Please note that the original paper has the footnotes!
Mentor: J. Murphy
Student: M. Limani
Assignment 2
What are the main elements of group work which local development worker should be aware of?
List of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
2. WHAT IS A GROUP
3. REQUIRMENTS OF SUCESSFUL GROUP
4. USING GROUP AS UNIT OF ACTION
5. THE ROLE OF FACILITATOR
6. COMMUNICATION SKILLS
7. THE IMPACT OF GROUP WORK IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
8. CONCLUSION
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. INTRODUCTION
This study is an assignment on Group Dynamics module. In this research we will try to identify the main elements of the group a community worker should be aware. As we start with a brief definition of the group, then we will identify some elements that a successful group should have, the elements that make the group act together the importance of facilitator, communications skills within the group and we will end the assignment by explaining the impacts of the group work in the local development.
Got to the people; Live among the people; Learn from people; Plan with the people;
Work with the people; Start with what the people know; Biuld on what the people have;
Teach by showing; Learn by doing;
Not a showcase but a pattern;Not odds and ends but a system;
Not piecemeail but an integrated approach;Not to confrim but to transform;
Not relief but release!
Lao Tsu Wisdom, China
II. WHAT IS A GROUP
As Community workers we need to know the definition of group before we take any action as facilitator. What do we consider a group?
For example: A number of students trying to find ways and methods of doing a research; ten men and women deciding about the fate of an accused serial killer; organized youth people planning their vision about youth’s activities in their area. Each of these collections of people may seams unique but in fact all of them have one mutual element that defines the group: Interdependence among the members (Lewin 1948) and a task.
The concept of interdependence is more associated with meaning that all members work together to adapt to its environment. In group interdependence occurs when members coordinates their efforts to achieve their goals and accomplish their tasks.
While, without a task (purpose) a group doesn’t need to exist. A task is an activity that group need to undertake to achieve the final goal and it’s usually is the purpose why this people create a group. The decisions on how to achieve the final goal should or to complete the task depends on member’s acceptance.
III. REQUIRMENTS OF SUCESSFUL GROUP
We just mentioned above the purpose of creating a group is to work as group to achieve goals, also the structure of the group plays significant role in group success or failure. But what are the main elements that make a group be successful?
1. Creating Ground Rules that every member obeys.
Ground rules are statements of values and guidelines which a group establishes consciously to help individual members to decide how to act. To be effective, ground rules must be clear, consistent, agreed-to, and followed . By creating ground rules members will respect each other and will know how to act in proper way. This includes the meeting norms, working norms, communication norms, task norms, procedural norms etc.
2. Having clear vision of goals and drawing a plan to achieve them
A group must set clear vision of goals that they want to achieve and together must create a plan in how to achieve those goals. Members must be involved in gathering the ideas or brainstorming in the planning processes because this builds a relationship between the group members, brings different ideas and experiences from different members, increases the commitment of members in achieving the goals they created together.
As community worker we must be aware that if a group doesn’t have clear vision and plan in how to achieve the goals members will have confusion and question why they should be part of group and may leave the group.
3. Clear decision making structure
Every group has to make decisions and the way in which these decisions are made will affect deeply the commitment of members and work of the group. Usually when a group cannot make a decision the members become frustrated. But who should make decisions? It is neither possible nor desirable to involve everybody in every decision. One of main skills of democratic leadership is deciding who should be involved in making the decision. The basic rule is that more deeply people are affected by decision then more important it is they should share in making it . Decision-making forms a continuing pattern of relationship among members of a group when every member has some influence in a group. But if all decisions are made by group a great deal of time may be wasted on unimportant matters. So there are many situations where it is reasonable to delegate the power in small group or make a policy which the whole group has agreed however sometimes is important to involve many people in decision making especially when the decision impacts them, when various ideas and opinions are needed or when a group must carry the decision
4. Leadership is also essential including the ability to influence group members, to motivate and empower them and also to lead the group in achieving the vision and goals.
IV. USING GROUP AS UNIT OF ACTION
Groups are formed by individuals, but the output of groups does not refer to the contribution the individuals make toward the group. The main purpose why groups are formed is the fact that two or more people can do more then a person alone.
Group synergy refers to the idea that two heads (or more) are better than one. You may have also heard the phrase, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts," which also refers to group synergy. Put simply, groups are often capable of producing higher quality work and better decisions that can an individual working alone . However being part of group doesn’t mean that individuals need to give less efforts to contribute in achieving group goal. But anyway we must know that to engage the group in an action there must be an acceptance for the action that needs to be taken. Also all members of group must be well informed about the action that is planed to be taken as group.
