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9.4 SKILL BUILDER: Brain Power through Brainstorming
Use these two cases to help students experience brainstorming.
Case A: A Stitch in Time
A woman was surprised to discover that her somewhat eccentric uncle had left her more
than 1 million empty spools of thread in his will. Because she is an enterprising person,
she decided to turn her inheritance into a business. Working with four to six other
students, use the next few minutes to generate as many uses as you can for empty spools
of thread.
Case B: Warning Signs
How can we warn people who will be alive 10,000 years from now that they should stay
away from the sites where we dumped nuclear wastes? Working with your group, your
task is to generate as many ways to warn people as you can.
After completing these activities, answer the following questions:
1. How satisfied were you with the group effort? Why?
Case A: Satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied
Case B: Satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 Dissatisfied
2. Which brainstorming guidelines discussed in the text were adhered to? How do you
know?
3. Which brainstorming guidelines discussed in the text were ignored or violated? Why?
9.5 SKILL BUILDER: Danger, Danger
Part 1
A survey based on annual death statistics and published in Dun’s Review listed the most
dangerous vehicles, products or activities in the United Sates. Below are 15 of the leading
hazards.
Swimming
Railroads
Police work
Home appliances
Alcohol
Nuclear power
Smoking
Motor Vehicles
Pesticides
Handguns
Bicycles
Fire-fighting
Mountain climbing
Vaccinations
Surgery
1. Divide the class into groups. Each group designates one member as the leader and another as
the expert.
IM 9-1
2. Working individually and without discussion, rank the listed items according to the number
of deaths caused each year. Place 1 by the most dangerous, 2 by the next most dangerous, and
so on.
3. Make a copy of your ranking. Leaders should write Leader on their copies and experts should
write Expert. Next, each group should attempt to reach a group decision by consensus.
4. Your instructor will provide the correct answers. Determine the numerical difference between
your answers and the correct answer. How did the group compare with the answers originally
submitted by the leader and the expert?
5. Report your results to the class.
Part 2
Repeat the exercise with this information. Select a new leader and expert.
Every year the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission provides statistics on the number of
injuries that require hospital visits. Below are nine of the leading hazards. Rank-order them
according to the number of accidents you believe each one causes.
Ramps and landings
Books, magazines, and albums
Stairs
Hammocks
Crayons and chalk
Vending machines
Pillows
Electric Christmas decorations
Nails, screws, tacks, and bolts
Compute your scores. Was your group more effective this time? Report your results to the class.
Answers to Part 1:
1. Smoking
2. Alcohol
3. Motor vehicles
4. Handguns
5. Swimming
6. Surgery
7. Railroads
8. Bicycles
9. Home appliances
10. Firefighting
11. Police work
12. Nuclear power
13. Mountain climbing
14. Vaccinations
15. Pesticides
IM 9-2
16.
17. Answers to Part 2:
a. Stairs
b. Nails, screws, tacks, and bolts
c. Ramps and landings
d. Books, magazines, and albums
e. Pillows
f. Crayons and chalk
g. Electric Christmas decorations
h. Vending machines
i. Hammocks
18.
19. 9.6 SKILLBUILDER: Evaluating Groups on Television
20. Just as you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your own problem-solving groups, so
you also need to become an evaluator of televised discussions. Evaluate a television discussion
show of your choice by answering the following questions.
21.
1. To what extent was the program’s topic well analyzed?
2. To what extent did the ideas and feelings of the participants appear to be freely shared?
3. To what extent was the discussion monopolized by any one person?
4. What norms appeared to govern the discussion?
5. How did gender or cultural factors influence the discussion?
6. To what extent did a consensus emerge?
22.
23. 9.7 SKILL BUILDER: The Cyber Group
1. Do you belong to any online groups? If yes, identify them, and explain what functions they
serve in your life.
2. In your opinion, is an online group able to perform as effectively as a group that meets in
real space?
3. Do you IM people regularly? Do you frequent MySpace.com? Why?
24.
25.
26.
27. 9.8 SKILL BUILDER: Avoiding Problems
28. Group members face a number of problems that can influence the effectiveness of the
decisions they make. How would you respond when faced with each of the following situations?
What do your responses reveal about the nature of groups?
1. What consequences might your group face if instead of handling a problem, the
members opted to run away from the problem, rationalize it, or otherwise avoid
confronting it directly?
2. Put yourself in the place of the character Jim in the following situation. What advice
would you offer him?
a. Jim is, at heart, an investigative journalist who has talent. But he has been
earning a living by writing restaurant reviews for a magazine, which pays him
well and enables him to support his wife and three young children. Despite this,
Jim longs to return to his real vocation. Recently he was offered a freelance
position with a well known newspaper, which asked Jim to resign from his
present position and go undercover in an effort to determine if there is a collusion
between the US government agencies and major companies that seek to influence
policy decisions being made by the administration. If Jim is successful in his
investigation, it could make his journalistic career. If he is unsuccessful, however,
he will have expended time and energy, possibly ruining his reputation and ending
his career. Should Jim give up his current job to take the new assignment? Check
off the lowest probability that you would consider acceptable to take on the new
assignment:
1. 1 in 10
2. 2 in 10
3. 3 in 10
4. 4 in 10
5. 5 in 10
6. 6 in 10
7. 7 in 10
8. 8 in 10
9. 9 in 10
10. 10 in 10
29.
