Mastering Group Discussions: Tips for Success in GD & Debates

good morning friends this is binod mishra and you are listening to my lectures on soft skills as you all remember in the previous lectures we had talked about group communication and today we are going to talk about another major form of group communication which can

be termed as group discussion now you might be thinking what is group discussion as humans since all of we have the tendency to form groups as we said the other day but when you are in groups what do you do you are not only doing an activity all the time but at times

you are talking also so in simple terms when we talk maybe it is not a part of the discussion but it is a part of the sharing of our experiences and feelings but when the same sharing and experiences get a formal touch it is called group discussion

now the word discussion is very important here and that actually takes you back to your school days when perhaps many of you had a chance to take part in debates so before we move on to talk about ah group discussion let us throw some light on debates

because it is vary essential are to distinguish between debates and group discussions most of the time many of us get confused with one term or the other when we talk about the word discussion we can say that discussion is actually an exchange of knowledge friends we discuss

and when we discuss we actually share some piece of information some piece of knowledge all individuals in that capacity have different sort of experiences and hence their knowledge level is also different in the previous lecture we also talked about

how groups can be formal groups can be informal so when you are discussing over a cup of tea ah that comes under a sort of informal discussion where you have certain liberties are to change your track to bring some other topics as well but when you are going to discuss it formally

we call it group discussion now another thing that you would like to know is why is group discussion so important what are its uses and how we can participate in a discussion imagine you go for a job fair and you find that there are quite a good number

of candidates waiting to be recruited waiting for their turns especially many organizations nowadays they have actually made gd a criteria for eliminating some of the candidates or short listing some of the candidates in many organizations where the number of applications

are too many ah they actually follow a ah formula and the formula is because they have a limited number of vacancies so in that way what they do is they can short list the in the in the first instance through gd followed by some other test but then there

are many organizations which actually give too much importance to gd because they have certain things to evaluate hence as a candidate in a present day world in a globalized world where you are looking for jobs where you are looking for change in your jobs and all it

has become quite mandatory for you to know what actually is a gd and how you can participate in order to be successful in a gd now as the world gd goes we say it is a group discussion it is it is not a discussion between two people i mean when we talk about the number we will

also find that groups can be large groups can be short so it is actually a discussion in a group now what actually how are debates different from gd you have to understand this very importantly because all of you during your school days

and even at the intermediate level ah you had been participating in several debate isnt it so when you participated in a debate you had ah prepared your topic very well now when when it comes to preparation you will find that in a debate you are given the

option there is an option and the option is that they give you an issue they give you a topic and then there are candidates who will speak for the topic there are candidates who will speak against topic this they call motion for the motion against the motion and

when they participate in a debate you will find that if one candidate is speaking for he continues to speak for the motion and if somebody ah speaks against the motion he continues to speak against the motion and for that ah both either for or against they

actually gather facts or they gather ah some argument at times you may feel that this argument because you know you have the option of contradicting that argument as you know at an opponent since you are going to speak against so you may have a lot of choice if you are speaking for

and so all the arguments that you will gather that will be far whereas for the other party who speaks against ah they will go on speaking against they will try to prove their mettle by bringing logic by a bringing a say arguments by bringing ideas which go against

but then this is not in a gd because this gb even even debate is also a formal ah discourse it is also a formal discourse so formality is there in both the cases so but then in a gd even debate is also a face to face discussion and gd is also face to face discussion debate

is also formal gd is also formal but then when it comes to showing the difference you will find in a debate you at times become very emotional the language that you choose that also appears to be very flowery ah full of you know good words you bring because you

simply want to prove your point but in a gd you actually have to cite facts because it is a formal discussion it is your face to face communication among participants who express and exchange their views on a particular topic the topic now the question

about the topic when when it is a debate i mean the people the organization who conducts the debate they provide you the topic and this topic is given to you much in advance maybe for a week they actually advertise it two different ways maybe they give you ten

days and these ten days you are preparing ah you are using all your might to show that you are a powerful debater but when it is gd there are so many options suppose you are going for a a job fair and the first round is gd you you can never expect what topic

