The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change: Principles, Practices, and Perspectives, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER NINETEENWORKING WITH GROUPS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Matt Minahan

The history of human endeavor is full of huge accomplishments that far exceed the capacity of any one person or group. They are often our most complex and demanding tasks, requiring interdependence among people and groups, leadership, communications, constructive norms, differentiated functions and roles, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to understand and mobilize human behavior toward a common goal.

Sometimes the tasks seem beyond our reach—putting a man on the moon within a decade, mapping the human genome, building the International Space Station, or the intergovernmental responses to national disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes. Sometimes, they ...