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Large Groups
Past
Members of a new group bring with them sets of expectations arising out of what they know of the origins, history, or composition of the group - which significant people are to be in it; or perhaps they simply imagine the kind of group they would like it to be. They may build up expectations from any statements they have heard about the group's purpose and task. Members may also bring with them attitudes to other members born out of prior relationships outside the group, and the group itself may carry a reputation for a particular style, climate, or level of achievement. In education, students will probably have picked up comments about how well or badly the group went in the previous year. The formation of a group requires that someone make decisions about place, resources, and the size and composition of the group. Whoever undertakes this task, for example the leader, will have considerable influence in the success of the group, at least in its initial stages.
In an established group, members may carry with them feelings derived from previous meetings; they may look forward to the resumption of an exciting interchange or may dread the re-enactment of conflicts and time-wasting tactics. They may have to do preparatory work, such as a paper or a report, and their anticipation of what will happen may cause them to approach or engage with the group in a predetermined way. New members may need careful briefing on the group's norms and procedures.
Present
While a meeting is in progress members may sometimes be taken up with thoughts about what may be happening concurrently elsewhere: an important external event, what is going on in another, possibly similar, group; why an absent member is not there, and so on.
The agreed duration of the meeting imposes another time boundary. Frequently the leader assumes the sole right to determine how long it should last and may even make arbitrary and idiosyncratic decisions about when it should end or break. The leader's awareness of time constraints in terms of the achievement of certain aims, the appropriateness of tasks, when to intervene, curtail, summarize, and so on, is of great importance and given the assumptions that are usually made about the leader's responsibility in this domain it seems appropriate that he or she should initiate and handle discussion about how long the meeting should last. Yet within the meeting conflicts may well arise between "coverage" of topics and completion of tasks on the one hand and the need to finish on time on the other.
Future
Whatever matters are discussed, decisions made, or problems solved, the minds of group members will at some stage turn to what will happen when the meeting ends. They may be thinking of what they have to communicate and to whom, of resuming former roles and relationships outside the group. They may also have it in mind that they may be answerable later for what they said or did within the confines and culture of the meeting, especially to other members with whom they may have a less democratic relationship in the wider world. Finally, there will undoubtedly be an anticipation of the end of the meeting which will bring with it a sense of relief, if it has been tedious or tense, and of sadness if it has been exciting and involving.
Questions to ask about time boundaries are:
- What do members need to know beforehand - place, time, aims, membership, roles, prior tasks?
- What arrangements have been made for their meeting - physical setting resources, and the like?
- How well were the members prepared for joining the group?
- What expectations are they likely to have from previous meetings of the group and from group members?
- What prior experience of group discussion or teamwork might they have had?
- What external distractions might occur?
- Should there be any rules about openness and confidentiality?
- What are members expected to do after the meeting?
- How acceptable are these future tasks?
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