A Gaping Hole!

I was thinking to myself this morning about small groups. It seems that most decisions get made in small groups. Most project teams are composed of small groups. Most departments meet in small groups. The more I thought about it the more it became apparent that most important work is done in small groups.

The thought also came to me that there seems to be little training about working with the dynamics in small groups for managers. I decided to search for courses, workshops and training that linked an understanding and or application of small group dynamics to management or leadership training. I didn’t find much. Oh, I did find lots of content around meeting management, facilitation, and team-building. These workshops were oversimplified, and more focused on meeting management and outdoor experiences than the real work of reading group dynamics, designing interventions, and helping groups to achieving higher productivity. Even the Center for Creative Leadership came up short – offering strategies for leading face to face teams and virtual teams, but with no mention of the group dynamics that underlie the formation and development of high performing teams.

A short list of what’s missing

Dynamics I found missing include: power and control dynamics, leadership dynamics, race and gender dynamics, conflict dynamics, membership dynamics, and decision making dynamics. I also did not find in my searches a linking of the models of group development to leadership training. Most troubling to me was the assumption that leaders and managers could be trained in how to build and lead their teams by watching powerpoint presentations and participating in case studies and role plays. Missing seemed to be any emphasis on a laboratory approach, where ideas could be tested in the moment, and feedback given in real time.

We have learned so much in the last fifty years about the importance of learning and applying a data driven group dynamics approach, that leaving this out of the curriculum for the development of potential organization leaders seems incredible to me.

Tomorrow: Thoughts on a New Curriculum for Managers