Managing Groups and Teams/Introduction

Foreword
It is often remarked that groups are everywhere, whether in our social lives, our work lives, or even our families. In each of these situations, sets of individuals decide to work collectively to achieve particular goals.

However, although groups are everywhere and we participate in them constantly, we do not understand them very well. Many of us can tell stories of groups that seemed perfect for a given task, but which failed. And we all have reasons (or excuses) that explain such failures.

But our experiences in groups suffer precisely because we are with them.

The study of groups as a phenomenon that is unique and different from other social phenomena is very active, reflecting both the importance it has and how much we still don't know about groups. S M Rizwsan Clinical Psychologist ANF

About this Book
In this book, we take a challenge-based approach to dealing with groups. Many other books provide conceptual and descriptive treatments of groups and teams. Here we will take a prescriptive perspective, one that focuses on the "how to" of managing a group or a team. This prescriptive perspective, however, will be rooted in social science.

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