Fundamental Elements of Group Interaction - Essay Example

While collaboration takes on a variety of contexts, broadly speaking collaboration occurs when more than one person works together as a means of achieving a common goal. In learning, environment collaboration has a number of values. One of the most prominent values is that through collaborative group work individuals are able to receive a variety of perspectives that challenge and strengthen one’s own understanding. Collaboration in the learning context also prepares students for future group work in life and employment situations.

One of the most fundamental issues that distort the group in every way is the conflict. While collaboration is a necessary element of achieving group progress there are a number of conflicts that may arise during the collaborative process. Group members bring their ego in the work matters, which makes them indulge in dysfunctional conflicts. They waste time quarreling over unimportant issues. Consequently, the work suffers. In these regards, it’s possible that the group has personality conflicts that make teamwork difficult.

Another conflict could occur if some group members do not do equal work to that of other group members. Still another potential conflict could occur if the group has creative difference and disagree on the direction of the group. Ultimately, the group conflicts take on a myriad of forms and situational responses need to be developed to these challenges in collaboration. Collaboration is extremely important in group work because it resolves the dysfunctional conflicts amongst the group members.

All sorts of conflict resolution techniques are included in the process of collaboration. There are a number of ways the group can solve these conflicts. In these regards, it’s important to engender an environment of mutual respect and consideration. Groups that are able to develop such chemistry are more apt to find success through an open and supportive collaborative process. Another helpful element would be for a leader to emerge that could mediate some of the conflicts within the group.

The leader can also enhance the collaboration among the group members by providing them with frequent opportunities to interact and socialize with one another. When the group members get the opportunities to discuss matters that are more related to their interests rather than the regular work, their mutual understanding improves and their tendency to collaborate with one another enhances. Where there is a collaboration, group members become selfless. It is this selflessness that enables the group members to interact with one another the way they should in order to be able to finish the project within the deadline, and conforming to the cost and quality specified by at the outset.