Roll Call! Let’s Talk Work Roles
Small group dynamics always fascinate me.
It’s the way members communicate – verbally and nonverbally – with one another. Chemistry is either made or they go all Breaking Bad on us. However, for a group to work well with one another expectations and roles need to be defined.
This is where Work Roles come into play.
Typically, there are none work roles that emerge in groups. According to Fraleigh, D., Tuman, J., Adams, K. (2007) these are those roles.
Initiators: suggest the group’s goal and offer new ideas or propose new solutions.
Information providers: offer facts – based on research evidence or personal experience – relevant to the issue under discussion.
Information gatherers: ask other members to share facts they know and seek out supplemental information from other sources.
Elaborators: add supporting facts, examples, or ideas to address or support a point that someone has raised during the discussion.
Clarifiers: attempt to make the meaning of another member’s statement more precise.
Evaluators: offer their own judgments about the ideas put forward.
Synthesizers: identity emerging agreements and disagreements among the group as a whole noting relationships among ideas.
Recorders: take notes during meetings, tracking major decisions and plans made by the group. They also distribute those notes and ensure proper follow-up and additional meetings.
Procedural guiders: suggest new ways to accomplish a task as well as remind the group of the procedures they need to follow in order to get the job done.
Source: Fraleigh, D., Tuman, J., Adams, K. (2007) Let’s Communicate! An Illustrated Guide to Human Communication. Bedford / St. Martin’s.