Group Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Group Management - Essay Example Since, group composition is an independent factor and organizations chose groups randomly, often there are conflicts among these groups. Many management groups have cited that these conflicts occur because people working in these groups have different motives, personalities, perceptions and motivations. This theory has been promulgated from the fact that no two people are alike and every human mind is different from other. In this essay, we are going to examine this claim by looking at how different personalities, perception and motivations can affect group working. Let's first look at the role of perception and how does it affect an individual's behavior in a group. Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. There are many theories that tell us how are perception works and affects our behavior in a group. According to attribution theory, our perception of people differs from our perception of inanimate objects. We judge people by their actions and by determining the root cause of their actions. The theory assumes that people think that actions are caused either internally or externally, depending on consistency, distinctiveness and consensus of these actions. This attribution theory affects a person's behavior in a group. For example, he might perceive that people in his group are lazy because they have cancelled a meeting. This might not be the case because there might be some important emergency that have forced them to cancel a m eeting. Thus, this leads to a fundamental attribution error and affects a person's group behavior. His actions towards them might become as if they are "lazy" and does not like work. However, if a person considers that they have cancelled a meeting due to some external factor, his behavior will be different. This is how perception plays an important role in the behavior of a person while working in a group. Similarly, fundamental attribution error will also occur when person will attach the group's success due to his own efforts, while he will consider that failures have occurred because of other group members. This will make him act unjustly to other group members and he may become rude which will affect the behavior of the entire group. As discussed above, Halo effect might also affect a person's behavior in group working. If someone in the group has done something wrong and he always get the stick for that things and not the praise for so many excellent contributions he had made for the group. In this case, person's behavior in a group will be negative because he will always think that no matter whatever he does he will always be remembered for one mistake(s) he made. Similarly, people also use shortcuts in judging others and selective perception is the prime example of this. If someone has done something wrong then he won't be given an important task again, as people will perceive t hat he will again mess it up. This is how people's behavior might get affected in group work because biased perceptions of others. Similarly, many perceptions about people's behavior in a group are made by contrast affect, projection and stereotyping. If there are two strong members in a group then it will be perceived that the third member will be a weaker member. However, this may not be true as