step 1: Un-freezing

    This stage is the precursor to carrying out real change.  It is best to think of this like making frozen food malleable again via the thawing process.  There is no sense in trying to shape frozen hamburger, rather, first we thaw it out so that we can shape it how we like.  The same is true for teams in an organization.  If our team’s thoughts are fixed and they are autonomously carrying out procedures based on an old norm that we want to change, first we must prepare them for change.

    Lewin advises that we do this by visiting and re-visiting the need for change until the individuals itself recognize the usefulness of the change.  Allow the team to see why change is needed and allow them time to explore the why themselves.  To release a locked set of ideals and prepare that set of ideals for molding, we need to properly prepare our team as individuals for a coming change and allow them to perceive the need for it.

    Unlearning normalized behaviors take time and attention.  We as leaders need to stay attentive to the level of fluidity that our teams are exhibiting by staying present and available for communication.  Special attention is placed on the act of unlearning because we do not develop an autonomous sense of functionality overnight, and as such we cannot unlearn the autonomous behaviors that we may have been performing for years overnight either.  Sometimes the best tool to unlearn behaviors is to release fragments of the change early and allow a preview of what is to come.

    During this period of executing a change, we need to pay attention to those that will be resistant and focus some of our efforts.  Dig deep when trying to convince the most resistant team members and use all the tools available to you.  The most beneficial tools to have during this phase is undoubtedly positive relationships with rapport as well as the foundational influence that comes along with leadership.

    A lot of the reason why resistant team members will follow you into change that they do not particularly like or agree with is rooted in their trust in you as a leader.  Bring them on board early, explain the why, give examples, and listen to feedback.  The most damaging thing that a leader can do at this point is declare the change just because followed by shutting down any types of feedback or criticisms to the change.  Just because we listen to feedback and criticism doesn’t mean that we are going to change the organization’s game plan, however, it does result in a more widely accepted attempt at executing the change desired.

    A lot of time can be wrapped up in this phase of change.  It is impossible to tell exactly how long it will take to properly prepare an organization or team for any change, however, it is recommended that we set goals and push to stick to timelines.  There is nothing wrong with adjusting along the way so long as the adjustments aren’t ultimately detrimental to the end game.  This is supported by a large feedback loop that should extend from the floor to the upper management level where we use a channel to communicate positive and negative feedback regarding the preparedness for the coming change.

Step 2: The Change

    Once we have spent a good deal of time unlearning behaviors and preparing individuals for change the task is set to officiate the change.  This is the phase where we deliver the information and the procedures, as well as the new expectations and guidelines.  It will be evident here if we have rushed the change as there is no proverbial dog to eat your homework when things turn upside down, and believe me, during change things often turn upside down.

    The further things go astray, the more you will see resistance begin to pop up.  These patches of resistance will be strongest in those who were resistant from the beginning, but the goal here is to communicate expectations, accept all feedback and encourage others to work with you on discovering the various properties of change that was foreseen and unforeseen, and finally to give feedback yourself to superiors so that they are able to do their job in executing the change.

    Even in the most unfrozen of situations, it will seem evident that “we were just not ready for the change.”  This is kind of a fallacy to fluidity in organizations, and the larger the organization, the more apparent this fallacy.  This is typically a perception related to a type of cognitive dissonance, and this is exactly where my organization was when I suggested that we push forward to achieve a state of normalcy.  It is at this point where we see the true drivers of change as well as the ones who want to hop back on the bus to do things the old way.

    My organization has pushed through so much change in the past two years that it seems we have an “old way” to do everything, as a matter of fact, just about everything that we do has an “old way” that seniority will refer to from time to time, even though we are well into the re-freezing stage.

Step 3: Re-freezing

    The final step in Lewin’s Model of Change has to do with the very idea that I proposed during my interview.  So far, we have taken an autonomous function of an organization, prepared to change it, changed it, and now we are tasked with making the change the new autonomous function.  It is important that we recognize this step in executing the change and begin to move in order to successfully complete it.  It is important that we don’t stagnate during phase two, which is synonymous with just avoiding phase three, as then it will become normal to have a duality in autonomously carrying out organizational procedures, which can be more detrimental than avoiding the change in the first place.

