Personal (Treatment) Groups

• Means for seeking individual growth and change
• Promoting self-awareness
• System for mutual-aid and support

• Means to system change and goal attainment
• Brainstorming and consensus building
• Decision making
• Negotiation and bargaining
• Participation in system processes

Meeting client needs

Meeting organizational needs

Meeting community needs

Goal Accomplishment

• Focus on group productivity
• Group organized to accomplish its purpose
• Adequate information, resources and communication for decision making

• Preserving groups functioning
• Building cohesion
• Ensuring member satisfaction and commitment
• Conflict management/resolution

 
 

Goal Accomplishment  Define roles and expectations Establish operating structures Initiate action Provide technical/administrative skills Provide expert information Task motivation and application Leadership achievement Maintaining standards of performance Evaluate progress on goal attainment

Group Maintenance  Provide social and interpersonal skills Create friendly and supportive setting Facilitate open communication Build and maintain group cohesion Facilitate coordination and teamwork Provide support and encouragement Stimulate self-direction Encourage active member participation Manage and resolve conflicts

  

Autocratic: Leader determines the policies and practices for the group.

Democratic: Policies and practices are determined by the group with the leader's help.

Laissez-faire: Leader withdraws and the group has freedom (responsibility) to make group and individual decisions.

Directing: High goal achievement and low group maintenance. Leader provides clear direction for how and when things will be done, define standards of quality, provide information about the environment, evaluate and monitor task accomplishment, and emphasize goal attainment.

Coaching: High goal achievement and high group maintenance. Leader continues to emphasize task accomplishment but does so as a coach rather than a boss. Must provide support and encouragement, show personal interest in members, seek more feedback from members, and establish a supportive and personal relationship with members.

Facilitating: Low goal achievement and high group maintenance. Leader involves members in problem-solving and decision making, provides emotional and social support, coordinates group activities, mediates interpersonal problems, helps build strong cohesive relationships among members, and generally builds a harmonious, personally enhancing relationships among the members. 

Delegating: Low goal achievement and low group maintenance. Leader delegates responsibility and accountability to members and then lets them do it. Gives recognition for noteworthy accomplishments, protects group from outside interference, acts as a liaison with related groups, and generally demonstrates trust and confidence in members' ability to accomplish the task and to maintain themselves as a healthy, viable group.

• Stakeholders
• Citizens
• Diversity (age, race, gender, etc.)
• Leaders and followers
• Representation vs. representativeness
• Different work styles
• Different learning styles

Procedural Obstacles

• Iron rule of oligarchy--Over time groups tend to be run by a small elite (oligarchy). Must guard against, especially in community groups. Equality and participation cannot be brought about by exclusion and elitism.
• Single-issue individualism--They want exactly and only what they want regardless of the effect on others. Little or no sense of community.

• Folly--The group makes bad decisions even though alternatives are available and voices are articulating them (i.e. Trojan horse).
• Group think--Making decisions under conditions of high cohesion (no opposition).
• Brute think--Solutions forged by unyielding perseverance (force solution).
• Abilene paradox--No one wants to make the decision but the group just accepts its general direction.
• Garbage can model--Resources and information needed for decision making is not systematically assembled. Elements are randomly thrown together (garbage can).
• Defensive routines--certain solutions are never considered nor are the reasons they are not considered discussed.
• Rube Goldberg construction--Solutions were complexity is seen as positive.
• Occam's razor--Solutions that strive for simplicity but may result in oversimplification.
• Zeno's paradox--Getting close but never actually making the decision (decision avoidance psychosis)
• Nondecisions (boiled-frog phenomenon)--Change is slow and may be undetected. Therefore, no action is taken.

• Spoilers--People who prefer to lower others gain then to raise their own standards.
• Partisans--Zealots who cannot put aside their own interests for the betterment of the group.
• Politicians--Social climbers who use the group to further their own interests.
• Novice--Individuals who lack the necessary experience and skill to function in the group but removing efforts build sympathy for them.

• Respect people and their ideas

• Resist decision avoidance psychosis

• Honor time commitments

• Respect the agenda

• Have a purpose.
• Plan for the meeting (agendas, minutes, and reports).
• Organize meeting around announcements, decisions, and brainstorming.
• Eliminate reports.
• Eliminate new business.
• Re-write participant scripts when there are individual problems in the meeting.
• Maintain a commitment to high quality decisions.

 
1.  Plan the meeting carefully

• Get agenda items ahead of time
• Sift and sort the agenda items
• Follow the rule of sixths
• Rule of three-fourths (send material in advance)

• Rule of two-thirds (beginning, middle, decompression)
• Use the agenda bell

• Keep paper under control
• Use summaries
• Agenda menu
• Rule of minutes

• Respect time commitments

• Discussions must be based on information

• The discussion should be systematic and build toward a decision

• The most productive discussions have a problem-solving nature

• "My" issue results in overdeveloped sense of responsibility

• Poor listening

• Jargon

• Participation differences

• Extensive Rule--one person one vote.

• Intensive Rule--assess strength of preference

• Involvement Rule--those involved in implementing decision have more influence

• Expert Rule--taking into account input from experts

• Power Rule--Persons of prestige have greater influence

• Consensus--When all five rules have been met

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