consider examples of group communication within the United States Congress

Group Communication
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Abstract
Effective communication in formal groups is a concern for every organization. The Congress has adopted various communication models within the communication ecosystem to ensure their views are adequately articulated. The Congress uses social media, their website, and media firms to air their activities to the public while also ensuring each member of the House articulates their views through the use of technology such as speech pads that ensure easier allocation of time to members to air their views. The USA has thousands of formal groups such as choirs, learning groups, departmental groups in a company; committees of the Congress and social groups. The Tuckman’s development stages highlight the steps groups undergo before being fully developed. The group evolves from forming to storming, eventually changing from norming to performance. The changes illustrate the growth potential of groups. Cultural differences and groupthink adversely affect communication in the Congress. Open dialogue, regular training and enforcing new models of communication through the internet will enhance effective communication in formal groups.
Communication is an essential element in the society. Individuals and companies consistently use communication tools to inform and influence people to purchase or recommend products to others. The success of social media in ensuring people communicate seamlessly across the globe shows that communication is a critical component in the society.

Modern communication devices such as radios, television, and mobile phones have eased communication among individuals. Similarly, multinational companies use teleconferencing to convey real-time messages to their subsidiaries in foreign nations. Imperatively, communication has helped politicians to woo voters, tutors to transfer knowledge to students and reporters to communicate occurrences in the society. Formal communication in organizations employs group communication metrics to ensure the team achieves its objective (Lindlof & Taylor, 2010). Various forms of the group are developed to perform a specific goal, interact, and make interdependent decisions among all members. Today, experts believe that the USA is home to many formal groups mainly due to urbanization and economic growth. Companies and individuals have formed the public, work, civic, learning, service, self-help, social and primary groups to meet specific goals. Learning groups are common in the colleges while work groups are used by workers to address specific work issues. Moreover, church choirs, rotary club, and football teams are all precise examples of group communication in the USA. Each group serves to enforce a particular intention consistent with their goals, primarily an objective in the American society.
Tuckman’s Stages of Development
Group communication dynamics efficiently succeeds in their targets by employing the Tuckman’s stages of development. Group communications use the Tuckman’s theory to enforce their goals while guiding members to achieve its aims through a predetermined path. The model encompasses four critical stages, followed both intuitively and unknowingly by members of a group. Members initially form their team, attracted by their ambition to meet a particular goal. The group plans are neither reliable nor discrete but depend on the motif to move forward with their plans during the formation stage. Furthermore, since the arrangement is new to the individuals, the communication models are considered learning grounds for every member. The formation period acts as an interaction period among members as the group attempts to formalize their rules. Therefore, the team takes steps geared to ensuring that members can trust each other, set goals and divide roles among members, adopt a reward system and leaders take a directional mode of leadership (Tuckman & Jensen, 2010). Learning groups in colleges face the same challenges but grow through the model steps in the USA.
The group evolves to the next stage of storming, primarily prominent with competition among members and trying new ideas to spice up the team. The stage allows team members to understand their roles, seek positions of power and creation of splinter groups. Members of a work group will likely try to ensure their policies are implemented in the firm, creating splinter groups in the team. However, the group easily articulates its agendas, try new ideas and re-evaluation of the team’s mission. Apparently, at the stage each member is afraid of the other’s actions that may put their place in the group in jeopardy, forcing members to set group boundaries and compete at all levels of group communication. The leader bears the most significant responsibility for ensuring the group evolves to the next stage by putting in place a supportive environment, publicizing team wins and building confidence by honoring promises. The Congress uses social media to publicize its activities to the public (Golbeck, Grimes & Rogers, 2010). The steps ensure that the team grows to the norming stage according to the Tuckman’s theory. The group experiences success at the norming stage, shares openly, focuses on the team’s mission, resources are abundant for the team and the leader emphasizes the team’s conduct. Evolution to the last stage is easier as the team protects their traditions, delegate roles quickly, share successes and communicate regularly. The final stage of performing allows the team to take higher risks, efficiently operate in the group, perform exemplary and individuals are easily motivated.
Barriers to Communication in the Congress
The Congress is a formal organization that legislates laws in the nation. The speaker has established modern ways of communication among members and constituents to ensure participants communicate effectively. The Congress has implemented modern modes of communication such as speech buttons to ensure each member is given an opportunity to air their views, emails to communicate with their constituents and social media (McChesney, 2015). The Congress has consistently faced cultural diversity as a drawback to communication in the House. The Congress recently elected a Muslim legislator in the Congress. Perceptively, Trump campaigned against Muslim migration into the nation, where the Republicans are the majority, illustrating the barriers existent in the House. Moreover, members of the Congress employ emotional tactics to influence other members or their constituents. The negative aspersions of emotional communication have led to violent reactions especially after Trump’s election. Moreover, too much technology has reduced effective communication among constituents and the Congress. The members are forced to use emails, social media, website and other channels to ensure the organization effectively conveys its message to the public, and all members can also follow the conversation (Esterling, Lazer & Neblo, 2011). Over-emphasis of technology has barred effective communication in the group. The Congress also has too much information, thus failing to resolve all challenges through dialogue. Finally, leaders have used assumptions to discredit others, reducing effective communication in the Congress.
Role of Groupthink
Individuals within a group tend to think and follow similar ways to ensure the effectiveness of the team. However, blind following of the group’s measures without properly evaluating each measure to ensure it meets the group’s objectives. Officials of the Pearl Harbor ignored information of an imminent attack by the Japanese, leading to the worst fatalities in the US history (Natoli, 2012). Groupthink ideologies in a group setting disrupt empirical evaluation of problems and solutions geared to solve the problem. The thinking reinforces the leader wins mentality, prompting members to think that their actions are invulnerable. Swissair failed after years of inconsistent decisions, thinking their leadership in the air industry was insurmountable. The ideology also reinforces mediocrity, preventing members to evaluate mediocre actions undertaken within the group. The members are unable to think straight about issues and come up with solutions. The Congress has in the past failed to approve some Obama policies based on the groupthink of the Republican Party, the majority of the members in the House.
Steps to Facilitate Effective Communication
Effective communication ensures all problems are identified and resolved at the group level. The organization or group needs to redevelop their communication channels to ensure members use an open platform to air their views. Secondly, the leaders ought to educate their members on internal processes and ensures the members understand the organization mission and culture. After that, the team can implement establish open forums in the entire organization to ensure all employees interact. The Congress uses its committees to ensure all employees understand the organization’s ecosystem (Cho & Fowler, 2010). Furthermore, leaders promote information sharing among members and establish online devices to manage projects in the entire group. Ultimately, external events act as an appropriate way to ensure employees bond at ease. Conclusively, effective group communication ensures the team achieves their desired goals.
References
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Golbeck, J., Grimes, J. M., & Rogers, A. (2010). Twitter use by the US Congress. Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(8), 1612-1621.
Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2010). Qualitative communication research methods. Sage.
McChesney, R. W. (2015). Rich media, poor democracy: Communication politics in dubious
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Natoli, M. D. (2012). THE US” CRISIS PRESIDENCY”: WHAT PRICE SECURITY?.
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Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (2010). Stages of small-group development Revisited1.
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