People tend to behave and interact in different ways, and it’s nothing unusual because, even despite raising from the same species, we – people – are very diverse. But, being in a group, the attitude and behaviour of one person can influence the attitude and behaviour of another person. The most effective way to make this impact positive is so called “group dynamics” – the professional “tool” which plays a very important role in achieving organisational as well as learning goals. It helps to improve teamwork, encourage group members to learn from each other and contribute their creativity, effectiveness and productivity.

The purpose of this article is to go a little deeper into some of the basic ideas, by underlying the design of the training programs because it’s crucial to take into account the great influence that the group dimension has on the learning process. Why? Experience shows that those trainers, who don’t care about the group dynamics enough, sooner or later fail in achieving their learning goals. And in this case, neither the trainer’s nor learners’ qualifications matters.

Concept of the group dynamics

The first person who started to use the term “group dynamics” back in the early 1940s, was a social psychologist and change management expert Kurt Lewin. He argued that people often take on distinct roles and behaviours when they work in a group and used this term to describe the effects of these roles and behaviours on other group members as well as on a whole group. According to his theory, the concept of group dynamics can be defined as a set of behavioural and psychological processes that occurs within any social group or between several groups.

As training professionals of www.mindtools.com have pointed out, a group with a positive dynamic is easy to spot because its team members trust one another, work towards a collective decision, and hold one another accountable for making things happen. It was also found that, when the group has positive dynamics, its members are nearly twice as creative and responsive to the learning process as an average group, while, if the group has so-called “poor” dynamics, behaviour of its members disrupts its work.

What makes sense, if we speak about the quality of the learning process, the poor group dynamics can result in two different ways. First – the group may not come to any decision. Second – group members don’t support a positive learning environment which plays an important role in developing better cooperation within a group and allowing to express its members their opinions, trust the trainers as well as to integrate and share content and experiences.

Main aspects of the “poor” group dynamics

Impact of the poor group dynamics to the learning process quality is too high to ignore it, therefore, it’s important to understand, how trainers, learners as well as the whole group itself can contribute to keep the level of the group dynamics as high as possible, or raise it operatively in situations, when it starts to decrease.

My personal experience as well as different research show that there are three most common situations that can promote poor group dynamics in different circumstances, including the learning process. First and the main is a weak leadership. Respectively, when there is no strong leader in a group (or team), a more dominant member can take charge. This can lead to a lack of direction and infighting. It can even contribute to a focus on the wrong priorities.

Second is excessive deference to authority. It’s quite a common situation when group members want to be seen to agree with a leader and, therefore, hold back from expressing their own opinions. Learning efficiency of these groups can be very low because of this reason, as the main key of productivity consists of diverse opinions and “healthy” discussions.

But third is so called “blocking”. This usually happens when people behave in a way that disrupts the flow of the information within a group. They can adopt different roles that can undermine successful group training process, for example:

• The aggressor. This person often disagrees with others or is inappropriately outspoken.

• The denier. This person is often critical to others ideas, therefore, discourages others from speaking openly.

• The withdrawer. This person avoids discussions – if you ask for his or her suggestions, one will simply agree with the most dominant opinion in the group.

• The recognition seeker. This person usually dominates in group sessions.

• The joker. This person tends to use humour at inappropriate times.

• And “others”. A pair of participants will always be in opposition, whatever happens in the group.

The main challenge of a trainer is to play the role of a team leader and guide the group development process to ensure that the learning objectives will be achieved or to adapt the learning methodology in a way that would help to achieve the most of these goals. The question is – how to do it in the most efficient way?

Matter of the group development stages

The trainer should be able to read the group dynamics in a way that can be responsive to its members feedback and also sometimes to manage a powerful relation within the learning dynamics. Same, he or she has to help the group to perform well and to use it as a source of learning and creativity. Working as a trainer I have been convinced several times that to complete these tasks, the trainer has to change the training approach at the different group development stages.

According to the Tuckman’s theory, there are five stages of group development:

• Forming – the process of putting the structure of the team together.

• Storming – the process of organising tasks and processes surface interpersonal conflicts.