    To re-freeze is to create a culture of normality in executing functions brought about by the change, and to then make these autonomous actions by all members of the team or organization.  This is done by time, reinforcement, feedback, and refining.  To re-establish culture is a tall task, and often we procrastinate by returning to the “old way” of functionality.  The drivers of change will be the ones constantly attentive to course correction and identifying problems and working towards finding solutions rather than avoidance.

    To jump start this part of the process, I suggest identifying some of the strongest influencers and allow them to be drivers of change with you.  Play to the strengths of some of your quick learners and invest some time in explaining some of the roots of the change in more detail.  Task these individuals with a clear goal of disseminating this information to others.  When looking for these associates, look for adaptable and influential team members that you have a strong relationship with.

    This is the step in Lewin’s Model of Change that we should get lost in and lose track of time.  Often you only realize that you have begun to make progress on this step once the progress is already made and you are reflecting on the past.  If you have succeeded in re-freezing after a change, you should be able to clearly identify some fruits of your change and can reinforce the re-freezing by interacting with team members of the organization.

The Take Away

    Every organization runs into stagnation and requires an execution of change.  How we approach this need to change will determine whether we are successful in achieving our goals that relate to the root cause of the change.  So many failures occur because of misguided approach.  We can avoid failure and bolster our odds for success by proper planning and using our leadership resources in the best possible ways.  Following Lewin’s Model of Change doesn’t guarantee that our change will occur without resistance, or that our change will be beneficial in the end, however, it does give us a road map to follow in order to roll out new organizational functions that we believe will benefit the organization in the end. 

    This model of change is the means for leadership to use in order to come to a concluding point in time where we can further assess its effectiveness.  As leaders, it is our obligation to best serve our organization and our team by bridging the two together and being a facilitator of change deemed necessary.  I believe by following structured systems that we can introduce and reinforce change for the betterment of our organization and our teams.

2 Key Questions a Leader Should Ask Themselves Before Leading

2 Key Questions a Leader Should Ask Themselves Before Leading

    Sometimes we reach a point in our group, team, or organization where we want to identify an opportunity to step up and lead.  Sometimes it may not be formal or permanent.  It may be a passing thought, or a notion to help the current situation progress along for a short time.  In any case, potential leadership is very thought provoking.  Earlier in my career I would say that it reminds me of going out on a date for the first time, awkward and forced.  As time has passed, I would say that it becomes natural and easy, sometimes making what would be an awkward situation one more bearable for all involved.

    I joined a collegiate organization some time ago where I was required to complete multiple steps before induction.  There were maybe a dozen steps to complete.  Towards the end of this period of induction, I was randomly paired with a group of people.  Among ourselves we had to develop a team complete with assigned jobs and self-prepared meetings.  I feel that this was in a lot of ways a test, because in our first scheduled meeting, we all showed up having no idea what to do.  While my group members and I sat around a table staring at each other and talking it became clear that there was a lack of leadership.  A few members had left early, some other broke off and began talking about life in general, and some were scoffing about how poorly ran the organization was.

     We were all in the dark.  We had no clue what to do or what we were even meeting for aside from us understanding that it was a requirement for induction.  Through this first painful meeting, I had gotten only one thing, someone had to make the next one less painful, assuming anyone even returned.  I decided to take the position of facilitator and prepare for the next meeting, hoping that if nothing else we would have something to do besides gossip about politics.

     Sometimes it takes being placed in an awkward situation with others before it is clear who the leader may be, and sometimes it will be surprising to see who that person is.  Whether it is a blindly assembled group, or a department in an organization, there should be only a few unorganized gatherings before it becomes clear who the leader is.  Here we look at some key questions to ask ourselves to determine if we have identified an opportunity to lead.

    

1.  Do we have the functional or technical knowledge required to lead?

    Having the functional knowledge to lead a group is a key question to ask yourself.  It is not a black and white barrier that should direct whether you pursue a leadership role.  It should, however, give you the direction that you should take if you do decide to pursue that leadership role.  If you conclude that you do not have a lot of functional knowledge of the group that you want to lead, then we must understand this if we decide to push forward.

