Author: Rūta Lūse, chairman of the board of organizational development centre “Spring Valley”
There is no secret that people in different circumstances tend to behave and interact in different ways. But, despite the fact it’s nothing unusual, the problem is that being in a group, the attitude and behaviour of one person can influence the attitude and behaviour of another person. And it can impact different organisational and social processes efficiency both ways – positive and negative. Learning processes are not an exception. Especially, if we speak about the low-educated and low-skilled adults learning because adults learning process itself has to be very well-considered – inclusive and based on an individual approach – to keep the learners motivation, provide their engagement and guarantee positive outcome of the learning process, which are very important factors in achieving the learning goals.
As negative impact can have a long-term consequences, it’s very important for trainers to have a secret “card” in their pocket to develop these processes in the most efficient way, and this “card” is understanding of the group dynamics – the professional learning “tool” which helps to improve the teamwork, encourage group members to learn each from other and contribute their creativity, effectivity and productivity.
The purpose of this article is to go a little deeper into some of the basic ideas underlying the design of the training programs, because it’s very crucial to take into the consideration the great influence that the group dimension has on the learning process. Why? Experience shows that those trainers, who don’t care about the group dynamics enough, sooner or later fail in achieving their learning goals. It means only one thing – all the trainers, who are result oriented, have to change their mindset and the training approach because the trainer is the key factor of the learning process efficiency.
Read more about the concept of the group dynamics and group development stages, connection of the group dynamics to the different human systems as well as its impact to the learning and management processes, the so called “scapegoating” phenomena and other valuable ideas which help to improve the quality of the learning process. You find the full version of the learning material at our Toolkit (click here).