During my experiences working in groups I have found that there are various factors to consider when group productivity is the desired outcome of the group. Some of these factors are: social loafing, evaluation apprehension, considering the personalities of each group member and the creation of social norms.
Social loafing is the tendency for one or more members of the group to under perform and benefit from the work that other group members put in. Evaluation apprehension is the fear that other members of the group are evaluating your performance. Personalities of all the group members need to be considered as a dominant personality may be competitive and people who are competitive can manipulate other group members. Social norms are rules that describe appropriate behavior for all group members. All of these things need to be considered when productivity of the group is the desired goal. (Bond & McConkey, 2001)
Social norms such as waiting until the person speaking has finished before interrupting, taking turns in speaking, not to dominate the group in any way, to respect others ideas and thoughts even if you disagree and agreeing as a group of appropriate language to be used within the group, are always a good idea to have in a group as it can minimize the chance of confrontation and arguments between group members.
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In my experiences working with groups I have found that people with dominating personalities generally adopt the role of leader and tend to be very competitive within the group. This is a hard problem to overcome as all of the group members have different skills to contribute to the group and are required to fulfill the task appropriately. Perhaps after observing the group if you where to allocate the role of leader to a non-dominating personality within the group, people tend to feel less dominated and work better in the group.
A few social norms that are common in a group are, waiting until the person talking has finished before interrupting, taking turns in speaking, to respect all the group members by not dominating conversations and agreeing as a group as to the appropriate language to be used within the group.
A technique to try is the brainstorming or nominal group technique to help productivity within the group.
