Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement
(Ralph Stodgill 1950 p.3)
Working groups mean that a group of members work together to achieve the goal. In a group, there are no limited members. It means any number which you want. Moreover, working groups develop particular characteristics, affecting not only the behaviour of the individuals within them but also their relation to other groups in a company or an organization. Besides, groups have to have interactions between the group members to generate some ideas to achieve the goal. Finally, group performance contributes to the success of the organization. Teamwork is key, working productively within a team is very important; individuals that do this are essential to a company to ensure its success. Organizations ensure that every individual recruited id a good ‘team player’ in team skill building activities.
‘To an ever-increasing extent, modern management has become focused on the idea of the team. Management consultants propose organizational retracting to facilitate teamwork; directors make policy statement about the importance of the team of the organization; and senior managers exhort their junior staff to encourage team working in their departments.’ Hayes (1997, p.1)
Now, it’s going to mention the characteristic of motivating groups motivating a group.
If people motivate a group, the group members would influence each other in different area. First, motivating groups can affect the perceptions of its individual. It’s because there is a force to motivate members to express their perception within the group. As people know, different members have different perceptions. It will generate different ideas. Their ideas, therefore, would be improved through the communication. At last, it can achieve the best goal effectively.
Besides, if new members join a new group during motivating a group, they can share their perceptions from outside to the original members. It can make the ideas more diversified. After that, the goal will be much better. In 1984, Serge Moscovici stated a social representations theory that “when individuals join a new group, its members will construct and transmit complex and unfamiliar idea to them, in straightforward and familiar ways. It’s because it should make members what is going on around them.” Therefore, in the transmitting complex and unfamiliar idea process, the new members can share their perceptions from outside to achieve the better goal.
Second, motivating groups can affect the performance of its individual. It’s because every members can influence each others’ performance. For example: a person who is going to present a complex, unfamiliar task will be improved by the observation by the others who can point out the mistake of the task and solve it. After that, the person can improve or reduce the mistake and get a better performance effectively. In 1965and 1980, Robert Zajonc stated that “whatever the person do well, he or she likely to do it even better in front of an audience (other members), whereas what he or she normally find difficult to do, he or she will find virtually impossible to do when others watching”. Therefore, it’s obviously to know that motivating groups can help its individuals’ performance much better.
Besides, the biological concept of synergy can explain these phenomena. Synergy is the positive or negative result of the interaction of two or more components, producing an outcome that is different from the sum of the individual components. In the positive synergy, it means that a group of individual working together would get a better result. A popular shorthand term for this is 2+2=5. When it applied the above condition, it can immediately know that motivating groups will get much better performance through the interaction.
Lastly, motivating groups can contribute to the behaviour of its individual. It’s because when you motivate a group, the group will exist a group norm which facilitate group task achievement. Elton Mayo, an , and , proposes ‘the existence of group norms, expected modes of behaviour and beliefs that are established either formally or informally by a group.” The group norm is used to facilitate group task achievement and increase the predictability of group member's behaviours. Therefore, groups can be more effective to work because it can predict different members’ behaviour. Besides, it reduces embarrassing interpersonal problems for group members and expresses the group's core values and defines their distinctiveness. Thus, group members can be motivated by reducing embarrassing interpersonal problems for group members because they will be no shy to express their opinion. Besides, they can be motivated by reducing negative argument between them because these sorts of argument get the goal worse. After that, more and more opinions from the group members will come out, which makes the goal achievement successfully.
The difference between motivating a group and motivating an individual is motivating an individual is that, firstly, motivating an individual, he or she would do their work by themselves only. They wouldn’t have any interaction with other people and they just have their own perception only. It, therefore, the creating of new ideas becomes hard because they have to improve by themselves. There is no one can help or assist them. Finally, it’s more difficult compared with the group. However, when people motivate a group, the group would have an interaction which makes the ideas more creative and more functional.
Secondly, when someone motivates an individual, he or she would improve their performance by themselves. They don’t have any members to help them. No one can assist them to find out the mistake. Besides, an individual cannot do the performance in front of any audience (members) because they do not have that. Therefore, the performance of an individual would be difficult to improve. However, when people motivate a group, it is not a problem because there are many members to assist them to improve or point out the mistake of them. It can change their performance easily. Therefore, the probabilities of achieving goal are very high. On the other hand, teamwork doesn’t really assist the goal achievement because there are negative synergies. Negative synergies mean group members working together would get a worse result. In the mathematical equivalent would be 2+2=3. It’s because there are many tensions, conflicts, obstacles and problems between them. Therefore, there is an advantage in motivating an individual.
Finally, when someone motivates an individual, he or she would change their behaviour. For example: when an individual are motivated by some valuable things such as money, he or she would work hard or more conscientious. It’s because everyone has their desires. If these desires are in front of them, he or she would be motivated immediately. However, there is a difference between motivating a group and motivating an individual in behaviour. In the motivating a group, members can express their opinions enthusiastically because there is a group norm to reduce embarrassing interpersonal problems. It makes the idea much better because all perceptions of group members come out absolutely. Thus, different kind of motivations has different sort of efforts and the result of the achievement is completely different.
To conclude, motivating groups may different from motivating an individual because there is a different aspect. If people want to have a better motivation, it should depend on what goal achievement you want on different conditions. Motivating a group doesn’t mean it must be better than motivating an individual. It’s because motivating a group would occur many arguments tensions between them. On the other hand, motivating an individual doesn’t mean it must be better than motivating a group because motivating an individual doesn’t have any interaction. It cause ideas or perceptions of an individual does not be diversified and the performance cannot be improved effectively. Motivating a group and motivating an individual have their different advantages and disadvantages, if someone want to motivate well, they have to consider seriously before when they are making any decision.
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