• Norming – the process of creating new ways of doing and being together.

• Performing – the process of individuals adaptation to meet the needs of other team members.

• Adjourning – the process of team’s transition by causing significant changes to the team structure, membership, or purpose.

The main idea of this theory is that, as the team develops maturity and ability, relationships establish, and leadership style changes to more collaborative or shared leadership. (www.freshbooks.com) It means that a trainer needs to ensure that he or she is doing the right thing at the right time. The most effective way to reach this goal is to follow quite a simple chain of actions: identify, which stage of development your group has reached; consider, what you need to do in order to move towards the performing stage to understand your role and the ways you can help your team to progress; schedule regular reviews to identify, which development stage your group has reached, and adjust your way of behaving as well as your approach to leadership adequately.

Of course, it can lead to a situation when a group starts to challenge you as a trainer. Normally, it happens, when the group has reached the so-called “norming stage” and needs to move further – to the “performing stage”. That requires having more time dedicated, not only to transfer knowledge, but also to go back and refer to the roles within the group, and to adjust the methodology for the new development stage, which is very crucial in situations, when the trainer needs to produce some content with the group.

The main idea of supporting the group forward in its development process, is to provide circumstances to move from a phase where its members depend on the trainer to the one where they should find the balance within the group and define their way of work. The problem is that it sounds easier than it is in reality. And it’s mostly caused by the human’s behaviour to search for its identity.

Unconscious “forces” of the group dynamics

What is the purpose and meaning of my life? What are my values and do I live according to them? How do I see myself and how do other people see me? Am I aware of all my resources? Am I successful in communication and cooperation with others? These are questions, which daily occupy the minds of nearly all people all over the world.

As Derec Deasy, professor at INSEAD states, says that “they (individuals) are establishing identities, vis-ą-vis others, and internally for themselves. They may look very put together, but most of them are confused. Others are lost, anxious, lonely, and even feeling empty and meaningless inside.” He stresses that the most important assumption is that unconscious forces influence individuals and groups. Respectively, we as individuals are very different, the ways we behave and interact can differ very much, but “being in a group, attitude and behaviour of one person can influence the attitude and behaviour of another person”.

How does it refer to the training programs and the learning process itself?

Very often me and my colleagues deliver training programs for different organisations, which are intended for the group of 24 participants. We usually divide this group into three smaller groups of eight people in each. The main task of these smaller groups is to do different exercises and then try to understand individual behaviour in different settings and dynamics levels, which occurs in their groups.

Deeper analysis of the relationships between the groups shows that the kinds of the group dynamics that occur during the training program, do not differ from those that daily occur in any training group or even organisation. The way these emotional forces manifest themselves is unique and it depends on the particular group of people involved and their work circumstances, while the underlying forces are similar in all groups (they are not impacted even by its members educational level and personal skills).

Imagine a group of adult learners where learner A (for example, a low-skilled person) is under a pressure of the learners B (for example, middle-level manager with two higher educations). They all have to cooperate together in order to complete the task of the group but this interdependency creates a lot of frustration. We can assume that this frustration creates a lot of stress not just to the group member A. It causes stress to the group member B as well as to the group members C, D, E, etc. Because it’s quite logical that, if there is too much pressure, the stress can threaten the relationships within the whole group. The question is – how will the group deal with the potential conflict?

This situation can develop into different ways. First – group member B can become the subject of much discussions and openly criticised by other group members. Second (unlikely, but still possible) – other group members can “support” group member B in this “mobbing” process by exposing group member A to even greater criticism. This pattern of behaviour which is usually called “scapegoating” is very common – turn on your TV and you will see examples of scapegoating occurring on the news every day!

Among the most popular scapegoats almost in every society usually are the government, corrupt leaders, immigrants who “steal jobs” from local people, foreigners who are “exploiting our country”, etc. (these groups are somehow considered to be blamed for all the problems and people expect that they will take responsibility). But experience shows that scapegoating is a common “phenomena” in other social groups as well. Therefore, it doesn’t matter who you are (teacher, engineer, doctor, researcher, etc.), how many higher educations you have and what is your position within the organisation you represent (constant worker, manager, senior manager, board member, etc.) – you can get on the list of potential “victims” any time and any place.