But what can enforce and what can damage the willingness of group to act together? Referred to Zader one of the most important factors is the dissatisfaction with current outcomes. If group member thinks that the situation is not how it supposed to be and there must be something undertaken to change the current situation. Also the culture plays an important role of in involving individuals in collective action. The mutual interest in results will increase the willingness of the group to act as well as aiming same values and feeling part of group identity makes group act as unit of action.
In the other hand the elements that can damage the group acting as unit is the lake of information among the group members about actions, asymmetric of empowerment as well as the feeling of not pertaining to the group (group identity). These elements will damage a group by decreasing the participation of members in action as well as turning members against the group.
Referring to Jack Gibb , an important role in organizing the group for action is the trust within the group. This means that members within a group have accepted each other (acceptance), share information’s, have clear goals and also together have define plans to reach the goals. Also the responsibility of members that are involved on action and the accountability to the group must be part of group action. Also the group must be aware that not only one person has all the responsibility or actions in group (dominate the group).
V. Facilitator's Role
The facilitator's role is to help a group make progress. Facilitators keeps meeting on track, are neutral and look moving the meeting forward.
A facilitator is an individual whose job is to help to manage a process of information exchange. While an expert’s" role is to offer advice, particularly about the content of a discussion, the facilitator's role is to help with HOW the discussion is proceeding .
A facilitator must: Be prepared which means that he/she must understand the purpose of meeting, must be familiar with the subject and think on time about directions;
Establish clear ground rules- at beginning he should encourage everyone to speak, let them know the right to be heard, to listen, to be respected, and the right to express their ideas and opinions; Ask open ended questions: a facilitator should make questions to all members and give them time to express their opinion about the issue; Summarize what others say: For instance, "It seems we agree that . . .”; Encourage communication: Successful group efforts are built on clear communication. Discussion should be honest and candid. Everyone need to listen to each other and be able to express their viewpoints. They should provide constructive feedback, not just negative criticism.
Work as a group, not as individuals: Individuals provide new ideas and approaches, but the group shares responsibility for decisions, actions, successes and failures. Because everyone has an interest in the success of the group, everyone should participate in discussions and decisions. A facilitator doesn’t allow individuals to dominate the group.
Summarize what group did at the end of the meeting: A facilitator should keep notes and tracks of the meeting. At the end of the meeting the notes about decisions, tasks, and actions are decided to be taken and who is responsible for the actions till the next meeting. A facilitator should:
VI. COMMUNICATION SKILLS
We do not know what silence means until it is broken .
A successful community worker must have very good communication skills. He should be able to speak, to listen and understand. By communication we mean sharing information’s to everyone by everyone in the group . The community worker and a facilitator should have developed communication skills by giving clear and convincing messages, being able to communicate with everyone in the group, judgment skills, being anti- discriminative and not allowing domination. Also they must know how to create and environment when everyone has a chance to take information and give information at same time.
A community worker must implement following skills during the meeting: Establishing eye contact- a community worker must look the person that is speaking in order to let him know that he have his attention; Active listening: is paying attention what the person is saying; should create a social environment: when all behaviours of members are in correct manner and no one is ofended. For a group a communication norms are very important and it should be part of the ground rules. Behaving in frame of the communication norms will help members to respect each other, not to interup and also not to dominate.
A community worker must have the ability to encourage the communication between members: he needs to break the culture of silence. People need to gain the confidence that what they think is important. If a group fails to maintain a good communication between members then the misunderstanding, lake of information and stereotypes will occur and will damage the performance of the group.
VII. THE IMPACT OF GROUP WORK IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Groups are created to change the current situation and move it on the next stage when people think that it is more appropriate for them. To achieve this group need to have clear vision and goal on how they want the situation to change and what they consider appropriate situation.
Groups achieve to realize different project that benefit to the community and local development as well. They achieve to strength the community in economical aspect by investing together in different economical projects (agriculture, tourism etc) as well as in cultural and social aspect (by building kind playgrounds, cultural centre for youths etc).
Anyway when we discuss about the local development we must say that group work is essential in having a successful local development. Why? Because who can know better what problems, needs and issues community have better then people that live in that place, situation and deal everyday with those difficulties that must improve? Planning and implementing the local development is connected with people and people must be involved in development process. It is impossible to plan a local development without having peoples voice in how we need to do it and what we need to do.