30. After reaching your own decision, discuss the dilemma in a group. Determine if
your group is likely to take a greater risk, be more cautious or stay the same.
31.
32. While some believe that groups are more cautious than individuals, in practice,
the opposite actually is true. Decisions made in a group are usually riskier. This
phenomenon is called the risky shift. How do you imagine the risky shift phenomenon
might affect juries? Business or military leaders? Political leaders?
33.
34. 9.9 SKILL BUILDER: Two Groups
35. Select two groups you have belonged to that represent what you consider effective and
ineffective climates. For each group, identify
a. The types of behavior exhibited by members.
b. How the climate affective your participation in the group.
c. How the climate affected your relationship with other group members
36. Report your findings to your team or the class.
37.
38.
39. 9.10 SKILL BUILDER: Trace
40. Trace the development of a group to which you belong. Has it passed through each of the
stages identified in this chapter?
41.
42. Report your findings to the class.
43.
44. 9.11 SKILL BUILDER: Group Polarization
45. There is a tendency in decision making that involves a movement toward group
polarization in which discussion is found to strengthen the average inclination of group
members. For example, when business students were asked to imagine themselves having
to decide whether to invest more money in the hope of preventing losses in various
failing projects, individually 72% chose to reinvest money, while in groups, 94% came to
that decision.
46.
47. Discussion with like-minded people strengthens existing views. How might such a trend
influence the beliefs of prejudiced and unprejudiced people when it comes to issues such
as racial profiling or affirmative action?
48.
49. 9.12 SKILL BUILDER: Quality Circles
50. While work groups use a variety of problem-solving methods including reflective
thinking, three other frequently employed techniques include the nominal group technique, the
Delphi method and quality circles. How might your college use each of the following methods to
solve a particular problem it faces? Which method do you feel you would find the most
interesting and effective? Why?
51.
1. The nominal group technique uses limited discussion, reaching a group decision by secret
vote. Especially valuable when group members are reluctant to voice their opinions,
perhaps because the issue under discussion is extremely controversial and they do not
want their idea attacked.
a. The problem is defined.
b. Without having any discussion every member writes down ideas of possible solutions.
c. Going in round robin sequence, each member offers one idea on his or her list. The
suggestions are recorded on a flip chart.
d. Members clarify ideas.
e. Privately in writing, every member ranks the suggestions.
f. Member rankings are combined to form a team ranking.
g. Discussion, clarification and reordering.
h. The ideas with the highest rankings are put into practice.
2. The Delphi method depends for its effectiveness on a selected group of experts, who do
not communicate directly with each other but, instead, respond to a series of questions in
writing. The group then follows a problem solving system similar to the nominal
technique to reach a conclusion.
3. A quality circle is a group of employees, often with different areas of expertise
and from different levels in an organization, whose task it is to explore and make
recommendations for improving he quality of an organizational function.
52. By becoming involved in the decision making process, workers feel more
empowered and develop better morale. The goal of any organization should be
continual improvement.
53.
54. 9.13 SKILL BUILDER: Reflect and Respond
55. Agree or disagree with the following statement attributed to businessperson Arthur
Jensen. Supply reasons and examples to support the position you take.
56. Most of the decisions that affect our lives are not made by individuals, but by
small groups of people in executive boardrooms, faculty meetings, town councils, quality
circles, dorm rooms, kitchens, locker rooms and a host of other meeting places.
57.
58. 9.14 SKILLBUILDER: Listen and View
59. Ask students to work in groups. The group should select and bring in music and/or films
or film clips that they feel relate to the content of this chapter. Ask them to play the clips and
discuss why they feel they are related to the chapter.
60.
61. 9.15 SKILLBUILDER: Service Learning
62. To apply what you now know about problem solving and working in groups, select a
worthy project such as First Night, which protests the prevalence of alcohol at events and
designs programs to keep young people alcohol free, or Take Back the Night, which protest the
prevalence of sexual violence.
63.
64. After selecting your project and identify and visiting relevant Web sites, such as
www.campusoutreachservices.com or www.womentakebackthenight.org for Take Back the
Night, develop strategies to successfully attract media attention, help raise funds, or raise
awareness on campus for the project.
65.
66. If you desire, you might contact the organization via email and ask for feedback on your
team’s ideas.
67.
68.
69.
70. WORKSHEET
71.
72. Groups Galore
73.
74. Use this chart to compile a list of the groups to which you belong, the groups to which
you aspire to belong, and the groups to which you would refuse or have refused to belong
—along with your reasons for accepting, seeking, or refusing membership.
75.
1. Groups I belong to:
76.
77.
78.
79.
80. Reasons:
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
2. Groups I would like to belong to:
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91. Reasons:
92.
93.
94.
95.
3. Groups I would refuse or have refused to belong to:
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101. Reasons:
102.
103.
104.
105.
106. Share your answers with your team or the entire class.
107.
108.
109.
