8

The Fifth Way of Learning
LEARNING IN GROUPS
Collaborative Learning

TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE, so it is said. What about three, four or five heads? Most people who work in organizations have some experience with groups, from the simple weekly staff meeting to participation on high-performance teams. Many organizations now rely on some form of team collaboration to achieve their goals. Groups and teams are also used to facilitate learning; that is, for educational purposes.

The self-conscious use of groups for educational and therapeutic purposes had its origins in employment settings in the early work of Elton Mayo at Western Electric in the 1930s, in the experience of Kurt Lewin and his associates in 1946 in the development of the basic skill training group (t-group), and in the work of Carl Rogers after World War II in the development of personal growth groups (Hare, 1976).¹ Since that time, a great amount of research has been done on groups and there is general agreement on how groups work and what to expect from them. Most of the theory has come from the field of human communication studies.

DIVERSE OUTCOMES
What You Can Learn in Groups

Research has shown that groups are especially good for diverse kinds of collaborative learning:

• Generating ideas. Groups produce more ideas (Lorge, 1958).² People pool their ideas in groups, but there is something about the interaction in a group that stimulates more ideas. Sit by yourself and think about the horse-trading problem and you will probably come up with two or three interesting ways to look at it. Take it to a group and you will probably hear a host of viewpoints you never considered. As the ideas are discussed with others, you find that all of you are now thinking up new ideas that no one had thought about before your interaction. No one has said that groups always produce good ideas; but they do produce a lot of ideas.

• Communication and human relations. Groups are designed for communication and are good for learning human relations or enhancing communication skills. People in groups talk or act, and there is always some message in the communication. Even in a brief discussion of the horse-trading problem, you would notice that some people communicate boldly while others hardly say anything; some have good ideas, others just like to talk; some are fluent speakers and others are good listeners. Groups are excellent vehicles for learning how to communicate, how to establish one’s “voice,” and how to speak and listen in ways that are productive and effective.

• Changing attitudes. Groups are a powerful vehicle for influencing attitudes, opinions, and beliefs (Berelson and Steiner, 1964).³ Persuading people to change their beliefs through argument or propaganda is very difficult, but in a group where everyone is openly exploring feelings and ideas, real change is more likely to take place. Many people, after discussing the horse-trading problem in their group, will change their opinion about the right answer. Groups are used for helping people overcome fears, work through disturbing feelings, give up self-defeating habits, reconsider long-standing beliefs, clarify values, and develop more positive attitudes. Groups are valuable for examining matters of the heart.

• Practicing teamwork. Groups are valuable for learning about collaboration. People learn teamwork by actually working in teams. Even after a short time working on the horse-trading problem, group members will begin to function as a team. They soon discover whether they would be a good team to work on other projects or whether they would need to learn more about collaboration. Teamwork involves cooperation, communication, taking responsibility, developing cohesiveness, and setting aside personal needs to work toward a common goal. Teamwork produces outcomes that cannot be reached by individuals working alone (Larson and LaFasto, 1989).⁴ Teamwork can be learned.

The first thing to ask when you find yourself in a group is: What kind of learning can come from this group? Groups are often metaphors for some larger concept, so it is important to keep asking: What’s the point?

GETTING ORGANIZED
The Arrangements for Learning in Groups

In facilitator-led groups the facilitator is usually a part of the group and sits within the group or participates in its activities. Other groups are leaderless groups in the sense that the facilitator may have composed and set in motion several groups, but clearly remains outside these groups, perhaps looking in on them from time to time but not playing a significant role in the communication taking place in the group. Leaderless is probably a misnomer because most groups left to themselves will produce a leader. All groups, therefore, need leaders—but some groups have a formally designated leader called a facilitator.

A facilitator has several jobs. One is to compose the group or groups. One important thing to watch for here is the size of the group. A group needs to be big enough to get the work done, but small enough so that everyone can participate. Sometimes you need to tell the facilitator, “Our group is too big.” One clue you have about this is when you see the group automatically subdividing itself into smaller groups.

