Bounded awareness has an extricable tie to our group dynamics and social learning. First, we must define the aspects of bounded awareness. According to Bazerman & Moore, bounded awareness refers to “the observation that people routinely overlook important information during the decision-making process” (2013).  My initial takeaway from this idea is people’s heuristic approach to group dynamics can be detrimental instead of advantageous. The reason I think most people will only discuss what is already known by the group is a form of pack mentality, safety in numbers and collectivism, possibly tied to social learning. A person does not want to be the outsider of the tribe, if their idea or thought might be interpreted as foolish or not relevant.

In further looking at other aspects of bounded awareness, strategic decisions “ones in which one has to take into consideration what may be going on in the minds of the other parties with whom he or she needs to arrive at a joint decision, including negotiating of various sorts” (Bazerman & Moore 2013).  Not understanding the rules of transactions or mindset of members can be counterproductive or even harmful. Often this “neglect can lead to such occurrences as paying more for a negotiable purchase than would be necessary or agreeing to a greater involvement in a group project than one should” (Bazerman and Moore 2013).

If I were a member of a decision-making group, armed with the knowledge of bounded awareness without the data from the assorted studies, I would have attempted to get the various parties to work on different angles. This is in line with role-assignment hypothesis. According to Stasser (1995), findings suggest that public identification of expertise (role assignment) promotes the collective pooling of unshared information. Stasser indicates that this role-assignment hypothesis predicts that groups whose members are explicitly assigned roles at the onset of discussion will recall more unshared information than groups whose members are not assigned roles.

According to Stasser’s role assignment hypothesis: Groups without role assignment recalled only 29% of the unshared items and groups with role assignment recalled 34% of unshared items. By way of comparison, groups overall recalled 58% of shared items. This clearly evidenced a sampling bias in favor of shared information and role assignment decreased but did not eliminate this bias. I would argue that complete removal of any bias might be beyond human capacity at our current state and the improvement shown in the study is substantial.

I have observed many meetings and gatherings and observed the effects firsthand. I have gone to meetings and walked out with nothing I did not have when I entered. I have found that if people are given an area they have to cover or invest their own resources into, then that angle will have something else to add to the gathering. In this situation “when members were explicitly assigned roles they have been more likely to take “megaturns” (Dabbs & Ruback, 1987; Stasser & Vaughan, 1996), each member in turn recalling as much as they could before passing the floor to another member” (Stasser & Vaughan, 1996).

In conclusion, based upon the data and my own anecdotal observations I think assigning roles will give the desired effects for my efforts. Assigning roles creates a sense of responsibility and accountability of members within the group. Individuals within the whole are differentiated by the role which curtails collectivist group think by making it negative to not contribute on your particular topic.

 

References:

Bazerman, M., Moore, D. (2013). Judgement in managerial decision making, 8^th edition. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley.

Dabbs, J. M., Jr., & Ruback, R. B. (1987). Dimensions of group process: Amount and structure of vocal interaction. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20, pp. 123–169). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)

Stasser, G., Stewart, D. D., & Wittenbaum, G. M. (1995). Expert roles and information exchange during discussion: The importance of knowing who knows what. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 244–265. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)

Stasser, G., & Vaughan, S. I. (1996). Models of participation during face-to-face unstructured discussions. In E. H. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Consensual action by small groups (Vol. I, pp. 165–192). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (As cited in Stasser, Vaughan and Stewart, 1998)

Looking into different types of conflict in communication going poorly, I found some interesting ideas and how they apply to daily interactions. Differentiation as it pertains to escalation and avoidance really seem to frame disputes I have had in the past. Looking back and seeing how things played out and how people reacted fits in very well within these ideas.

In differentiation and escalation, which “is fueled by negative emotions such as anger and hurt, by social cognitive process such as attributing fault for the conflict to the other, and by interaction process such as reciprocity” (Folger, Poole, and Stutman, 2013, p.16). Obvious signs that may indicate being stuck in a destructive cycle are insults, personal attacks and anything that turns it less about the issue and more about defeating the adversary or ‘other’. The escalation divides the differentiated parties, increasing the gulf between their stances to the point of making a workable solution difficult.

In differentiation and avoidance, “parties may sometimes fear the consequences of open conflict so much that they refuse to acknowledge the conflict and avoid anything that might spark a confrontation” (Folger, Poole, and Stutman, 2013, p.16). It can be difficult to step into the metaphorical arena of differentiation to decide a solution over a particularly contentious issue. Factoring in other possible variables such as being outnumbered, out positioned or knowing engaging with the other parties will inevitably result in escalation. Involved parties “may respond to potential conflicts with ambiguous statements and skirt troublesome issues “(Folger, Poole, and Stutman, 2013, p.17).

