The fabric of group behavior is woven of individual threads. Group dynamics can take various forms but the essence of the group is the individual. Given that group vitality is a co-mingling of participant energy, potentially creating a greater unitary integrity, then each source of energy impacts the whole. Personal disharmony can lead to unhealthy group interactions. In a group setting individual response may be based on recall of learned behavior, or situationally determined. Long-term memory serves as a means to rapidly access and perform on perception, motor skills, or facts and events. This long-term storing mechanism can be unconscious, as in implicit memory, or of a conscious or explicit nature. Environmental and emotional cues can trigger these learned reactions. When the responses are congruent with the environment, and the individual’s present emotional state, then peace is achieved and integrity is maintained. When the pre-wired long-term memory responses are no longer valid, either because the environment has changed or the player has changed, then intentionality and attentiveness can stimulate and grow a new way of being. Self-awareness is essential to self-growth and high group effectiveness.
Having a model to evaluate group systems and processes can be the compass to weathering the seas of change within companies, couples, or self. The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook (Schwartz et al., 2005) provides a valuable point of reference for analyzing group dynamics. The writers posit that effective groups have ingrained mutual core values, seek synergy, and honor mutual learning. In practicing these foundational principles the stage is set for powerful resolution. Productivity happens when all players have clarity of purpose, transparency of thought, seek mutual gain, and value diversity (Schwartz et al., 2005). This structured approach to group potency has many of the characteristics of Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Harmony starts, as suggested by Covey (1989), and noted by Schwartz et al., (2005) from the inside-out.
An understanding of neural circuitry and keys to group success does not make things happen. In social cognitive theory, the self is a reflection of one’s environment, one’s behaviors, and one’s capabilities, inseparable components of the whole. Individual identity, and sense of self, is preserved in long-term memories, therefore, individual psychodynamics are also embedded in organizational conflict, and individual paradigms live out in intrapersonal relations (Bandura, 2008). What neuroscientists confirmed through magnetic imaging was already known from the observational studies in psychology and the social sciences. “We are nothing without our memories but sometimes they also make us less than we could be” (LeDoux, 2009). Ingrained restraining forces can work against the driving forces of new desires. To overcome these forces one perseveres, repeats, and is motivated intrinsically (Wheelis, 1973). Self-actualization, ascending to an evolved self, is of conscious and deliberate design and rarely spontaneous, but rather intentional and mindful (Wheelis, 1973). Attentiveness, a necessary component for change, is a purposeful introspection, whether, personal or in a group setting. The tipping point for learning and potential growth is this looking glass self. In acknowledging, creating the space for change, and releasing past imprinted conditions, one breaks away from limiting beliefs. In this gained freedom is the potential to shape destiny.
“If every person is in certain aspects like all other people, like some other people, like no other person” (Kluckmann & Murray, as cited in Bandura, 2008), and the group fabric is made up of individual threads, then, the individual’s perception of self, stored in long term memory, needs to follow a group identity, or be open to change in the way of the group. Group development lies in each individual’s ability to give up a part of his or her own self-identity (Doherty, 2005).
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