First Blog (Ryan)

Ryan Sutherland 

Chapter 3:Intercultural Communications

I personally enjoyed all the presentations from every group. What I would say was my favorite chapter and presentation was chapter 3 , Intercultural Communications. I think the concept of intercultural coummincations is something that isn't brought up a lot in regards to public speaking and just general speech but is probably one of the most important aspects.Intercultural communication is the mechanism whereby people of different groups perceive and try to make sense of one another. While there is no guarantee that people will be respectful of the differences they encounter in this process, it is certainly a criterion of good communication that people seek to understand the intentions of each other in non-evaluative ways. For that reason, intercultural communication incorporates particular strategies that encourage us to attribute equal humanity and complexity to people who are not part of our own group. It helps establish a sense of understanding between the cultures and probably helps with the most obvious issue between other cultures, the language barrier. This part of speech helps unite all kinds of different people and just makes everyone more human.Intercultural communication is integral to speaking to other people as it helps you understand their worldview and how their life has been. Within the context of intercultural communication, the term “multicultural” is used to refer to the multiple cultures represented in a group,  for instance, the U.S. workforce has become more multicultural, meaning that there is more diversity of national heritage due to immigration, more variation in domestic ethnic groups, more gender and age diversity, and more representation of minorities such as people with disabilities. Communities become multicultural as immigrants settle there, and teachers face increasingly multicultural classrooms. This growth is all due too the effort to understand and blend other cultures to unite and grow.An essential element of culture is the boundary that distinguishes “us” from “them.” Every human being belongs to groups defined by boundaries.

Chapter 9: Communicating in Groups

Group communication is arguably the most important part of all group related activities since it can either rapidly increase productivity and the effort put into whatever or the group needs or the complete opposite, group communication has been integral to accomplishing anything since the dawn of time whether it be hunting for survival or building massive buildings. All these feats were accomplished through group communications.To understand groups, there must be some way of determining what makes a collection of people a group. The number of members can be used to distinguish groups from other forms of social behavior, such as crowds, organizations, and interpersonal relationships. Also In terms of problem solving, work groups can accomplish more than individuals can. People, each of whom have specialized skills, talents, experience, or education come together in new combinations with new challenges, find new perspectives to create unique approaches that they themselves would not have formulated alone. It is also important within a group that everyone remains respectful , more likely than not the people in a group will a have different life experiences and world views, it's is extremely important that group as a whole moves passed those more individual issues and traits and focuses on their end goal, working together cohesively so that the group can accomplish what it had set out to do in the first place.Groups focus their attention on particular matters of interest. Unlike crowds, groups are more than just a collection of individuals. People come together in groups to accomplish a set of goals and to work together to accomplish those goals. Crowds disperse once the event that draws their attention is over, but a group remains intact.Group communication is considered effective as it provides an opportunity for direct interaction among the members of the group; it helps in bringing about changes in attitudes and beliefs. Group communication has limitations too, as group interaction is time consuming and often inefficient, especially in an emergency. Besides, imbalances in status, skills and goals, may distort the process and the outcome sharply.

Chapter 10:Group leadership and Problem solving

Group problem solving is the process of bringing together stakeholders who through their analytical decision making abilities can influence the outcome of the problem. The use of groups in problem solving is encouraged as groups tend to evaluate diverse solutions and action plans. The core objectives of the group are identifying the problem and developing solutions. Group problem solving has six steps. Which are too Identify, Analyze,Determine Criteria for Judging Solutions.,Generate Solutions, Evaluate, Implement the solutions.  The group solving steps are key and integral to any group project and can Define the problem by considering the three elements shared by every problem: the current undesirable situation, the goal or more desirable situation, and obstacles in the way. At the first stage, group members share what they know about the current situation, without proposing solutions or evaluating the information. Here are some good questions to ask during this stage: What is the current difficulty? The second part is to analyze. During this step a group should analyze the problem and the group’s relationship to the problem. Whereas the first step involved exploring the “what” related to the problem, this step focuses on the “why.” At this stage, group members can discuss the potential causes of the difficulty. The third step is to find solutions.During this step, group members generate possible solutions to the problem. Again, solutions should not be evaluated at this point, only proposed and clarified. The question should be what could we do to address this problem, not what should we do to address it. The fourth step would be too generate the solutions and come up with ways of how to address whatever problem you have. The fifth step is too evaluate your solutions and make sure you're picking the right ones and the final step would be to implement those solutions.