The destructive cycles outlined by Folger, Poole, and Stutman, describe the way many differentiation interactions may not come to a resolution. However, the same destructive aspects of the differentiation can and do play a part in the normal course towards normal navigating integration towards a solution.  Folger, Poole, and Stutman use a nautical example known as tacking for explaining the ability to arrive at a solution to the problem. Tacking is not on the surface, an intuitive and easy idea to grasp. The idea of traveling back and forth at angles to travers to a point straight ahead of your position is a great way to explain the handling of differentiation discourse. If you go too far to the port side the destructive cycle of spiraling escalation occurs, too far starboard brings you to ridged avoidance.

In my experience I have had to navigate both spiraling escalation and ridged avoidance. Occasionally the problem was my own, and more often than not I have recognized that before too much damage is caused. One of my peers at work tends to use intimidation through most differentiation interactions. He is big, loud and will talk over anyone with which he is currently engaged. I view the words he uses and manner of delivery as escalation. I believe it is ingrained in his personality, and is not administered with malice aforethought. His actions cause many of our other peers to employ various levels of avoidance because they do not want to engage with his bombastic personality.  I approach any differentiation with him using a ‘bide my time’ approach. I allow him to loudly spin his wheels and I will calmly respond throughout. It requires a lot of energy and focus for him to keep up such a high level of bluster for an extended period of time. Once I think he has started to run out of gas I present my case as relaxed as possible. We do not always reach an amicable solution, but I would estimate without my measured approach the rest of the group would stall into a destructive cycle of ridged avoidance.

 

References:

Folger, J.P., Poole, M.S., and Stutman, R.K., (2013). Working Through Conflict: Strategies for Relationships, Groups and Organizations. Seventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

The most difficult person I have ever had to work with was a person that made me reevaluate how I view a person’s redeeming characteristics. How this relates ties into how members of a similar surface level diversity grouping can be so drastically different from another person. For the sake of decency, I will refer to the person that is the subject by the name ‘Bill’. On a simple surface diversity level, Bill and I were very similar. The employees that worked with us came from many diverse backgrounds, including members raised in other countries. Yet the gap between us was almost nonexistent except of course in the case of  Bill. Up until working with Bill, I could always find something about a person to either excuse some flaw or counterbalance what I personally considered a negative trait. The only one I can think of for Bill to this day, is he showed me how much damage one person can be in the role of a supervisor.

Bill was an extrovert, in his case to his detriment. Once you begin talking to Bill, it becomes apparent he has no idea what he is talking about. He lacked focus, tended to go on energetic tangents that lead nowhere. A person could not explain another view or course of action, Bill could only see things from his viewpoint. In reading through Thurstone’s (1938) seven factors I could not recognize a single strength Bill possessed.

Bill had attained a fair amount of position in our organization, not through merit mind you but through time grind. The only portion listed under Bill’s generational group of Baby Boomer that applied was the “plan to stay with the organization long term” (Tyson 2014). Anyone else with the amount of time he had would have been several steps higher. Essentially his position allowed him to have and abuse subordinates. Bill existed on a surface diversity level, he would routinely judge an entire group of people based on stereotypes and his own perceived experiences with individuals.

Above is a light covering, his impact on the staff is an incalculable metric. I know he cost our organization many promising employees and that was only during the time I observed him. People did not want to work with him or after him. The shift after his was often referred to as the ‘clean-up crew’. Bill created an environment where many of the staff began to find the work meaningless which leads well towards Herzberg’s two-factor theory. According to Herzberg (1959), Bill’s actions did not create motivating climate which in turn did not encourage job satisfaction.

Bill does not work for the organization anymore, but there are still a handful of people that look back on their time interacting with him with a sense of disgust. Bill’s values were so different and alien to me, yet we were from the same country, were the same ethnicity. Our surface diversity was almost nonexistent, save for age.  I had far more in common with our coworkers that I shared no visible traits. The experience highlights the smaller gap between groups versus what is possible within ones own.

 

References

Herzberg, F. (1959). Two-Factor theory of Work Motivation

Thurstone, L.L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. : University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Tyson, Shaun. Essentials of Human Recource Management, 6th Edition. Routledge, 12/2014. VitalBook file.

Greetings,

My name is Andrew Penn and I work in a multi-mission maritime security organization. I currently live in Northern California, near the water of course. Professionally I am nearing an event horizon of time served and staying the course or changing the terms of the deal with my employer. My long term goals are to continue/increase my financial stability.

As far as leadership experience goes, I have been a supervisor of some variety for most of the past two decades. A favorite leadership quote, “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” – Theodore Roosevelt. The reason I appreciate the meaning of the line is it speaks to a need for self responsibility which I think is sorely lacking in our current day.

I am not interesting in the slightest and mean to keep it that way!

– Andrew