A facilitator working directly with the group will monitor the communication of the group, will listen to and reflect back to the group what it is saying, and will often guide the direction of the discussion. The leader may hand out some directions or a task for the group. With leaderless groups, the facilitator will compose the groups—usually several small groups of three to seven—and will provide each group with a task and instructions called an instrument. Your role, in either situation, is to make sure that you and other group members are clear about the task and the ground rules. Sometimes the task just requires speaking, but at other times it involves getting up and doing things, some activity.

Often additional conditions are set for groups. For example, leaderless groups may be set up to compete with each other for a real or virtual prize for being first to finish or best in performance. Sometimes groups are instructed to cooperate and must collaborate to help each other or construct some larger activity or outcome. Often groups must report back to the whole, and an observer or reporter needs to be appointed. Depending on the arrangements for your group, you may need to nominate a facilitator, timekeeper, messenger, observer, or reporter.

BECOMING INVOLVED
Task and Process

People who have studied groups note that the communication in groups seems to operate at two levels simultaneously—task and process (Goldberg and Larson, 1975).⁵ At one level, group members are communicating about the task to be completed, the job to be done, the challenge presented in the instructions. At another level, group members are dealing with the process or social needs of the group. When people participate in groups they bring with them their individual needs for recognition, identity, status, power, visibility, competition, cooperation, and inclusion. All of these factors can and do affect the climate of the group and the group process. To function well, groups need some of both types of communication—task and process.

It is natural, therefore, for group members to socialize—and usually this communication is more than chit-chat. It helps group members feel comfortable and to begin to like each other enough to work together. On the other hand, a group that gets too involved with the process sometimes needs to be reminded of the task.

FINDING YOUR NICHE
Taking a Role

As groups mature, even over a short period of time, they develop a structure (Barker, et al., 1987).⁶ Members take their places and begin to serve particular functions. The group’s structure is not always obvious, but it is there. Some people, because they have more to contribute to the assigned task, or because they have more initial status or a strong personality, take a more central place in the group’s structure, while others end up on the periphery. The composition of the group, its size and its communication patterns, all help to determine the group’s structure.

Within the group, individuals take on roles (Benne and Sheets, 1948).⁷ Some of these roles relate to the task, such as the

• Information seeker, who asks for clarification of ideas, facts or evidence.

• Information giver, who offers facts or relates his or her own experience.

• Recorder, who writes down suggestions or takes minutes.

Other roles relate to the process, such as the

• Encourager, who agrees with, praises, and accepts the ideas of others.

• Harmonizer, who resolves conflict, mediates differences, and reduces tension.

• Gate keeper, who encourages others to participate and be heard.

Some individuals play negative roles that hinder the group’s process, such as the

• Aggressor, who attacks others or the group as a whole.

• Dominator, who monopolizes the group or uses it for personal needs.

• Blocker, who opposes the ideas of others unreasonably and refuses to cooperate.

• Clown, who disrupts the group through excessive humor and horseplay.

Participants need to find their niche in the group. To maximize your own learning, it is necessary to be clear about what role or set of roles you are trying to play. Ask yourself what you have to contribute and how you can do it best. This involves assessing your own traits and abilities and matching them to what the group needs.

Groups are formed in various ways, but they all develop structure over time. Just because a group is formed and you are included, does not mean that those assembled are yet a group. Groups go through “stages,” described by four rhyming words (Tuckman, 1965)⁸:

• Forming—a stage of testing and member independence, with emphasis on defining the task

• Storming—a stage of intragroup conflict and emotional expression

• Norming—a stage of development of group cohesion and establishing roles and rules

• Performing—a stage of effective functioning and the emergence of solutions

Note that if you enter a group late, many roles and norms will have already been established. Your entrance will be somewhat disruptive, so you need to catch up quickly, listen closely, and discover your niche. The same will be true when others enter a well-established group where you are a continuing member. You can help orient them quickly. Eventually—when members have found their niche, when rules have been developed, and when a certain amount of cohesion has been established—the group will begin to function well. You can watch for these things and help make them happen. If the group doesn’t develop a structure and isn’t functioning well, you won’t learn much nor will anyone else.

