Group Climate and Verbal and Non Verbal Dynamics

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Group Climate and Verbal and Non Verbal Dynamics

• Todays Discussion

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Define Climate

• Climate is determined by how people act and
  communicate(Amway Meeting)
• Defensive or Supportive

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Defensive Communication breeds a defensive climate

• Because it attacks the self image of those in the
  group
• Evaluation - You dont ever make the bed
• Control-I am really more important than you,
  manipulation
• Neutral responses-Uncaring
• I vs. We language

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Defensive communications are characterized by
disconfirming responses

• How people respond in groups determines the
  climate in the group
• Confirming responses make people value themselves
  
• Confirming responses promote group safety
• Disconfirming responses make people value
  themselves less and feel less safe

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Disconfirming responses

• Incongruous
• Incoherent
• Tangential
• Irrelevant
• Impersonal
• Impervious
• Interrupting

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Defensive Communication
Defensive
Communication
Fostered by
Disconfirming
Responses
Leads to
Leads to more
Defensive climate
Protect yourself
Emphasis on
individual goals
I vs We
Reinforcing Feedback Loop
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Supportive Communication
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Demonstrate
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Why do people use disconfirming responses?

• People are basically mean and want to make
  everyone around them miserable
• People dont know how to listen

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Listening is a complex activity that is learned
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Listening on Three Levels

• Hearing
• Involves receiving, translating and understanding
  the message
• Involves translating non verbal cues to
  comprehend the message as intended
• Analyzing
• Hearing is included
• Inferring the intent of the speaker-what did he
  really mean?
• Confirming responses and asking questions helps
  with this

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Empathizing

• Includes hearing and analyzing
• Gets at the emotional content of the message
• Seeing the world through the eyes of the other
  person
• Emotional Relationships breed trust

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Barriers to Effective Listening

• Anything at all that distracts
• Prejudging - I know what hes going to say-mind
  goes on vacation
• Rehearsing - As soon as he stops talking this is
  what Ill say.

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Active Listening Involves

• Stop what you are doing
• Look for the non verbal cues that identify
  feelings
• Match verbal and non verbal cues to decipher
  content and emotion
• Ask confirming questions
• Paraphrase content to insure you understand
• Paraphrase feelings to understand what is being
  felt

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Language and Words

• One of the things that make us human
• Tools by which people make sense of their world
• Act as boundaries to group communications -
  double filters
• Affecting group climate
• Make people defensive

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Group Cohesiveness

• The degree of attraction members feel towards one
  another
• Loyalty -esprit de corps
• Develops around both task and relationship
  dimensions
• Friends make cohesive groups that may not get
  stuff done
• Culturally diverse groups bring broad perspective
  but challenge ability to minimize
  misunderstandings

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The single most effective generator of group
cohesiveness is the quality and amount of
communication that occurs within the group
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Select a Topic

• You will be given 30 minutes to determine the
  topic you wish to research and discuss. Please
  remember that the topic you select should be
• (1) Researchable, (2) Timely enough that current
  policies are already being used to try and solve
  the problem, (3) Serious enough that visible
  harms of the problem can be found, and (4)
  Extensive enough that several possible solutions
  could possibly be implemented to help solve the
  problem.

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Brainstorm ideas. You may then narrow your
choices down until your group reaches one final
decision. Come up with a topic with which
everyone is satisfied.Your topic will be worded
as follows WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT
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Non Verbal Communication

• Body Postures, movements, eye contact, facial
  expressions
• Vocal tone e.g. pitch, volume,rate, intonation,
  use of silence

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Frequency of Non Verbal Communication

• 7 of the emotional meaning of a message is
  verbal
• People use non-verbal communication far more than
  verbal

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Behavior as Communication

• Postures, Movement and Gestures
• Eye Contact
• Facial Expressions
• Vocal Cue
• Territoriality and Personal Space
• Personal Appearance
• Environment
• Time

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Culture and the use of Non Verbal Communication

• Context
• Emphasis placed on verbal communications
• Contact
• Comfort with close proximity

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High Context

• Emphasis placed on nonverbal communication
• Information drawn from the environment
• Skilled at interpreting non verbal communications
• fewer words used

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Low Context

• Greater emphasis on verbal communication
• More likely to miss non verbal cues
• Americans tend to be low context communicators

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Impact in Small Groups

• Low context people can verbally dominate the
  conversation and not read the non verbal cues
  from high context people in the group.
• High context people can be so busy sending and
  receiving non verbal communications that they
  forget to be verbally heard by low context people.

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How do you use Nonverbal Communications

• Carefully - Practice on your friends first before
  your boss or your spouse
• Interpret cues in context
• Look for clusters of cues
• Consider Culture
• Consider gender differences
• Perception checking - Interpret then ask.

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