Basic Elements of Small Group Communication

• Explain the importance of small group communication in today’s highly organized culture.
• Describe the unrealistic picture of good group work that is often part of the conventional wisdom.
• Discuss how to gain a realistic picture of group work.
• Define basic concepts relating to small group communication.
• Explain various kinds of meetings and discussions relating to small group communication.
• Explain the important dimensions of small group communication. Plan a small group meeting.

The Nature of Small Group Communication

• Compare and contrast group discussion and small group communication.
• Compare and contrast denotative and connotative aspects of communication as they relate to small group communication.

Effective Discussional Skills

• Develop a communicative attitude when working in a small task-oriented group.
• Understand how to practice using language effectively in a small task-oriented group.
• Define and understand problems with and proper uses of nonverbal communication.
• Develop nonverbal expressiveness.
• Know the functions of nonverbal communication in small group discussion.
• Understand how to practice listening effectively in a small task-oriented group.

Group Dynamics

• Understand and apply the special and general theories that relate to small group communication.
• Communicate in a group meeting in such a way that your communication will facilitate the development of productive group norms.
• Observe and analyze the process of role emergence in a new group.
• Observe and analyze the status of members in an interacting group.
• Communicate in a group meeting in such a way that your communication will facilitate the process of role emergence.

Leadership

• Explain the trait, styles, and contextual approach to leadership.
• Explain the leadership emergence model, including the two-phase development and the patterns of emergence.
• Explain some lessons of leadership emergence, including the importance of group goals, the failure of a leader to emerge, negative central persons, and the effect of appointing a leader on emergence.
• Participate in a group and communicate in such a way as to maximize your chances of emerging as group leader.
• Use effective techniques in leading a group meeting.

Cohesiveness

• Explain the nature and importance of cohesiveness in the study of the task-oriented small group.
• Apply an analysis of group costs and rewards to the attraction of a group to its participants.
• Recognize and deal with primary and secondary tensions in small group communication.
• Develop ways to encourage and tolerate disagreements.
• Apply specific advice to the building of the cohesiveness of a group.

Fantasy Chains and Group Culture

• Recognize a fantasy chain when you see one taking place in a group meeting.
• Analyze a dramatizing message, a fantasy theme, an inside cue, and a fantasy type.
• Analyze the reasons why group members share a fantasy.
• Analyze how the sharing of fantasies relates to the creating of a group’s cohesiveness.
• Analyze a group’s history and its influence on cohesiveness.
• Analyze a group’s culture in relation to its values, emotions, and motives.

Group Decision Making and Problem Solving

• Explain the importance and the use and misuse of group meetings in contemporary society.
• Explain the continuum of approaches to group work from the rational to the creative.
• Effectively work in or lead a group during a creative phase.
• Effectively work in or lead a group during a rational step-by-step analytic phase.
• Effectively work in or lead a one-time group discussion.
• Have a realistic picture of group work and effectively work in or lead a decision-making or problem-solving group.

Managing Group Conflict

• Recognize and deal with competitive, mixed-motive, and cooperative small group communication contexts.
• Recognize and deal with conflicts in the social dimension related to flight taking, smoothing, and scapegoating.
• Be able to distinguish between conflicts that are mainly related to social problems and those mainly related to task matters.
• Be able to distinguish flight taking into either the task or social dimension of group communication.
• Recognize and deal with conflicts in the task dimension related to factual, policy, or value matters.

Diversity and the Small Group

• Analyze and understand the influence of ethnicity, class, and race on small group communication in diverse contexts.
• Analyze and understand the influence of intercultural communication on small group communication in diverse contexts.
• Analyze and understand a feminist perspective on small group communication.
• Analyze and understand the special theory of the focus group.
• Analyze and understand the impact of cyberspace, communication networks, the Internet, computer-assisted group decision making, and the World Wide Web on small group communication.

Groups in Organizations

• Examine an organization to which you belong and see how the formal structure modifies what is said in this book about small group communication.
• Effectively communicate in a newly assumed position of formal organizational leadership.
• Participate effectively in small groups in an organization because of your understanding of the relationship between formal leadership and naturally emergent leadership.
• Participate effectively in the communication in an organization’s informal structure.
• Participate in small task-oriented groups in organizational settings and communicate effectively in terms of group competition and cooperation.

Evaluating Small Group Communication

• Participate effectively in your group’s critical evaluation of its process.
• Effectively use both qualitative and quantitative methods of group evaluation.
• Effectively use both participant and nonparticipant evaluation techniques.
• Effectively follow the basic steps in evaluating small group communication.
• Effectively apply the general criteria for evaluating decision-making and problem-solving groups.
• Be able to effectively apply specific criteria for evaluating small group communication.