Chapter 17 Speaking and Deliberating in Groups

Speaking and Deliberating in Groups

Understanding Public Deliberation

• Explain the role, importance, and potential benefits of public deliberation

  • Deliberating in groups is common in our professional and civic lives. in deliberating, we share information, gain new perspectives, seek common ground, and make decisions

  • Organizations are increasingly team-based, and citizens encounter many opportunities to help solve problems in their communities by deliberating with others in all kinds of groups

    • In community settings, citizens often gather to deliberate about important public issues

    • Ideally, these deliberations lead to positive outcomes such as increased civic engagement, deeper understanding of the issues, increased tolerance for opposing points of view, and enhanced faith in the democratic process

    • Whether these positives outcomes are realized depends on such contextual factors as the facilitator’s skill, participant expectations and preparation, and whether the group’s deliberations have any practical impact

    • The more citizens interact in a respectful spirit of dialogue, the better their chances of having a successful experience

Group Structures That Encourage Dialogue and Deliberation

• Describe group structures that promote effective deliberation and dialogue

  • Certain group structures and formats, such as study circles, town hall meetings, and National Issues Forums, encourage informed, cooperative deliberations with a view toward more effective problem solving

Factors That Influence Effective Group Deliberation

• List some of the factors that influence how deliberative groups function

  • Many factors influence the effectiveness of a group’s deliberations

    • Learning to manage conflict constructively plays a huge role in any group’s comfort levels, creativity, and productivity

    • In healthy groups, members tent to play a variety of task and maintenance roles, with self-serving behaviors minimized

    • Welcoming diverse views and tolerating dissent is another key factor. If majority group members pressure those with differing views to “go along with the group,” their ability to make judicious decisions may be impaired

    • Highly cohesive groups whose members are strongly bonded may be vulnerable to groupthink-leading them to seek agreement before fully exploring alternative courses of action and listening to dissenters. Cohesive groups with positive norms, however, can function quite effectively

    • Power and status differences must be carefully managed. The burden is on those of higher status to establish an environment of trust

    • Leaders set the tone for the deliberations and have the opportunity to foster an open and empowering communication climate

Group Presentations

-Discuss how to prepare and present your ideas in a public discussion

• On occasion, you may be called on to make public presentations as part of a group.

  • Sometimes these group presentations take the form of a panel (complete with spontaneous interaction under the guidance of a moderator); others are organized more formally in the form of a symposium (with each group member making a short speech)

  • Following group presentations, listeners usually ask questions. The question-and-answer period often leads to extensive sharing of ideas and information and a great deal of interaction between speakers and members of the audience.

Guidelines for Deliberating in Groups

• Describe the attitudes and communication behaviors associated with effective group deliberation

  • In all group settings, public or private, small or large, participants should strive to do the following:

    • Be well prepared

    • Embrace a group orientation

    • Participate actively

    • Maintain an open mind

    • Listen thoughtfully

    • Play different constructive roles

    • Pay attention to nonverbal communication (including cultural variations)

    • Focus on matters of substance

    • Communicate with the highest concern for ethics

Key terms

Public deliberation - The discursive process through which people in a democracy articulate, explain, and justify their political opinions and policy preferences to their fellow citizens

Deliberative dialogue - A respectful exchange aimed at establishing a framework for mutual understanding and a common purpose that transcends individual ideas and opinions

Public values - Values that are clarifies and corroborated through the process of group inquiry

Study circle - A diverse small group of people that is guided by an impartial facilitator and that meets over several sessions to tackle community problems and devise creative strategies for action through respectful deliberation

Town hall meeting - A community-wide meeting that brings together a diverse array of citizens representing different and often conflicting interests in an effort to find common ground or solutions to community problems

National Issues Forum - A nonpartisan, nationwide network of locally sponsored public forums for the consideration of public policy issues

Norms - A set of assumptions or expectations held by a particular group concerning what is good, appropriate, or acceptable language or behavior

Group pressure for uniformity - The pressure exerted by majority group members on those in the minority in an attempt at getting the minority to conform

Cohesiveness - A group dynamic that produces unity, agreement, and sometimes pressure on dissident group members to go along with the majority

Groupthink - A group mind-set that hinders the group’s ability to critically appraise ideas and express lingering concerns; seeking agreement on a course of action before the group has thoroughly and thoughtfully analyzed the problem and allowed everyone to express their points of view

Autocratic - A style of leadership in which the leader is the principal voice and the decision maker

Consultative - A style of leadership in which the leader encourages suggestions and proposals

Democratic - A style of leadership in which the leader facilitates meetings in such a way that the group members interact and solve problems together

laissez-faire - Style of leadership in which the leader cedes control to the group in an attempt to promote creativity and responsibility

Panel discussion - A public discussion format in which the participants interact directly and spontaneously under the guidance of a moderator

Symposium - A public discussion in which each group member speaks in turn without interruption or interaction, with the moderator providing introductions, transitions, and closure.