Group Model Building

Book excerpt: This book is about increasing team performance. It focuses on building system dynamics models when tackling a mix of interrelated strategic problems to enhance team learning, foster consensus, and create commitment. The book is intended to be applied in the organizations of today. As the "command and control" organization evolves into one of decision-making teams, so these teams have become the critical building blocks upon which the performance of the organization depends. The team members face an increased complexity of decision making with the interrelation of several strategic problems. What this means is that people have different views of the situation and will define problems differently. However, research shows that this can in fact be very productive if and when people learn from each other in order to build a shared perspective. Learning in this way might prove to be the only sustainable competitive advantage for organizations in the future. As a result, team leaders want to create "learning teams" and are confronted with issues such as how to: create a situation where people doubt their ideas rather than stubbornly cling to dearly held views create a learning atmosphere rather than trying to "win" the discussion create a shared understanding of a problem in a team foster consensus and create commitment with a strategic decision facilitate Group Model Building Those who will benefit most from Group Model Building: Facilitating Team Learning Using System Dynamics are those who are familiar with systems thinking or organizational learning, or those who are working in groups and are coming up against the common difficulties.