    Function or technical knowledge is the boots-on-the-floor know how of getting a job done and demonstrating successful action against the task.  A leader that has a load of technical knowledge and the skills related to successfully obtaining the goals will approach leading a team a bit differently than one who has little technical knowledge.  To this leader I would suggest a teaching and mentoring strategy.  A lot can be gained, and relationships can be developed by a leader who has knowledge to distribute among a group of peers.

    A lack of functional or technical knowledge does not mean that we should avoid pursuing leadership.  It should be a factor in your decision though, as opting to lead without having a broad span of knowledge of the tasks at hand does make the job more difficult.  To the leader without technical knowledge, I would advise taking a learn together approach, and never shy away from the opportunity to learn from a team member.  There is great value in allowing a team member the opportunity to teach you something.

    In my case, I chose the latter approach.  I knew that I had the ability to publicly speak, as well as research and present information that I had acquired, so I contacted my group and let them know as long as no one opposed it that I would have something prepared for us to review at our next meeting.  After scheduling the day with everyone, I was nervous about what may happen.

   

   

2.  Do we have proper relationships established with our team?

    One of the most difficult situations that a leader can face is being thrust into a new team with the expectation of leading them.  Success isn’t guaranteed, goals are not understood, and the people can sometimes be strangers.  It is much more favorable to lead a team that you have already had the opportunity to develop relationships with.  Developing relationships is one of the key tools of a leader.  It is arguably one of the most important things that a leader can do, and the flavor of these relationships will often determine the level of success that a leader will experience.

    To a leader that has had the opportunity to develop proper relationships with his team, I would suggest that he search those relationships and make certain that they are facilitating good communication as well as mutual respect.  If these two qualities of a relationship aren’t present, then the leader should be doing things to foster the growth of them.  Without these qualities in the relationships, success will be very difficult.  If good communication and mutual respect are present, the ability to lead will be readily available and from here it is simply undertaking the task.

    After being thrust into an environment with strangers, and attending a dry pointless meeting, I knew that we had to turn it around.  It seemed clear that we were all good communicators that had adequate mutual respect; however, our little organization just required some leadership.  In this informal situation, it was as simple as standing up and doing it.  I didn’t believe it should be a forceful or delegatory thing, rather, I first communicated that I had done some research on how our group should be put together and suggested that if no one else had any material, that I be allowed to present what I had learned.

     After playing a presentation that I had found on my chapter’s website, I outlined what I thought the meeting should include and led the discussion.  I asked questions and listened to answers.  As we continued and time passed, we all became more familiar with each other and felt exactly what it was that this challenge was about.  This wasn’t some formal take-charge-and-conquer test, rather, it was a test of our ability to come together as a team and hold each other accountable to being team members.

 
The Take Away

    I believe these are two key questions we should ask ourselves before we decide to venture into the idea of leadership in any situation.  Regardless of our direction of thought, or where we end up after pondering all the information, I believe that the task of asking ourselves the questions better prepares us to lead.  We can further analyze and break this down, however the idea itself is intended to spark the thinking that a potential leader should be doing before undertaking the task.

    In some instances, we may decide that leadership in the current situation isn’t for us, or that there is someone better suited.  To that I would say, even a leader knows when to follow.  A good leader knows when to be led.  It should not be taken as a failure when it becomes apparent that there is someone more qualified to lead a team than ourselves, rather, we should still fulfill our obligation to be team members and continue to strive to achieve the organizations goals, however big or small.

    It is important as leaders that we continue to think about these things as we travel through life and come across different situations that require different things of us.  It is important that leaders identify situations where we believe that our service as a leader will affect the outcome of the group for the better, and to allow ourselves to be a special part of the group, for the better of the group.  There is no more fulfilling thing to be than a servant leader, and that will be a topic of future discussion.

   

Group Decision Making

Group Decision Making

    As leaders and managers, we frequently encounter problems that may be bigger than us and require more than us as individuals to solve.  We must look forward and determine if these situations would be better to call in a team of people to attempt to solve the problem.  While this is more common at certain levels of management than others, these strategies can be applied in many different areas with as large or as small of a team as you wish to use to conduct them.

