What Is a Group and Types of Groups

A school’s work happens in groups. Teaching teams. Departments. Year-level coordinators. Committees. Parent groups. Student councils. A school head spends most of her time working in or through groups. Understanding what makes a collection of people into a group, and what kinds of groups exist, is foundational for everything that follows.

What makes a group

The handout asks a useful starting question:

What makes one collection of people a group and other only an anonymous, disorganised crowd?

The answer is in three components.

Group: two or more interdependent people, who interact in pursuit of a common purpose.

Three requirements have to be present.

1. Interdependency

The members depend on each other to achieve the goal. One member’s success affects another’s. One member’s failure affects another’s.

In a school: the grade-3 teaching team is a group because each teacher’s work affects the others. Reading outcomes in one section depend on coordination with other sections.

A collection of teachers who happen to teach grade 3 but each in their own classroom, with no coordination, is not a group in this sense. They are a crowd of grade-3 teachers.

2. Interaction

The members communicate with each other. They talk, share information, coordinate, disagree, resolve.

In a school: the team that meets weekly is interacting. The team that exists on paper but never meets is not.

3. Shared goal

The members are pursuing the same end. Not just similar ends; the same end.

In a school: the grade-3 team that has agreed that all sections will hit the same reading benchmark by mid-year has a shared goal. The grade-3 team where each teacher is pursuing her own targets has parallel goals, not a shared one.

The crowd example

The handout uses a clear example.

Fans standing in a queue waiting together to purchase concert tickets may have a common goal, but they are not interacting; they are not depending on each other to achieve their goal; so they are not a group; but are a crowd.

The fans have a common goal (the concert tickets). But each fan’s purchase does not depend on another’s. They are not interacting with each other. They are a crowd.

For a school, the same logic applies. Forty parents at the school gate at the same time are a crowd. The parent volunteer committee that meets weekly to plan events is a group.

Why this matters

A school head who confuses a crowd with a group leads badly. She treats a collection of teachers as if they were a coordinated team, then is surprised when nothing gets done. The work needed to turn a crowd into a group is real and worth investing in.

Groups are vital to the success of the organisation. Today’s competitive realities demand to create and manage groups effectively. Workforce diversity needs managers to lead groups that transcend gender, culture, and age.

A modern school needs deliberate group formation. Random collections of teachers do not produce coordination. A school head who builds real groups, with interdependency, interaction, and shared goals, gets work that the same staff could not produce as individuals.

Three categories of group

The handout names three main categories of group in an organisation.

Formal groups

Created by the organisation to perform a specific set of tasks in pursuit of the organisation’s goals. Part of the organisation’s formal structure and hierarchy.

Formal groups exist because the school decided they would. The grade-3 team. The mathematics department. The discipline committee. The senior leadership team. Each is created formally and has a defined purpose.

Three common kinds of formal groups:

1. Command group. A manager and the people who report directly to her. The principal and her deputy heads.
2. Functional group. People grouped by their specialty. The English department.
3. Task group. People grouped to handle a specific task. The team running the annual school day.

Formal groups appear on the organisational chart. They have defined authority, defined membership, defined goals.

Informal groups

Voluntarily or spontaneously formed by its members rather than by the organisation. Serve social or common interests of members. May or may not relate to goals of the organisation.

Informal groups exist because people chose to form them. The four teachers who eat lunch together every day. The group of senior teachers who informally consult on hiring decisions. The WhatsApp group where parents complain about the school.

Informal groups do not appear on the organisational chart. They have implicit norms, fluid membership, and goals that are sometimes aligned with the school’s and sometimes not.

Interest group (common concern), friendship group.

A school head should know about her school’s informal groups. They often have more influence on daily behaviour than the formal groups. A change initiative that is approved by formal groups but resisted by informal ones often fails.

Teams

Today, many organisations are replacing the traditional structure of formal command groups with groups that have greater autonomy and employee participation. Teams are involved in management and decision-making to maximise performance.

A team is a particular kind of formal group with more autonomy and more shared responsibility than a traditional command group. Teams are covered in detail in a later chapter; here it is enough to note that the team concept differs from the simple formal group in degree.

In a school, a true team might be a grade-level team that decides curriculum, assessment, and parent communication together, with the coordinator as a peer rather than a boss.

Why a school head should care about informal groups

A common mistake: a school head pays attention only to formal groups. She manages departments, leadership team, committees. She ignores the informal networks.

The cost: she misses the actual flow of influence in her school. The four senior teachers who informally consult before any major change can sway the staffroom. If they are not on her side, the change fails.

A school head who maps her informal groups, without trying to control them, can work with them. She learns which informal influencers to consult. She learns which informal groups carry frustration that needs addressing. The school is run more wisely.

Flashcard

What are the three requirements that make a collection of people a group?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Interdependency, Interaction, Shared Goal.

Members must depend on each other to achieve the goal, communicate with each other, and pursue the same end (not just parallel ends). Without any one of these, the collection is a crowd, not a group. Fans queueing for tickets share a goal but lack interdependency and interaction.