Group Organizational Dynamics

Key takeaways from the course ‘Group Organizational Dynamics’

In the 1st trimester, the subject Individual Dynamics and Leadership helped me better understand the various personality traits and other aspects of leadership so as to groom myself in the right direction. In Group Organizational Dynamics, I have got a gist of the symbiotic relationship that exists between individual, group and larger organizational context. Studying about the various group behavioural concepts, organizational factors at play, how to effectively deal with group members have helped me gain a better understanding of the role I could play in an organisation as we step out to build our careers in various fields after MBA.

• Groups are an integral part of life and we have been experiencing it right from our childhood days. After being a part of many groups, both voluntary as well as involuntary, it is implied that functioning well in a group should comes naturally to a person. But the course through has proved this wrong by familiarizing me with new aspects which I was hitherto unaware of.
• We studied what exactly organisational groups are, which helped realize how its slightly different from the kind of groups we actually encounter in our personal lives. The basic structure of the group was explained with and the underlying factors were explained. This led to a lot of introspection and correlation between the groups that I was a part of till now and how the dynamics of the groups were. Various properties of a group, like the roles, norms, status, size etc. helped realize why some groups performed better than the others. We also learnt why there is a need to make a conscious effort towards avoiding group think or group shift and improve decision making process by using the various group decision making techniques by trying to apply it to practical real-life scenarios. Various activities were undertaken in the class to understand how people behave in a group in an organisation. The desert survival activity helped us understand how perspectives differ and how group think or group shift could prove harmful to a group.
• The concept of Power and Politics in an organisation was not new to most of us, but we saw it in a different light as we evaluated power on the basis of what kind of power a person has and what actually gives him or her that power. Applying the concepts learnt to some real life situations and personalities aided in our understanding of the concept. Politics, generally used in the negative connotation in day to day life saw a new positive connotation as well. The different behaviours of organisational politics were studied and analysed with respect to how they are perceived in an organisation.
• We always perceived team and group as essentially the same entities. This course helped us learn how a team differs from a group and how an effective team can be formed. We learnt about the different kinds of teams and the roles they play in different kinds of organisations. Creating an effective team involves a number of factors which contribute to the success of the team viz. the team size, the roles of the team members, the personalities of the team members etc. These were studied in depth to understand how some teams function better than the others and how team players are very critical for any organization.
• Conflicts are a part and parcel of life while working in teams. Conflicts more often than not have a negative connotation.  It was holistically evaluated as a factor for effective team composition. Causes and effects of conflicts were studied along with various techniques to deal with them. Negotiations in an organisation may have slightly different stakes. Negotiation techniques along with the styles of negotiation were analysed in detail which helped us get an idea of how to apply these in practical situations at work and life in general.

In a nutshell, the subject has enhanced my understanding of the concepts as experienced in 1.5 years of industry experience while helping me learn a lot of new concepts. It has also reinforced the criticality existent in today’s world of working in a team and how one can go about handling various conflicts that arise while working so. Overall the course has provided me a direction to improve myself both as an individual and a team player.