COMMUNICATION IN GROUPS
Sharing and Listening

Put people in groups and they will talk. Who talks and what do they talk about? How often do they talk? To whom do they talk? Who interrupts? Who listens? How do we know they are listening?

When one person interacts with another in a group, a communication event takes place that involves self-disclosure and feedback (Fisher, 1980).⁹ Self-disclosure occurs when a person lets someone know something about themselves that the listener wouldn’t ordinarily know. This can refer to any idea or feeling the person is expressing. The second part of this event occurs when someone else in the group, or several members, respond to what was said. People can respond in several ways by

• ignoring what was said.

• making another unrelated disclosure.

• making a disclosure that builds on the previous disclosure.

• responding to the disclosure by showing it was heard.

The first two responses don’t do much for the communication process or the group. The third response helps, but the last is best: it provides feedback. Effective feedback involves active listening.

Active listening has two parts, the listening part and the expressing part, and the expressing needs to be done in a way that demonstrates that listening occurred. The listener can pay attention to the ideas and content of what is being said, standing ready to agree or disagree, criticize, summarize, or conclude; or the listener can focus on feelings, trying to empathize with the speaker’s emotions or viewpoint (Kelley, 1970).¹⁰ Obviously, active listening encompasses both. Good listening involves avoiding interruptions, looking beyond the words to the meaning, and resisting the temptation to prepare an answer when you should be listening. The key to active listening, however, is in the feedback. Feedback is provided by

• summarizing key ideas briefly and checking to see if that is what was said.

• providing an interpretation of the meaning of what was said.

• labeling, discussing, or asking about the feelings behind what was said.

• comparing what was said to other things that have been said in the group.

• asking for elaboration or further explanation.

These are all things that an effective facilitator should model in providing feedback to group members, but groups need many active listeners and shouldn’t rely on the facilitator to do all the listening. As a member of a group you need to take your turn in expressing yourself, of course, but you can make a significant contribution by becoming an active listener and providing clear and focused feedback to others.

Not all communication in groups is verbal. To be an effective participant you need to watch the nonverbal communication of others and monitor it in yourself. Sophisticated group watchers look for the following (Baird and Weinberg, 1970)¹¹:

• Proxemics—the way group members arrange themselves in space through seating arrangements, physical distance, and general body orientation

• Appearance—overall physical appearance, dress, attractiveness, styles, or mood

• Kinesics—body movement, posture, gestures, and movement of the hands, limbs, and feet

• Facial expressions—facial features, movements of the eyes and mouth

Sometimes nonverbal communication reinforces or elaborates a spoken message, for example by using a gesture to accent an important point. At other times, however, a nonverbal message may contradict a verbal message, for example an arms-folded, tense denial of anger, which sends a visible clue to the group that what is being said is not what is being felt. In some group activities, the nonverbal message is the only communication. Keep in mind that in a sense, group members are always communicating whether they speak or not, through gestures, facial expressions, or the physical place taken in relation to the group. It is not possible to not communicate, because people are always sending messages and interpreting meanings, whether they are responding verbally or nonverbally, or doing nothing. If you withdraw and don’t participate, that’s also a message. The nonverbal messages sent by group members deserve appropriate feedback.

KEEPING ON TRACK
Overcoming Problems in Groups

Groups sometimes develop problems. You can be alert and watch for these problems and you can take action to keep these problems from interfering with your learning.

• Conflict. Some disagreement in groups is normal or even necessary, but excessive tension or open conflict can pull a group apart. When participants become impatient, stop listening, take sides, or make vehement attacks on each other, the facilitator will often step in (Bradford, et. al., 1970).¹² If there is no facilitator, as in so-called leaderless groups, the participants themselves must face and deal with the conflict. Sometimes conflict arises because of structural problems: the group doesn’t have enough time or resources, or the group lacks a clearly defined task. If the conflict grows out of personality clashes or differences of opinion, standard procedures for resolving conflict—voting, compromising, finding common ground, addressing the issues—will probably work. The important thing—and here is where you can help—is that conflict must be faced and resolved. If everyone is ignoring a conflict, you can play a key role by identifying it and suggesting solutions.