will be there on many occasions the topic is actually announced on the spot it is announced on the spot because the recruiters they actually want to judge so many things but before we go into the nitty gritty of it let us try to see what

actually are the aims and the objectives of gd a gd is a dialogic learning process it is a dialogic learning process what do we mean by this word dialogic dialogic is it is not you know it is not one person who continues to speak throughout moreover there are so

many people it is in the form of a dialog and this ah dialogic form is between so many people now when we talk about this dialogic form even when there is a debate there is again a sort of discourse and the discourse is between for and against but at the same

time you will find there is a lot of competition in debate there is a competition so a competitive tone is there at times people in order to outshine the other candidates they try to put for their views in such a manner at times the language there is muffled

also muffled with meaning muffled which sometimes you know the language also becomes satirical but in a gd it is a cooperative atmosphere so it is a cooperative atmosphere where all the participants of the gd now here ah let me tell you ah because you also might be thinking

how many people what amount of time is given to you for a gd so in depending upon the number of participants usually you will find when a gd is organized ah first is ah there is a seating arrangement this seating arrangement is actually provided by the people who are

conducting this gd so this seating ah ah arrangement may sometimes be circular i mean people will be sitting in a circular manner sometimes it may be in a semicircular manner where all the participants will sit and they should sit in such a manner

that they should see every other individual in the group face to face the number of people participating in gd ah may be ah from seven to ten depending upon the ah ah large number at time it so happens because you know ah the people who are going to judge you through

gd they are in search of certain trait certain qualities that their candidates budges moreover when you sit in a gd suppose the topic has been announced and you are sit in a gd first day they provide you are the seating arrangement where you can sit and then the

topic is announced now when the topic is announced all the participants of the gd they are provided some amount of time few minutes they are provided and then during these few minutes people have to think about know people have to think about because there are certain words in the ah

topic of the gd which may actually ignite your thoughts which are which can be treated as keywords and then when the gd starts you will find people start sharing their views experiences and since the number of people as we said as the background of the people

is also different groups have one advantage ah that people are from different background hence their knowledge is different hence their presentation style is different hence their behaviour is different moreover they see to it that discussion continues and it actually

helps because topic you are given but it helps the new thoughts it helps get some new information and every member in the group now there is no hard and fast rule ah that somebody or the panelist will tell you who to speak when to speak why to speak i in which way to speak

this actually you have to do because gd is very unstructured whereas debate you will find debate is very much a structured people actually ah provide you the list that these candidates will speak for these candidates will speak against and they follow an order

but in a gd a gd is unstructured why unstructured ah there is no provision as to who will speak whom who will talk to whom isnt it so when the topic is announced and you have been provided with a few minutes then the discussion of starts now what you might be thinking is who

will speak first this is a very difficult question nobody can answer so when the topic is announced and the a time given for you to think and all ah gets over when the real time starts the discussion has to start now we will talk about how when the

discussion starts you will find somebody from the group they will initiate the discussion they will start the discussion but remember in gd why i say ah the ah gd is unstructured and ah debate is structured because in debates you will find participants who are speaking

for will continue to speak for i mean you have to follow the same order here there is no such provision in gd no rigidity is allowed one candidate may start speaking one candidate may hold a ah thought of view but after some time he may feel if if it is detected by somebody

in the group he may feel and if he finds that ah the views of others are convincing then he has got a liberty to change his stance it is very pertinent to are note here that gd can be of two types one is a topic gd topic and another may be

a case gd what are the basic differences between the two especially it is ah up to the organizations ah what sort of gd they want they may provide you a case gd in a case gd they will give you a printed case and the case will be given in details i mean ah it will be related to

the real life situation ah sometimes they may also provide you a sort of imaginative ah case a fine now the question is when they give you a printed case and they want you to discuss naturally people will start the ah thinking on the case

and then they will come up but in a topic gd the topic is announced and the topic is very clear the case may be a sort of interpretation the case may be a sort of interpretation there will be some amount of summary given it is actually beneficial for the candidate and

here the case is given with the aim that all these participants finally will come to a solution maybe there there is a problem given because they want to see your analytical skills they want to see your decisive skills they want to see your reasoning ability they want

