goals and groups

My spouse and I are writing a small group communication text for McGraw-Hill, so I'm especially interested in this week's chapters. In our book's chapter on critical thinking that I'm finishing up today, I discuss the importance of goals in critical thinking. That is, when group members have a clearly stated goal for a meeting or other interaction, and a plan to achieve that goal, they're more likely to carefully analyze and interpret information presented, leading to a better decision. As Griffin notes in Chapter 17, "Because group members need to be clear on what they are trying to accomplish, Hirokawa and Gouran regard discussion of goals and objectives as the second requisite function of decision making" (p. 224).

I've observed the importance of goals in faculty meetings. At the suggestion of one of my colleagues in the department, Dr. Shawn Spano, I instituted a new way of setting up the agenda for faculty meetings when I was department chair. In addition to listing an item for discussion, I also listed the goal or the outcome we should achieve from the discussion. For example, one item we discussed at a meeting was laptop security (after one faculty member's laptop was stolen). I listed the item, laptop security, and then the goal, decide on a system or systems we want to use to prevent/handle laptop theft. By having a goal, we kept our discussion more focused and on topic. The faculty met nearly every other Friday for 3-4 hours in the spring semester. Listing our goals for the meetings greatly improved our productivity and sense of accomplishment. Faculty members didn't feel like those hours were wasted.

~ Professor Cyborg