Organizational
Group Discussion
Group
discussion is a very common activity in business organizations. Working in
groups—whether planning, organizing or executing—is now a regular feature of
daily activity. Such group work facilitates sharing or pooling of information
and knowledge, exchange of ideas, bringing ideas into focus, constructive
rethinking, objective evaluation, decision-making, problem-solving and so on.
Group discussion occurs also when the goal is to generate ideas or encourage
creativity. Such sessions are known as brainstorming sessions.
Brainstorming is a joint
effort and cooperative
activity. Much more than other communication activities, it’s a we-oriented
activity. It promotes and nurtures in the participants recognition of and
respect to for each other’s weaknesses and strengths. It develops a
give-and-take attitude. The participants move and mingle on an equal footing,
sharing time and thought. Those who tend to dominate learn gradually to correct
their weaknesses, and those who tend to be timid learn to shed their shells
gradually. They gradually realize that monopolizing the discussion or being
silent during discussion is detrimental to their growth and that of the
organization.
This
group work recognizes and exploits varied skills of the participants. Some are
good at taking the lead, a few at listening, a few
at analyzing, a few others at evaluating, and a few
others at summarizing in between the discussion and bringing the
topic back into focus while some others at closing
the discussion.
In
brainstorming, you and your colleagues from your department come together or
you and your colleagues from other departments come together. The purpose is to
generate (=produce/think of) ideas and solve problems for your company. In the
G.D. as part of selection process you win and move to the interview stage, but
here your company wins because you and your colleagues are thinking for the
company. So, discussion characterizes this. Of course, someone
has to lead the discussion with a brief description of the issue and its
purpose. Then members participate freely offering thoughts, ideas, discussing
pros and cons, and finally list what they think will work.
Effective Brainstorming
1.
Don’t judge people or ideas.
2.
Encourage freewheeling.
3.
Welcome quality but expect quantity of ideas.
4.
Think of and add more ideas to ideas already listed.
5.
Clarify your doubts about ideas but don’t question them.
6.
Enjoy the activity.
7.
Have a facilitator [leader] and a recorder [one who records generated ideas]
Techniques for brainstorming
1.
‘Storyboarding’ is where group members identify major issues and generate
solutions.
This technique is used to tackle complex
problems.
2.
‘Lotus blossom’ is where group members take up a core problem and list out
eight
ideas that are compared to the petals of a
lotus. Then the members continue the
activity treating each idea as a core
thought to be surrounded by eight ideas. This goes
on
until members feel they have got a reasonable bunch of ideas.
3.
In Nominal Group Technique, participants think about a given problem individually.
Once they are ready they move around
individually presenting their thoughts
individually. These ideas are recorded on a
flip chart or chalkboard. Then comes the
discussion stage. In the next stage, each
member ranks the ideas. In the final stage, the
idea that has the highest support is
accepted.
4.
In the Delphi Technique, members operate individually but provide possible
solutions
to a problem through a carefully designed
questionnaire. The responses are recorded at
a central location and the members are
provided a copy of the responses. Members go
through these responses and are likely to
come up, in the process of selection, with
some new ones. Members are asked to repeat
the last step as many times as necessary
until they reach a consensus.
For further information you can go to
1.
If you click on each coloured subtitles under ‘Taking
your brainstorming further’, new windows will open and you’ll get information
about each of these approaches like the Stepladder Technique.
2. ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/chapter16_section4_main.aspx to
read an article on
Techniques For Leading
Group Discussions
d.
interview skills and types, avoiding common mistakes
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