to see your behaviour i mean there are so many factors involved into it so the case may be an interpretation of the situation and the expectation is that by the end of the ah case gd some solution will be there or the group will come ah to one ah

solution ah in order to solve the problem and moreover they can also provide certain suggestions ways and means as to how this case can be resolved but in a topic gd since it is unstructured i mean even in the case gd also a people you know if i am holding

for to one view and if i feel if i get convinced by the views of other person i mean flexibility is the hallmark of a gd flexibility the candidates have the sort of flexibility z you may look at the case you may look at all the angles all the possibilities and then finally you

have a sort of liberty that if earlier you were maintaining a sort of measure or you had a sort of view you can change your views now you may also wonder and about the language and the style what sort of language should be there in debaters i told you it is on several

panels where i have been i have been ah as as a judge ah judging ah the debates and all i could find that the language of majority of the candidates were very flowery ornamentation i mean a lot of exaggeration also at times now this is not possible in a gd here you

have to ah have a language that is simple that is concise the words use are very appropriate because all the people in the gd they actually have to listen to each other unless and until you listen can there be a solution to a problem unless and until you understand can you add

can you delete certain things can you revise you cannot hence understanding is very important you cannot understand as i have been saying in several of my lectures ah that understanding is impossible if of solid words are used of solid expressions are used and if pompous

words are used hence the need of the our is that you will use the language that everybody can understand even the approach you will find the approach has to be very persuasive i mean you have to use a language that is convincing because

ah all the people in the gd they are people who are having some knowledge and that is why if you are going to use the language that is convincing you have to put your views and you have to put your views in a way you have to put your idea ideas in a way that you can

convince other members of the group so you need to restrict yourself from the uses of language which is very cumbersome which is long winded ah words which are sesquipedalian so these these are not welcome in a gd suppose i mean how you start that also may be the

question suppose the gd topic has been announced and you are going to start i mean at times you will feel ah that everyone is looking at everyone as to who will start ah the the situation is like who will bell the cat but no somebody has to start again there is another

thing there are many people who are under the impression that if he starts perhaps he will be given ah more box he will be rated better that is not the question because if everybody starts to speaking at the same time and starts initiating he will actually become

a cacophony it will become a very noisy situation and nothing will come out of it there has to be noise but this noise has to be positive noise in the sense there has to be a discussion not much of argumentation and at times people when they argue ah they also ah forget the

fact that the language that they are using may hurt some other members of the group so when suppose you are ah going to put forth your views sometimes you want to put forth your views very strongly say you may ah say i strongly feel i believe i mean language

has to be very polite i am convinced by what my friend mister x and x says there are situations where you will find that there has ah been a lot of you know conflict conflict will arise because there are ah more members so conflict will arise but there is somebody who will

try to mitigate the conflict and who is that somebody that is a leader but here there is no designated leader i will discuss there are times when you can also become neutral there are times when you can show your confidence level and you can say i am pretty sure i am

quite confident sometimes you want to maintain a sort of neutrality you may say according to me or sometimes you want to ah you you feel that some bodies views goes an extra mile or may not be possible so you can say that maybe ah his personal

views but what i think it appears that we are perhaps ah going to talk about this topic in such a manner that no solution seems to be possible ah because if it is a group people in the group are having differences and this difference will come out because there is

discussion when you start discussing people there there are many ways you know you have to ah create a sort of variety in your language and you have also to ensure that you are very a polite if if you begin ah today we have gathered to discuss on such and such topic

and then you give a little detail because whatever you are going to say you are going to support you may say may i make a point about ah ah ah i think it is important to consider the problem of are the question of you will find that in a g d there are some

candidates who will support your views they are some candidate who will oppose your views so you have to find out who is your supporter who are your opponents and if you feel your point has already been said and you simply want to support then you can say i fully agree

with what mohan says on this issue maybe we can go after further and find are the absolutes of this problem i mean the way you will use language or you can also say this is just what i also think your views are sometimes you find that a person is not going to be

