Why should managers be aware of the informal group? Describe the element of group cohesiveness.

4 years ago

Reasons For Aware of Informal Group

A manager should be aware of the informal group in regards to both positive and negative aspects. The rational manager should focus on negative side than positive because negative aspects of informal groups are more dangerous and create problems to entire organization.

Some of the key reasons that highlight the necessity of being aware about informal groups are listed below.

Informal group can have unfair views to the management.
Unnecessary politics may arise in organization.
Informal groups may end at any time.
Informal group may not have best leadership to energize and synergize the work efficiency.
Informal groups can create the ethnical confusion in organization as views are interacted to produce contrast views.
Informal group sometimes is translated in organizational activities. Element of Group Cohesiveness

Group cohesion means the degree to which the group members are attracted to each and remain within the group. It is usually reflects by its resistance to disruption by outside forces. Group cohesive develops out of the activities, interaction, and sentiments of the members.

The key elements of group cohesiveness are explained briefly.

Group size: one of the important and necessary conditions for the existence of the group is that members interact and communicate with each other. If the group is so large that members do not get to know each other, there is a little likelihood that the group will be high in cohesiveness. This is a logical assumption that would be made by those who understand the difficulties of communication I large groups. Research studies have found that inverse relationship does not exists between the size of the group and the group cohesive. As the size increases, its cohesiveness decreases.
Member similarity: the degree of cohesiveness will be high when group members are similar in age, backgrounds and values. In other words, homogeneous group will be more cohesive than heterogeneous group. It is because of more trust and less conflict among the group members with homogeneous character.
Member interaction: when member interact frequently, there trends to be more group of cohesive because they got chance to share ideas and views in order to avoid the situation of misunderstanding and conflict.
Groups success: A successful group tends to be more cohesive than a group of repetitive failure records. Group members of the succession group believe that, because of their successive records in the past, they will remain successful in the future too.