Introduction
Group Dynamics
A culture defines its individuals and is influenced by its individuals.
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Dynamics of the Group
Any group worthy of its status consists of an over-riding culture and a collection of individuals participating in the culture and interacting with each other. The interactions define the dynamics of the organization. An example is the computer-assisted group-based training system I suggest. All its members interact in the training process.
The dynamics can be as complex as anyone could desire. They are non-linear, and even the tiniest change can ripple through the group context to cause many other changes and even create chaos. Stability could easily be compromised. The changes could exceed the ability of members to adjust, and the organization could fail to recover. This could be chaotic. The changes could occur at many levels, physical to cultural.
Group behavior always occurs in a physical environment. Groups, after all, consist of individuals, who are physical objects, subject to the same influences as other objects. The members are influenced by physical properties like gravity, light, sound, temperature, and pressure. These factors are commonly taken for granted in traditional studies of group dynamics, and rightly so. But they contribute to the complexity of the dynamics of skills and have to be considered when modeling simulations (virtual realities), which after all represent our real worlds (our personal virtual realities).
We also have to consider our biological structure, particularly the sensory-motor system. Even at the level of the mechanics of the muscles and bones, the intricacies to be found in the visual processes, alone, are enough to drive the level of entanglement of skill dynamics to a higher order of magnitude. But this is still as nothing compared to the interaction of the visual and motor processes with each other. And yet there are still the many other bodily sensors and their subtle interactions with each other and the motor elements.
Somehow, personal and social values have to be added to the mix. They largely determine goals to be achieved by the group and what actions might be considered to be proper. So they define what is normal (for the group. Cultural values affect our motivation and create individual and group goals, or agendas. They also affect the way we observe and deal with others. And they serve to define our many rules of behavior and invest the skills and their environments with meaning and purpose. Indeed, as Clifford Geertz says (in Interpretation of Culture), "There is no such thing as human nature independent of culture." In other words the culture defines the individual. The systems at each structural level interact with those of the other levels to create non-linear dynamics of extraordinary complexity.
Bad enough the functional relationships among the variables are often not known, or at best vague and unclear! But think of trying to decide what steps to take to initiate a goal-directed action! Or to recover intuition-based skills that have been forgotten or lost!
As Daryl R Conner points out in his book, Leading at the Edge of Chaos, we need to encourage and develop conscious competence. Conner's comments are directed particularly to organizational leadership skills, but the need for heightened awareness extends to many other complex skills. Finding the appropriate way to perform the desired actions is becoming more difficult, and relying on gut feeling is no longer adequate.
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Probably one of the more difficult tasks we face today is to cope with the changes in our lives due to technological innovations. Adding the 9-11-01 episode to the mix, it's clear that new skills and new perceptions are required, both at the personal level and in our organizations. The challenge is to make appropriate changes without giving up time-honored freedoms!
Both individuals and groups have to learn to deal with the changes. This burdens all of us, first as individual learners, but also as group learners. It also puts heavy stress on our educational and training institutions. More effective approaches to group learning are demanded.
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