6.3 – Group Life Cycles and Member Roles

Just as groups go through a life cycle when they form and eventually adjourn, the group members fulfill different roles during this life cycle. These roles, proposed by Richard Moreland and John Levine (1982), are summarized in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Life Cycle of Member Roles

Using Abe as an example, the following is a group member’s life cycle description:

Stage 1: Abe graduated from her MBA program and is working as a financial analyst. She has decided that she would like to know more about the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. She has contacted the CFA Institute and reached out to members of her company to discuss what the process is like to become a CFA.

At this stage, Abe is a potential member. She is not a member of the institute yet.

Stage 2: Abe reviews the requirements for becoming a CFA member, and registers as a CFA candidate. She writes the exams and is currently completing her work experience portion of the requirements. She is not yet a full member but is enrolled in the institute while she completes her work experience. She attends events with her local CFA society to network, and learn. She finds it overwhelming as she is unfamiliar with the rules, information, and members of this society.

As a new group member, your level of acceptance will increase as you begin learning the group’s rules, spoken and unspoken (Fisher, 1970). You will gradually move from the potential member role to the role of a new group member as you learn to fit into the group.

Stage 3: Over time Abe completes her work experience requirements, and becomes a full member. As she completes projects and works with others she learns more about the profession and membership responsibilities, she is no longer considered a “newbie”. Full members enjoy knowing the rules and customs, and can even create new rules. New group members look to full members for leadership and guidance.

Stages 4 & 5: Abe sometimes disagrees with other CFA members at her organization or in her society on different approaches to projects. As there are many ways to approach a project, there are bound to be differences in perspectives. Expressing different views can cause conflict and may even interfere with communication. When this type of tension arises, divergent group members pull back, contribute less, and start to see themselves as separate from the group. Divergent group members have less eye contact, seek out each other’s opinions less frequently, and listen defensively. At the beginning of the process, you felt a sense of belonging, but now you don’t. Marginal group members start to look outside the group for their interpersonal needs.

Stage 6: Abe works alongside another CFA member named Sue who seems to always have a different perspective than Abe on how to create reports for management. Abe likes to use technology to make the job go faster, but Sue is uncomfortable with technology and would rather do it all by hand. After several years of working together, Sue has decided to retire from her job and from the CFA Institute to pursue other interests.

Some members at this stage can overcome differences and stay in the group for years; or move on to other groups. As a skilled business communicator, you will recognize the signs of divergence, just as you have anticipated the storming stage, and do your best to facilitate success.

Positive and Negative Member Roles

If someone in your group always makes everyone laugh, that can be a distinct asset when the news is less than positive. At times when you have to get work done, however, the class clown may become a distraction. Notions of positive and negative will often depend on the context when discussing groups. Table 6.2 “Positive Roles” and Table 6.3 “Negative Roles” list both positive and negative roles people sometimes play in a group setting (Beene & Sheats, 1948; McLean, 2005).

Table 6.2 Positive Roles

Table 6.3 Negative Roles

Now that you’ve reviewed positive and negative group member roles, you may examine another perspective. While some personality traits and behaviors may negatively influence groups, some traits can be positive or negative depending on the context.

Just as the class clown can have a positive effect in lifting spirits or a negative effect in distracting members, a dominator may be exactly what is needed for quick action. An emergency physician doesn’t have time to ask all the group members in the emergency unit how they feel about a course of action; instead, a self-directed approach based on training and experience may be necessary. In contrast, a teacher may ask students their opinions about a change in the format of class; in this situation, the role of coordinator or elaborator is more appropriate than that of dominator.

The group is together because they have a purpose or goal, and normally they are capable of more than any one individual member could be on their own, so it would be inefficient to hinder that progress. But a blocker, who cuts off collaboration, does just that. If a group member interrupts another and presents a viewpoint or information that suggests a different course of action, the point may be well taken and serve the collaborative process. But if that same group member repeatedly engages in blocking behavior, then the behavior becomes a problem. A skilled business communicator will learn to recognize the difference, even when positive and negative situations and roles aren’t completely clear.