Organizational Behaviour 101

While I was getting my engineering degree, I took a series of management courses which included two on organizational behaviour. The theories didn’t seem to have any real world application for me until I was promoted into a management position at work and took on leadership responsibilities at my church. I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of theories were actually quite helpful in understanding how people in organizations behave in different circumstances. By knowing how they behave, we can take steps to ensure their behaviour is optimal for different tasks.

One of the most beneficial things I learned was how the size of a group impacts the average person’s contribution to the group activity. Generally speaking, the larger the group size, the less contribution we can expect from the average individual.

In very small groups, one on one or maybe three people total, the average person will engage in meaningful dialogue especially with people they have a relationship with. In a work context, this happens when a salesman takes a purchasing manager out for lunch or a supervisor meets with an employee to discuss their annual performance review. As long as there is mutual trust, people will speak up and share what’s on their mind. In a church context, we see this in relational evangelism or discipleship – activities that usually take place one on one with people in close relationship.

In small groups of 6 to 12, people are still quite willing to interact but they will typically not share as much as they would if they were with just one close friend. Groups of this size are used in business settings to form work teams, management boards, or marketing focus groups. Most professional group facilitators suggest the optimal size for a “team” is 7 or 8, with a maximum of 12. Most churches use small groups for Bible studies and/or pastoral care, knowing that people are willing to be active in small group discussions. Small groups are also used in educational settings. My Certified Management Accounting training used small groups extensively. After listening to the instructor present a certain topic, we would break into groups of 8 to discuss what we had learned and how we could apply that to our own workplace. Most of our learning occurred in the small group setting, not the large classroom. Marketing people use “focus” groups to obtain feedback on new products or services. Keeping the group small ensures people will be open to sharing their honest opinions with the facilitator.

Large groups of 15 or more are used when feedback or group interaction is not the primary objective. Often, a business will call all employees together to disseminate information such as a quarterly report. The purpose is to ensure everyone receives the same message, and are aware of corporate objectives. While there may be a brief question and answer period at these meetings, in most cases there are few questions asked. In a church setting, we use large groups to deliver the message during Sunday morning worship. Most of the time, the group does not respond with questions or comments.

Breaking into small groups is a relatively recent development for most churches. Historically, churches used large groups (full congregations) almost exclusively for preaching, teaching, and conducting business. Large groups are fine for preaching and to some extent teaching, but they may not be the best way to conduct business.

Typically, when a church was contemplating a change, they would call a congregational meeting. The topic would be presented and then a time of discussion would occur. When that discussion was over, a vote would be taken. The thought was that by giving everyone an equal opportunity to speak, everyone could be heard. But organizational behaviour tells us this isn’t the case. The average person will not voice their opinion at a large group meeting. The ones who do are usually the ones who are very passionate about the topic, or they have a personality type that allows them to feel comfortable speaking in a group setting (you can probably name those people based on previous meeting attendance). So what happens is that we hear comments from a vocal minority, and this minority can change the opinion of the silent majority and affect the outcome of a decision. Suppose you came to a congregational meeting supporting a proposed change, but only 5 people spoke up at the meeting and 4 of them were against the change. You might start to doubt your own opinion and assume the majority (4 out 5) people are against the change. You might even change the way you were going to vote. But this might not be reality – the majority might actually support the change but they didn’t speak up because they don’t feel able to do so in a large group setting.

Presenting the issue in smaller groups will allow more people to voice their opinion or ask questions. While it is more work to arrange the additional meetings, the information gathered from these small groups is invaluable. When our church presented the proposed name change to the congregation by using small groups, I was amazed on the amount of feedback we received. In every group, everyone contributed. Many of these people have never said anything at prior congregational meetings, and likely wouldn’t have spoken up if we had used just a single congregational meeting. While we still need to have a full congregational meeting to conduct the actual vote (see my post about quorums), the smaller group meetings before the congregational meeting allows more people the opportunity to contribute to the decision making process.

This makes perfect sense to me, but I’d love hear your thoughts about this. Feel free to leave a comment here, or email me, or phone me.

Jac