• Apathy. The only thing worse than conflict is apathy—when participants don’t care enough about the group to get involved. When the conversation drags, when people wander away or come late, or when the level of participation is low or lacking energy, the group has a problem. Apathetic groups can be made up of apathetic individuals, of course, but more likely the apathy is a result of structural problems (Fisher, 1980).¹³ The task may be perceived as unimportant and not worth the effort, or so difficult as to appear overwhelming. Sometimes groups lack the essential knowledge or skills to do the task, or they may not know what is expected. As with conflict, apathy needs to be identified and addressed. Effective group participants spot it and ask what is needed to rekindle enthusiasm.

• Groupthink. Groupthink occurs when group members fail to disagree when they should disagree. The term was coined by sociologist Irvin Janis (1972)¹⁴ when he studied decision-making processes of American presidential advisory groups. Without healthy disagreement there is often premature agreement on one solution—sometimes the wrong solution—before other options have been considered. A good facilitator can spot groupthink, but so can alert members of the group. The thing to do is to play devil’s advocate and raise “what-if” questions.

• Social loafing. Sometimes group members don’t do their part or carry their own weight. Old experiments with tug-of-war games showed that two don’t pull twice as hard as one, and three don’t pull three times as hard, etc. Sociologists call this “social loafing,” shirking responsibilities and letting other members carry the task (Pavitt and Curtis, 1990).¹⁵ The group leader, if there is one, needs to know if this is happening. Usually, however, the leader will turn the problem back to the group—so it may be best for group members to identify the problem and confront the social loafer first. Serious loafing will affect the group’s productivity, morale, and possibly your own learning in the group.

All of these problems are natural, but they need to be addressed. Responsibility for fixing these problems lies with the facilitator, but the solutions will ultimately need to come from members of the group.

GOING DEEPER
Emotional Learning

Sometimes groups are used in organizational settings for human relations training. Social service organizations may use groups for purposes that approach those of group therapy. In this book, we are interested in groups for learning, not therapy, but the line between these purposes is not always clear. Sometimes groups go deeper into fairly sensitive emotional learning. What is your role when this is the purpose of the group?

Everything said about groups still applies. In addition, there is a deeper analysis of feelings, interactions, and perceptions that will take place. In the words of Carl Rogers, one of the originators of groups designed for personal growth, “The individual comes to know himself and each of the others more completely than is possible in the usual social or working relationships. He becomes deeply acquainted with the other members and with his own inner self, the self that otherwise tends to be hidden behind his facade.”¹⁶ Such groups can provide a useful laboratory for learning or relearning of emotional issues—a deeper strata of opinions, attitudes, and beliefs.

The first choice you have is whether you want to participate in such groups or not. If not, you have a right to make that clear and withdraw without embarrassment. If you decide to get involved, there are things to know about this kind of learning that can help you get the most out of it.

Irvin D. Yalom, the author of an important text on group therapy, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (1985),¹⁷ notes eleven “therapeutic” factors that make therapy in groups effective. These factors are paraphrased here and provide a good list of the kinds of outcomes you might expect from participating in groups that go deeper.

1. Instillation of hope. People who share a problem come to believe there is hope for resolving it.

2. Universality. Participants realize they are not alone and that others have a similar problem.

3. Imparting information. Members of the group share information about how they have dealt with the problem.

4. Altruism. People discover that they can be helpful to others.

5. Recapitulation of the family. Groups become like families and members rediscover how they have acted as family members.

6. Development of social skills. Members become aware that they are perceived as shy, regal, tactless, or aggressive, and learn new interpersonal skills.

7. Imitative behavior. Participants imitate the positive behaviors of the facilitator and of other group members.

8. Interpersonal learning. Members can have a corrective emotional experience where they review critical incidents in their lives and where they relearn something about relationships.

9. Group cohesiveness. A sense of good feeling among group members provides the therapeutic setting for acceptance and honest sharing of feelings.

10. Catharsis. The group becomes a place where members can get things off their chest, and this in itself can be therapeutic.