    There are some intrinsic benefits as well as disadvantages to using groups to approach problem solving and decision making.  We need to keep in mind some generalizations about employing a group to tackle issues.

Pros and Cons to Using a Group

    A group may be great in that it allows us a larger amount of knowledge overall.  We can tap into multiple different perspectives on issues, stimulate one another, and engage in meaningful discussion while building relationships.  Using a group usually gives us better understanding of the decision in the end because of the exploratory process during the exchange of communication during the group meeting.  I would agree that there is also a deeper commitment to the solution of the problem so long as a real consensus results from the conclusion.  For the members of a group working on the problem, there usually exists a feeling of one-ness or belonging that brings members of the group together.

    On the opposite side of the coin, there are some disadvantages to using a group to problem solve or make decisions.  Groups take time to put together, and even more time to come to an agreement.  The time it takes for a group to come to a conclusion is usually exponentially longer than it would take an individual to make a decision.  For this reason, we need to make sure that we select the correct situation to employ a group.  Groupthink is a term we use to describe when all members of a group agree with each other regardless of their personal beliefs.  Groupthink can undermine the ability of a group to do what it set out to do.  Another common disadvantage of employing a group is that a few tend to frequently dominate or intimidate the discussion which prevents others from really being heard.

    We should also explore the tendency for a group to engage in goal displacement, where the initial goal of the group meeting is replaced by another goal, which may be as simple as winning an argument that arose during the meeting between two coworkers.  We need to avoid such things as this as well as satisficing, or, settling for a sub-optimal decision and not allowing the group to produce the most optimum result.

Analyzing the Cons

    As we can see there are a lot of cons to creating a group forum to take on a problem or issue.  What this means is that when we decide to employ a group to engage a problem, we need to do so strategically and take advantage of possible benefits.  The benefits listed above for using a group need to be maximized, and the group chosen needs to be chosen with exploiting those benefits in mind.  We must exploit the benefit of having a larger pool of knowledge by choosing group members that each contribute something unique to the group.

    We must minimize the cons when we begin our journey into using a group by 

understanding that groups can be less efficient because they take more time to come to a decision than a single person would.  We need to realize that the size of the group will play a direct role in the quality of the decisions made by the group, as well as the communication contributed by each member.  We cannot allow overconfidence to appear as a burden on our group, with the members going into the meeting thinking that they need to contribute less because, after all, a group is working on it that could afford them an opportunity to slack.

Considering the Group Approach

    A group approach should be considered when it can clearly increase the quality of the outcome or decision.  We must honestly ask ourselves when we encounter a decision, “are we able to make a quality decision without the help of others?”  If there is no quality perk, then why wouldn’t we just make the decision ourselves?  We also need to take acceptance of the decision into consideration.  Often a decision is more widely accepted if more than one person is involved in its conception, and people may feel like jumping on board if they know that a group of people took time to come together to reach it.

    There is also a developmental factor that should be considered when we are thinking about applying a group approach to solving a problem or making a decision.  We need to ask ourselves if there is opportunity for the development of the organization or the individuals of the group.  We should take some time on this part of considering the group approach, because often the development of the leaders of an organization may be more of a benefit of the group forums than the conclusion or the reason for meeting in the first place.  This affords us a multi-shot strategy for organizational improvement in a lot of cases.

The Take Away

    I really enjoy the discussion and comradery involved in a group setting, and I enjoy being a part of group meetings.  I think it is beneficial to team members and leaders alike to feel like they are considered when an important decision is being made.  I think too little focus is put on the development of the team, organization, and individuals when we allow a foster of group thinking to be created.  Too often we focus on the cons to using a group and for that reason we avoid using one.  While I think it may be silly to employ a group to make every little decision, we need to have a consistent group dialogue tackling some important decisions along many different fronts.  There should be common forums where groups meet to make decisions that may be outside of the box, and that is fine, because this still takes advantage of the developmental benefits of allowing a group to engage in the decision making and problem-solving process.