Although, the main benefit of scapegoating is the fact that it allows people to avoid potential conflict situations amongst themselves, it has one quite serious “side effect” – it always creates a distorted picture of reality. Therefore, the trainer's mission is to avoid the tendency to scapegoat within a group. But experience shows that you need appropriate knowledge and skills to recognize and prevent the emotional “forces” of the group dynamic which can cause scapegoating.

Role of the group dynamics in work environment

I have to admit that one of the most important aspects of increasing adults' learning process efficiency – especially, low-educated and low-skilled adults, is raising their understanding about the basic concepts of group dynamics and demonstrating the additional value of this knowledge. For example, how it may impact their success at work and competitiveness in the labour market.

There are many valuable ideas associated with group dynamics, but, in my opinion, the main one is that people's behaviour is mostly unconscious, especially when they work in groups. Not in vain, the study of group dynamics is designed to help people become aware of some powerful unconscious forces operating in groups and organisations they are working for.

All organisations, whether they are private, public, profit or non-profit, have a basic task which they must perform to continue existing. In order to achieve this task effectively, the work of an organisation is divided between groups of people who specialise in one or more aspects of the basic task such as finance, marketing, customer service, production etc. These groups and individuals must cooperate. But …, experience shows that this cooperation is not so easy to achieve.

In fact, rather than cooperation, there are often conflicts between the individuals and different groups within an organisation. These conflicts are very subtle and may not be easy to identify. For example, when we look at meetings superficially, we usually notice serious discussions that can have quite insignificant features of the conflict. However, a more detailed analysis of these meetings can reveal a very complex network of relationships both between and within groups, which, taken together, makes the team work or organisation very inefficient.

These complex relationships are developed in response to the emotions people feel when they are part of a group. Therefore, the term “group dynamics” is often used to refer to the emotional life of a group as a whole rather than simply the emotions of individuals within the group.

What does this mean? Well, if there are ten people in a group, as individuals they have emotions and feelings. But there is also a group emotion or feeling which is something more than a simple total of all the members' emotions put together. This phenomenon is very common in large crowds, for example, at political rallies, hockey matches, etc. But we can find it in small groups as well, for example, in a small project team.

Same, we can find it in the inter-groups, for example, in a relationship between departments or divisions and even at a higher level of dynamics between society and organisations. That’s why it’s very useful to understand the work principles of the different human systems – the interrelatedness between groups. That’s why it’s important to accept that any group is a living human system, a community of human beings who have to cooperate effectively. And the first step closer to this acceptance is to acknowledge that the extent, which you as an individual can contribute to a solution, is proportional to the extent, which you can acknowledge your part in creating the problems.

Conclusions?!

I think that there are no doubts – the most efficient adults training program is the one which fulfils the needs and expectations of the trainees as the individuals as well as the group. To reach this aim, every training specialist should take in account five simple rules.

Firstly, BE AWARE that understanding of the group dynamics concept has a crucial role in providing a high quality training process.

Secondly, LEARN how to recognise and manage the main aspects of the “poor” group dynamics, which have impact to the learning process quality: weak leadership, excessive deference to authority, “blocking” behaviours, etc.

Thirdly, UNDERSTAND AND RECOGNISE all stages of the group development AND BE ABLE TO CHOOSE AND USE appropriate methods to ensure effective group learning process in the certain stages of its development.

Fourthly, BE AWARE of the impact of unconscious forces of group dynamics on individuals and group cooperation.

Fifthly, EXAMINE the causes of conflicts and stress between individuals and groups in different training environments very carefully.

To gain a wider understanding of the group dynamics processes, I would recommend trainers to supplement their professional reading list with these three books:

• Egolf D.B., “Forming, storming, norming, performing: successful communication in groups and teams”, Writers Club, USA, 2001

• Forsyth D.R., “Group Dynamics”, Thomson/Wadsworth, USA, 2006

• Deasy D., “Insead training materials”, France, 2021