11. Existential factors. Participants get a new sense of what life is all about and learn to live life more honestly.

Not all of these factors will be present in every group, but in general these are the outcomes to anticipate. Seen in this way, groups that go deeper are not really so scary, and provide some opportunities for relevant and meaningful learning—something that can make a difference in your life—that other ways of learning may not provide.

Most groups that deal with this kind of learning are led by skilled facilitators. It is helpful to you as a participant if you understand some of the things the facilitator is trying to do.

• Deepening the communication. The facilitator will set certain guidelines for deeper communication, such as active involvement, nonjudgmental acceptance of others, and open self-disclosure. The facilitator may provide an instrument or activity, but may also just define an issue or topic and open the discussion. The facilitator will also model the desired communication patterns. Your job is to help this process by being honest in your own statements and by being an active listener, at a deeper level, for others.

• Focusing on the here and now. Although many forms of individual therapy focus on digging up the past, there is a strong tradition in groups to focus on the present. This includes not only the real problems of group members’ present lives in a relevant context, but the real communication events taking place while the group is in progress. The interactions of the group members in any present moment will become a significant part of the discussion, and you can watch for and antic-ipate—you may even get caught up in—an analysis of the present communication exchange taking place in the group. For example: “Yes, this overdependent attitude that you say is a problem for you seems to be showing up for you now in the way you are looking toward all of us for some sort of solution.”

• Looking for learning. The facilitator will be looking for recurrent themes, the feelings that get identified and repeated, and you should be doing that, too. Sometimes this is called process commentary. The facilitator will comment on the themes and meanings that are surfacing in the group. Sometimes the facilitator, without being judgmental, will point out how a member’s behavior (maybe your own) makes others feel, or how the behavior brings about certain reactions from others. These are the little “aha” moments when deeper learning can occur. Something inside gets jarred and realigned. Watch for them, listen carefully, and try to learn from them. Look for these key moments in the group and ask yourself: What can I learn from that? If you were involved in some significant way, ask yourself: What did I learn from that? Write it down. Continue to think about it during the day or later in the week. Groups that go deeper often result in reexamination of fundamental beliefs or attitudes, and this is sometimes painful, but the learning that takes place can be extremely valuable.

LEARNING TEAMWORK
High-Performance Collaboration

Groups are also used to teach teamwork. Not all groups are teams, but teams have most of the characteristics of groups. One might say a team is a group with a mission. Teams require high levels of collaboration and usually this needs to be learned.

The following is what the facilitator concludes about teamwork. After studying many types of teams in a variety of work settings, Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto (1989)¹⁸ developed a list of the characteristics of high-performance teams. They concluded that teams need a “clear and elevating goal,” that they must be composed of “competent members” who are able to develop a “unified commitment” and a “results-driven structure” that provides a “collaborative climate.” They also need “principled leadership” that helps the team set “standards of excellence,” and they thrive best when there is “external support and recognition.” The authors also discovered (39–58)¹⁹ that there are different types of teams—problem-solving teams, creativity teams, and tactical teams—and that the composition, structure, and working environment needed by the different types varies.

If you are on a team, you and the other team members need to be clear about what type of team this is, what the purposes are, and what kind of collaboration best serves the purposes of the team.

Sometimes you and the team may be working together through an activity that appears not to have any direct relation to what the team actually does in a work setting; for example, working on “ropes” on an apparatus high off the ground. The initial reaction is to think, What good is this weird stuff? Remember, like much instrumented group work, teamwork activities are often a metaphor for other behaviors, such as goal setting, cooperation, courage, support, and communication. You learn through the activity, and if you are confused at the end, ask for clarification: What was it we were learning?

LESSONS LEARNED

Ten Things You Can Do to Maximize Your Learning

1. Ask what kind of learning can come from this group.

2. Understand the organizational arrangements.

3. Know the task or purpose of the group activity.

4. Participate actively in the process in appropriate ways.

5. Know your niche and play your role.

6. Be willing to share your ideas and feelings.

7. Be an active listener and show that you are listening.

8. Notice nonverbal behavior.

9. Watch for, identify, and do something about problems.

10. Ask for clarification about intended learning.