Jargon Series: Group Dynamics

Clarifying the umbrella field of study for how we behave with other people

Welcome to the “Jargon” Series! These posts attempt to describe a term or concept with clarity, making it useful for us in our efforts to participate in groups in our everyday lives.

Whenever I do research for a project I’m working on with a team at work, or a piece I’m writing for this blog, I usually start with publications and journals on the topic of “group dynamics.” And what’s funny is, I don’t often find what I’m looking for. I thought this would be a good place to start in this jargon series because it represents aspects of the academic side of participation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, group dynamics is a pretty broad term. Here’s the nice accessible Wikipedia definition:

Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intragroup dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies.

Okay. That’s a start. I guess.

I’ll do a bit of historical background to orient you (and if you’re interested in reading about the background in more depth, please comment and let me know). Kurt Lewin coined the term in the 1940s(ish). He is a big figure in organization development — he was one of the early people to propose scientifically studying how groups interacted, and how people behaved differently in groups and changing circumstances. Before the term was coined, several sociologists and psychologists were just beginning to explore and understand that there was such a thing as “collective” behavior, and that the research that existed on individual cognition and behavior couldn’t account for how people interacted in groups.

This understanding birthed a huge amount of work in these fields, which aimed to categorize and define different types of groups, the make-up of these groups, and how individuals joined, behaved in, and separated from these groups. While this research is super interesting if you’re into this sort of thing, only some of it is useful for a participant in a group who wants to know how to understand their role and what they are experiencing.

Another way to understand the early thinking on group dynamics is this — sometimes groups are successful, and sometimes they fail. Sometimes group experiences are great, and sometimes they are terrible. So what are the elements that cause these outcomes?

This sends us down a variety of rabbit holes: Each individual within a group is highly complex (background, culture, race, gender, upbringing, socioeconomic status, trauma, personality, communication style, etc), and more often than not we aren’t able to choose which other people we work with, each of which has a different highly complex background. What I love about the study of group dynamics is that it tries to break down these factors and create models of different kinds of group makeup. What I hate about the study of group dynamics … is that it tries to break down these factors and create models of different kinds of group makeup. ;)

Given the complexity of human psychology, cognition, and neurology, and the added complexity of communication between humans, this is no easy feat. I am equally fascinated by it and frustrated by it. Many consultants and coaches take a small chunk of group dynamics research and use it to justify a particular prescriptive approach to how groups work together, and I get it. It can be helpful to simplify complex things and feels more digestible to those we are working with. But I have seen many of these techniques cause unnecessary conflict and confusion because they don’t take into consideration the specific folks involved.

The study of group dynamics is important for consultants and coaches, but there is still a lot we don’t understand and it’s not always useful or responsible to make up new models for defining and reducing group types to their basic components. It’s the group equivalent to personality assessments (about which y’all know I have feelings). For those of us who just want to participate, knowing some of the basics about group dynamics can be super useful. I recommend this great concise summary from the Handbook of Social Work With Groups. I always appreciate papers and perspectives written by and for social workers. Maybe because they are dealing so directly with intense things, they tend to be more rigorous and evidence-based than some of us corporate lackeys.

It may sound overly simplistic (or frustrating), but my view is that every group is different. The key is not to prescribe a particular set of tools and approaches to every group but to use our curiosity and some structure when we gather to find what works best for that particular group. This makes me wary of any group assessment that results in “archetypes” or canned step-by-step processes. This nuanced perspective also applies to the structure of groups. There is endless argument about what types of structures work best for groups and companies: is hierarchy good or bad? Should all teams have six different “styles” represented? Should we all self-manage or does direction come from one place? What about matrix structures?

While it can be fun to discuss and argue about this stuff, I tire of it pretty quickly. Because the answer is always, “It depends on the group.”

So. For those of us looking to do more effective and satisfying work with other people in our lives, the study of group dynamics can be an enriching path, but it doesn’t often lead to practical advice, at least in the short term. In future posts, I’ll dig into some more nuanced and narrow tools that can be helpful.

Do you agree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. And if there are any elements of group dynamics you want to know more about, let me know.