Page 71 - Effective group discussion theory and practice by Adams, Katherine H. Brilhart, John K. Galanes, Gloria J

54 Chapter 3

In the church board we described, every decision was accomplished through
open discussion that emphasized member interdependence. For example, for
Sunday services to proceed without a hitch, the worship coordinator had to book
the speaker and print the programs; the decorator had to make sure that the
flowers were in place and the hymnals distributed; and the hospitality coordinator
had to unlock the building and make the coffee. If anyone failed to do his or her
job, the service as a whole would be hurt.
Simply put, competent group members understand that this interrelatedness
among all the components of a group, including group members, compels group
members to be accountable to each other as they work together, not separately,
toward their goal. The consequences of their choices during the process of group
deliberation reverberate throughout the entire group system. 4
George Will, a Newsweek columnist, dramatically illustrates the principle of
interdependence and also reminds us that, because we are all interdependent,
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actions we take sometimes have unanticipated consequences. When the
Lincoln Memorial was illuminated at night, the lights attracted insects, which
attracted the spiders that fed on them and which then attracted the birds that
fed on the spiders. To keep the monument beautiful for visitors, workers
scrubbed the bird droppings and the spider webs that accumulated, but the act
of scrubbing the marble made it susceptible to the exhaust fumes from the
traffic in Washington, DC. Lighting the monument, intended to have a positive
effect, also set in motion a chain of events contributing to the monument’s
deterioration.
These chain reactions impact human groups too. Coca-Cola teams with
the World Wildlife Federation inspired a global effort to conserve water.
Their efforts inspired four Georgia high school students to use syrup drums
supplied by Coca-Cola to conduct workshops showing their peers how to turn
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them into rain barrels. This effort helps decrease the runoff into neighboring
streams by diverting the water to gardens. In particular, their efforts led to
increased awareness and protection of their town creek that flows into a state
river and directly feeds into Atlanta’s drinking water. An environmental
assignment sparked a number of workshops leading to increased use of rain
barrels and the creation of a local group that regularly monitors its own creek.
We cannot know in advance all the effects our actions will cause, a reality we
address later.
2. A group is a synergistic whole, more than merely a collection of individuals. The
Synergy principle of synergy, also called nonsummativity, states that the whole is not
The property of a just the sum of its parts but a unique entity that emerges from the parts of the
system that the system and their interdependence. This system can be more than or greater
whole is not the sum than any single member (positive synergy) or it may perform worse (negative
of its parts, but may synergy). Sports fans know this principle. Simply adding up a team’s statistics
be greater or lesser does not guarantee predicting an outcome. The Golden State Warriors lost to
than the sum. the Cleveland Cavaliers, who overcame a three-game deficit, in the 2016
National Basketball Championship, a feat never seen before in an NBA

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