Business

Communication is the process of developing and transferring information from one person to another in order to achieve a shared understanding. Therefore, group communication is the exchanged of ideas and meanings between a group of persons or within a group. For effective communication to occur within a group, all the group members should be committed, be able to communicate and the group should be organized properly. Full commitment is commanded when all the members display integrity, honesty, openness and respect. At the same time, all the members should be able to participate fully through discussions, facilitations and listening. Effective communication can not be fully achieved if there is lack of organization. There should be properly laid structures to guide and control the members in a group to ensure smooth communication and understanding. Before any group sets down to operate, they should come up with ground rules to assist in decision making, setting up the meeting structures and to aid keep records.

A good example of an area where group communication is applied is a learning institution. Students are usually put in groups of five, ten or even fifteen to carry out research so that they can be able to discuss and thus come up with good reports. As such, students are usually required to come up with learning team charters that define the purpose of each team, how it will work, and what the expected outcomes of the team are. It also helps in solving conflicts that are likely to arise during the course of interaction as these conflicts slow down the teams progress and the overall productivity of the team. An example of a learning team charter is found on the link  HYPERLINK httpwww.tutor-secrets.comcultureEDTC_Charter.pdf www.tutor-secrets.comcultureEDTC_Charter.pdf.

Group communication differs from individual communication in a number of ways. Due to the number of people communicating, discussions used to derive the solutions help bring all the members close to each other. Several proposed solutions are usually received from many members of the group. There analysis tends to find a comfort zone for all the members and because of this, those proposals viewed as favorable are discussed while those viewed unfavorable emerge later in the discussion or never emerge. The quality of the solution derived is dependent on the seriousness the group attaches to the problem at hand and the extent they analyze the proposed solutions. Another point to note is that in a group, the views of individuals are likely to be influenced. Those with different views are likely to change theirs and voice what they think is the dominating opinion. There initial stand is normally based on the information they know or they have read from the libraries but the normative influence takes over. Group communications or discussions are usually marred with a lot of problems. Disputes that arise when people are of different opinions are hard to resolve. This causes the period needed for the task to be completed to be extended. Again, a few members will dominate the discussion while others fail to participate completely.

As it has been outlined above, group communications can be as effective as individual communication if only proper measures are put in place. The solutions also derived from these groups enjoy a greater support from the group members. Thus if properly applied group communications will assist solve a greater number of problems through group discussions.