Dysfunctional Group Dynamics in a Collaborative Effort

Essay by jld009College, UndergraduateA+, October 2008

download word file, 14 pages 1.0

In order for a group of individuals to work in partnership towards a common goal there has to be a unified vision of the goal in order for the effort to be successful. A collaborative effort requires many of the same elements as required in management such as, planning, organization, implementation, control, and evaluation. Performance of these functions requires that at least one of the group be appointed to or assume leadership. In the absence of leadership there is chaos. The following contributions from the group members are evidence of this point.

TechnologyTechnology has changed, and will continue to change, the way we live our lives both at work, and at home. With the explosion of the world-wide-web (commonly referred to as the internet or the information highway) combined with the mass market of personal computers, companies large, and small are changing the way they receive, process, store, and disseminate information.

In keeping with the economic principle of there being no free lunches, these changes produce positive and negative results, with the positive results far out weighing the negative. In order to manage the possible negative implications, companies have to revisit how the employees are managed. Generally, when considering matters of personnel, there exist employer considerations and employee considerations. Company owners, and effective managers, should always remain cognizant of the delicate balance that must be maintained in order for the relationship between the employer and the employee to produce maximum results for the company. The effects on this relationship conceived out of the advances in technology, are too numerous, and are outside of the purview of this paper, to evaluate each one, even broadly. Therefore, we have limited our research, and comments, to briefly discuss the impacts on productivity, liability, and privacy produced by the recent technology explosion.

The author...