VIII. CONCLUSION
As we understood from the elaboration of the group elements that community worker should be aware we can conclude that a group is a complex creature! It is because creating a group, working in group, facilitating it, using it as unit of action is a tough thing to do. Having the fact that a group is consisted with individuals and that each individual have their own world, hopes, interest, problems is a fact that we need to know how to act properly.
Anyway the power of being a group and moving things forward in making the change not only in daily problems but bringing a change in long term in local and regional level is an purpose that keeps people together and act together,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books:
1. Forsyth, Donelson R. “Group Dynamics” 3rd edition. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 10 Davis Drive Belmont, California 2004
2. Gosling, Louisa with Edwards, Mike, “Toolkits, A Practical Guide to Assessment, Monitoring, Review and Evaluation” Save Children Publication on Development; Manual 5, London Se5 8RD, Published 1995, reprinted in 1996.
3. Hope, Anne and Timmel, Sally, “Training for Transformation” handbook for Community Worker, Book 1, 2 and 3; Russell Press Ltd, Nottingham UK 2001
4. Nazzaro, Marie Ann and Strazzabosco, Joyce. “ Group Dynamics and Team Building” World Federation of Hemophilia, 2003
Internet sources:
5. The Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/tools/en/sub_section_main_1049.htm
(Friday, 30 May 2008; time: 10:00 pm).
6. http://www.npd-solutions.com/groundrules.html
7. http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/join.html
8. http://www.geocities.com/toritrust/trust.htm
9. http://www.work911.com/articles/facil.htm
Prishtina, March 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
General Framework of Local Development
Local development is a quite broad concept, which comprises many elements. However, the aim of the essay is to identify some of the most important elements of the local development, their interconnection, as well as the local development’s direct impact in people’s daily life.
How can one define the local development? Is it important for citizens? How does the local development affect citizens wellbeing?
There are various definitions of the local development. However, one of the most often definitions could be: the engagement of the local residents, including elected officials, citizens, NGOs, various educational, cultural, and social organizations, to identify what are the main concerns of citizens and try to find long-term solutions for the existing problems that citizens face in their daily lives. In short, the main goal of the local development is to create as better living conditions for citizens.
There are many elements, namely stakeholders that play an important role in the local development, and whose contribution is indispensable. And all these elements are in a way interconnected, or linked to each-other. Some of these elements are the local government, citizens, NGOs, and various educational, cultural and social organizations.
The local governance is in charge of providing public services to citizens. The most important responsibilities of the local government are public services, including healthcare, housing, water and electricity. Moreover, the local government is also in charge of development planning, economic and environmental development.
Also the decentralization plays an essential role in terms of the local development. First of all, a decentralized government would mean greater accountability of local government to their constituency. Moreover, this accountability as well as the transparency will urge citizens to be more active in public debates as well as local decision-making processes. This way the local government would be more familiar with the needs and demands of citizens. The central government can in no way be more effective in understanding and solving problems at local level as good as the local governance can.
Another positive side of decentralization is that the ordinary citizen will feel that he is being represented, that through the local government his/her voice will be heard at the highest level of governance.
But in order to have a successful decentralization, it is the municipal government’s duty to know how to handle it. First of all, elected leadership, qualified administration personnel, and revenues are the backbone of a successful decentralized local government.
Citizens participation in decision-making processes is also an important, but at the same time a difficult objective to be reached. To some extent, it can be said that it is the local government itself that discourages the citizens to participate in this process – the municipal officials consider that by taking the office they have been vested all authorities to make decisions. And in return, the citizens feel their suggestions will not be considered and do not find it worth it to attend public debates or make any suggestions to local government officials. This is certainly a wrong conclusion, because as a matter of fact it is the citizens’ vote that enables the officials to govern the city.
As for the efficiency of the local development, capacity building, namely investing in municipal administration is necessary, because they as well as the elected leadership will be the ones in charge of drafting policies and implementing them. Without their professional contribution the development would not be operational.
And certainly, legal framework plays significant role in the local development. The legal framework regulates local government’s budget and finances, taxes and fees. Another important role of the legal framework - more precisely the fiscal framework - is to enable the local governments to ensure financial resources for their own priorities and needs, without having to expect for a help from the central level. Legislative framework, including primary and secondary legislation, ensure transparent administration as well as access to public information. To be more precise, citizens would be more informed about the way their municipality is ran, what are the municipality’s main objectives and main achievements.