convinced because there are many people who will not feel like being convinced so in such a situation what they will do is they will actually try to create a sort of ruckus in the entire discussion and they will try to put their own weight

in such a situation there are some people who will have to enact a role and this role is not decided that anyone can take at any situation we can always say could we stick to the topic i do fear that we are perhaps deviating from this topic we are perhaps deviating

from the topic ah may we come to the real point of discussion i mean these are some of the waves which will help you are bring the discussion back to ah its center because at times people go astray and ah then they speak something which actually creates

the sort of deviation sometimes some person says and you do not want to hurt him or her you can always say thats very interesting but i dont think it is indeed to the point i mean this is how you can bring the discussion we have already talked about the advantages

of gd since there are so many people the views are diverse since there are people from different backgrounds so naturally they will have more points and there is one additional advantage in the gd that it has got a sort of in built ah mechanism of correction some person says

something and the other person does not feel it is appropriate so what he or she does is he or she tries to correct it so when you feel ah that it is convincing you can agree but you have all right to disagree at times and you can say ah perhaps that appears

to me as your personal view ah this is my view of looking at things ah now the question is how is it helpful it is helpful not only in eliminating people or not only in short listing people but then sometimes you will find that when a crisis is there gd is one

of the best methods are to bring some remedy moreover it also ah expresses a lot of things about people now what is what are the things that ah we should look for and as a candidate who is going to participate in a gd what are the things that you expect you should possess

the first is you need to be aware because the topic of the gd may be anything and everything so you need to have a sort of awareness this awareness is very important ah again you have to have a sort of ability of reasoning you said something ah but you know it is not saying

just for the sake of saying you stated something but you have to state it in a very reasoning manner so you have to support facts you have to provide some reasoning of why you are saying like that ah the way you discussed in the team your behaviour is also evaluated how

you behave because you know as human beings we may at times become emotional but that should be kept apart it is not a question to be emotional ah you have to state your own point of view but not at the cost of your it ill behaviour or in an ill man in an ill

manner you have to show your behavior in a way that every member in the group feels that you are well behaved group dynamics are actually more important than ah content what other additional things you should have i mean initiative thats very important as

i said in the beginning somebody has to initiate ah meaning there by somebody has to begin then motivation ah people are looking for your motivation you will find it for gd ah starts there are some people ah of course they are are very aggressive very excited

ah they feel very motivated but there are some people who actually keep themselves apart they are less motivated now some of the group members has to show that responsibility that if there is a one person who is not trying to participate you

will have to ignite you will have to encourage moreover as an individual participant you are preserve your assertiveness my assertiveness i do not mean that you become ah quite argumentative and you take an extreme stance and all you whatever you say you say it with full confidence

with full commitment and then you also are expected to listen because these panelists who are judging you the recruiters who are judging you they are looking for lots of qualities in you how good a listener you are how good a leader you are how good a team member you

are how good an initiator you are how can you take some initiative and so your endeavor that you can do but remember if you are participating in a group discussion you have two major roles to play first is ah that you have a group

responsibility you have an individual responsibility also people who participate in a gd they have to ensure that they follow both the responsibilities i mean how are they different as a participant you have an individual responsibility your individual responsibility is to speak your

individual responsibility is to behave well your individual responsibility is also to listen my dear friend there are times when people often say i do not have anything to contribute you know [whe/when] when i ah start judging ah some of my students through a group

discussion they say sir i knew a lot but then i could not speak i mean the question is unless and until you are interested in a group discussion you will not speak so you have to show your interest while showing your interest you have to listen not all of

us are always having a lot of knowledge but if you listen to what others are saying naturally you will contribute because ah the panelists they are looking at so many things fine so your you have a group responsibility your group responsibility is that you have to commit

yourself to the goals of the group and the goals of the group is to have a discussion in a very conducive atmosphere in a very amicable manner where all the participants are performing then you are also to see that your individual assignment to what if you are a leader but

you know a leader cannot be a leader unless and until you as an individual also he is a very good human being so by being a good human being you should know that you have one individual responsibility to participate in the group if there are situations