Inter-municipal cooperation is another way of helping the local governments provide more efficient services to their citizens and creating better local development. Although sometimes inter-municipal cooperation can have some negative effects (such as job cuts), still it has a positive side, as the remaining posts are usually performed by qualified staff and at the same time significant cost savings are made and more quality services are provided to the citizens. Certainly it takes some time for the first results of this kind of cooperation to be seen. A good cooperation plan can help communities capture economies of scale, gain use of the latest technology and equipment that they (if acting on their own) would otherwise be unable to afford, eliminate duplicative efforts and achieve significant cost savings.
But in a way, the aforementioned elements are difficult to be reached without having a Local Economic Development (LED). The aim of the LED is to strengthen the economy of a local area as well as the quality of life for all citizens. Thus the economic growth and creation of new jobs is the main objective of an LED. The LED also incorporates environmental planning, business development, infrastructure provision, real estate development and finance.
How can one define the local development? Is it important for citizens? How does the local development affect citizens wellbeing?
There are various definitions of the local development. However, one of the most often definitions could be: the engagement of the local residents, including elected officials, citizens, NGOs, various educational, cultural, and social organizations, to identify what are the main concerns of citizens and try to find long-term solutions for the existing problems that citizens face in their daily lives. In short, the main goal of the local development is to create as better living conditions for citizens.
There are many elements, namely stakeholders that play an important role in the local development, and whose contribution is indispensable. And all these elements are in a way interconnected, or linked to each-other. Some of these elements are the local government, citizens, NGOs, and various educational, cultural and social organizations.
The local governance is in charge of providing public services to citizens. The most important responsibilities of the local government are public services, including healthcare, housing, water and electricity. Moreover, the local government is also in charge of development planning, economic and environmental development.
Also the decentralization plays an essential role in terms of the local development. First of all, a decentralized government would mean greater accountability of local government to their constituency. Moreover, this accountability as well as the transparency will urge citizens to be more active in public debates as well as local decision-making processes. This way the local government would be more familiar with the needs and demands of citizens. The central government can in no way be more effective in understanding and solving problems at local level as good as the local governance can.
Another positive side of decentralization is that the ordinary citizen will feel that he is being represented, that through the local government his/her voice will be heard at the highest level of governance.
But in order to have a successful decentralization, it is the municipal government’s duty to know how to handle it. First of all, elected leadership, qualified administration personnel, and revenues are the backbone of a successful decentralized local government.
Citizens participation in decision-making processes is also an important, but at the same time a difficult objective to be reached. To some extent, it can be said that it is the local government itself that discourages the citizens to participate in this process – the municipal officials consider that by taking the office they have been vested all authorities to make decisions. And in return, the citizens feel their suggestions will not be considered and do not find it worth it to attend public debates or make any suggestions to local government officials. This is certainly a wrong conclusion, because as a matter of fact it is the citizens’ vote that enables the officials to govern the city.
As for the efficiency of the local development, capacity building, namely investing in municipal administration is necessary, because they as well as the elected leadership will be the ones in charge of drafting policies and implementing them. Without their professional contribution the development would not be operational.
And certainly, legal framework plays significant role in the local development. The legal framework regulates local government’s budget and finances, taxes and fees. Another important role of the legal framework - more precisely the fiscal framework - is to enable the local governments to ensure financial resources for their own priorities and needs, without having to expect for a help from the central level. Legislative framework, including primary and secondary legislation, ensure transparent administration as well as access to public information. To be more precise, citizens would be more informed about the way their municipality is ran, what are the municipality’s main objectives and main achievements.
Inter-municipal cooperation is another way of helping the local governments provide more efficient services to their citizens and creating better local development. Although sometimes inter-municipal cooperation can have some negative effects (such as job cuts), still it has a positive side, as the remaining posts are usually performed by qualified staff and at the same time significant cost savings are made and more quality services are provided to the citizens. Certainly it takes some time for the first results of this kind of cooperation to be seen. A good cooperation plan can help communities capture economies of scale, gain use of the latest technology and equipment that they (if acting on their own) would otherwise be unable to afford, eliminate duplicative efforts and achieve significant cost savings.
But in a way, the aforementioned elements are difficult to be reached without having a Local Economic Development (LED). The aim of the LED is to strengthen the economy of a local area as well as the quality of life for all citizens. Thus the economic growth and creation of new jobs is the main objective of an LED. The LED also incorporates environmental planning, business development, infrastructure provision, real estate development and finance.
WELCOME!
Masters in Civil Society and Local Development at the Prishtina UniversityMCSLD In conjunction with the National University of Ireland Galway and Karl-Franzens University Graz Interdisciplinary MA program: Political Science/Sociology/Law/Economics
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