of interpersonal conflict within the group so some of you you will find some of you ah should come forward to resolve that crisis or to bring the discussion back to the main stream also see that full participation is in swing full participation people have to

participate if there is an inert speaker or if there is an inert participant in the group inert means that somebody who does not participate you have to encourage because there are at times there are questions as to why somebody who wanted to speak as

he sold when he first spoke after that he suddenly became reticent he became silent you also have to see that the entire group is cohesive there are differences of course but differences are ideological there are no differences at the personal level the first

criterion of your group behavior is your participation ensure that everybody participates even even you and then from your own participation will come out leadership we have discussed during our previous lecture as to what sort of leadership

leaders are there but here there is a different sort of leader here here there is not an leader who is already designated ah here leadership roles can change anyone can be a leader at any point of time and this leadership is tested when there is conflict in the group when there

is caves in the group and when we talk about leadership the leadership ah has several ah you know qualities the first is a driver my driver i mean somebody who starts so the panelist is looking at the activities of all the group members who started the discussion

who initiated the discussion so a leader may be a driver a leader may be amiable when i say amiable what i mean is he will speak and then he will remain silent he appears to be very neutral at times such a sort of leader is not acceptable you see you have to ensure

that throughout you see that the group emerges as a cohesive group then there is another category of leader who is a democrat a democrat i mean that is the best form of leadership are to be practiced in a gd a democrat is one who sees that everything is in order sometimes

if there is caves it is the responsibility of a leaders who will restore ah the ah caves to the normalcy and then there is other category of leaders which you can call bulldozers who are these people bulldozers so these people they are actually the disturbing

elements in a group now such a person he is very selfish he may be very selfish he will try to pull a put his own way every now and then but then he tries to dominate such a person tries to dominate in the group now in every group you will find you will come

across such people who tries to dominate the question is if there is such a person in the group they can also be ah cut to their size how to do that will will discuss because these people either try to dominate physically they try to dominate vocally but you will find

that they are lacking in reasoning if you find some fault in their line of thinking if you find out some weakness in their logic naturally there will be cut to size because here they have nobody has come to fight everybody has come to discuss

so and then it is also the leaders role to see how time it shared equally sharing of time now the question is how much of time is given for a gd that is a question which would be completely left to the people who are organizing this but in most of the situations

ah either the gd maybe for fifteen minutes sometimes it is for twenty minutes sometimes it is for twenty five minutes now it is for the leader and and as an individual you should also see that everybody during this time has been able to discuss things sometimes it so

happens ah that people ah run sort of ideas and before time they ah feel like finishing it meaning thereby they did not have much to say there are you know there are several dangerous energy gd ah where people feel ah that they cannot continue for a long time

and they are finished even before but then even even even in that case the panelist has the capability to judge whether you are having a beautiful blend of group behavior and your individual behavior as an individual you should have ideas behavior as i said you

should also ensure that you are listening ah and throughout what is of utmost importance is your body language now what is your body language we have had a lot of discussion when we discussed ah about body language but see when you are speaking you know all of us we

have been saying that whenever we speak something we try to compliment to through our body language the body language should never be ah negative you speak a point somebody tried to ah approach it but even that has to be taken very graciously through your eyes through your face ah through

the way that you are sitting you are to show that you are totally committed to the group no negative body language because it is always said that ah all the members of the group can help each other help each other learn a group swims and sinks together

my dear friends when we talk about a group discussion and the ah various procedures involved in it we see that unless and until ah we follow a sort of standard and by standard i mean allow everyone to express their ideas and you also express your ideas and finally you

will find something that will come will be a sort of solution will be a sort of ah agreement or at times a sort of an alternative to the situation that has been given groups have always much to contribute as an individual you also who are bubbling with ideas you can

contribute a lot to the entire proceedings of the gd but remember ah if there are so many people there has bound to be some conflict and this conflict will be resolved and and will see in the next lecture how these conflicting situations can be resolved with the help of

a leader and how you can proceed further in this business of group discussion form good groups but communicate in groups communicate not only individually but communicate also ah as a collective ah team members because you one goal and the common goal is ah to

discuss thank you very much