A new leader brought renewed enthusiasm to the Brunswick County Conference & Visitors Bureau (BCCVB), the official tourism promotion agency for Brunswick County, Pennsylvania. Under her leadership, the bureau underwent both programmatic and physical expansion. Shortly after the BCCVB relocated its offices and visitor center to a newly constructed building, the executive director decided to create a gift center committee. The purpose of the committee was to devise a plan for a visitor gift center shop—something the BCCVB had never had—in which a variety of merchandise bearing the Brunswick County logo could be sold to visitors.
The committee consisted of the following five BCCVB staff members: John Maher, communication assistant;
Laura Doherty, office manager; Nannette Kearny, membership director; Lisa Berman, assistant director; and Donald Johnson, corporate sales manager. The newly formed group was highly cohesive; they had worked together for more than 5 years, and they were all committed to the vision of the visitor’s bureau developed by the executive director. The committee was given 3 weeks, meeting as often as they deemed necessary to devise a plan detailing how the BCCVB would establish a visitor center gift shop. The time frame was difficult to achieve given that the group members still had to perform the duties of their regular jobs, but all of the members were committed to doing so.
The first meeting turned out to be a “meeting of the minds” to establish a consensus as to how the group would move forward. Because of their cohesion, committee members were sociable, gregarious, and comfortable working with one another. As a result, members spent a good 15 minutes at the onset of the meeting catching up with one another. Donald, the group clown, decided that an important first step was to come up with a name for the committee, and he decided the group members should be known as the “gifted group.” This name led to much laughter and joking that it would be the first time Donald had ever been called “gifted” in his life.
Lisa Berman also participated in this social interaction but took naturally to a leader-type role when it came time to discuss business matters. She made an effort to focus the committee’s attention to the matter at hand—the gift shop—and enabled the group to transition from social-related to more task-related communication. At that point, the committee began discussing the overall idea of a gift shop and how to devise a plan to initiate such a venture. The group quickly came to a rather dramatic realization following this discussion: Nobody on the committee had any retail or gift shop experience. Committee members, undoubtedly discouraged by this realization, became reluctant to move forward. The meeting closed, however, with John recommending that each member research visitor center gift shops before the next gathering. Donald and Nanette initially disagreed with the proposal, saying they didn’t have time to do so. Nannette asked Laura if she would be willing to do the research, and Laura quickly complied. However, Lisa pointed out that if each person did a little research, no one person would be overburdened. She persuaded the group members to take on the task as a whole.
At the second meeting, each committee member arrived with an impressive arsenal of visitor center gift shop research. Again, the first 10 or 15 minutes were devoted to socializing. And again, Lisa had to work to get people back on task. At first, Donald fought with Lisa for control of the meeting. He continued joking around, calling one of the organizational members not on the committee “special Ned.” When Lisa tried to get the group back on task again, Nanette responded, “Hey, not everyone can be considered gifted,” and the group continued laughing. Lisa tried to remain light hearted because she wasn’t the official leader, but she was frustrated that others were wasting time. She remarked, “We won’t continue to be considered gifted if we don’t get this done.”
Donald teased, “Uh oh, teacher is mad. Are you gonna keep us after school if we don’t hit the books?” At this, everyone laughed, including Lisa.
Finally turning to the job at hand, the meeting entailed a thorough investigation of each member’s materials and a lengthy discussion about how the group would use the research to proceed. The committee decided to compile the research that related most directly to the BCCVB and to set a calendar indicating how, armed with such information, they would move forward with subsequent meetings. Collectively, the committee established a heavy meeting schedule, with a meeting scheduled every day for the remainder of the 2-week time frame.

Each meeting flowed in a manner very similar to that of the first and second meetings. The first 10 or 15 minutes of every meeting, even as the deadline drew near, were set aside for social interaction. Donald would joke around, and the others would follow his lead. Then, the committee would either progress naturally toward the task at hand, or Lisa Berman would comment about moving forward or getting down to business, and eventually the group would do so.
Toward the end of the second week, group energy was sagging. Everyone had been devoting a significant amount of time not only to the meetings but to “homework” each tackled in between the meetings. At this point, John’s role shifted from group member to group cheerleader. He encouraged others when they became frustrated or tired. He reminded everyone that although the short time frame meant they weren’t running a marathon, the work they were doing wasn’t a sprint either. Donald responded, “What, we’re doing the 800 meter?” Nanette retorted, “Well, hell, that’s my problem, I’m out of shape!” John joined in, saying, “Actually, the hurdles were always my specialty! But yes, it is an 800-meter race; we need to keep a rapid pace, but we can’t all-out sprint the whole time.”
After the 3 weeks were over, the group presented their final proposal to the executive director. Following the meeting, Laura presented all of the members a track jersey with the words “The Gifted Group” written across the chest.

Questions for Consideration
1. Using the functional model, was the decision on how to establish the gift shop likely to be effective?
Why, or why not? Describe how and when each function emerged.
2. What antecedents of groupthink are present? What symptoms of groupthink are present? What could the group do to prevent groupthink from occurring?
3. Using adaptive structuration theory, what structures did the group create? Make sure to consider both rules and resources. Also, consider how the rules and resources might have been different if the group had used more technology in their group decision-making process.
4. Discuss the elements of symbolic convergence as related to the group. How do you think symbolic convergence might have affected the decision-making process? How might symbolic convergence theory and groupthink influence each other?
5. What ethical issues arise when considering this group’s (or any group’s) communication?
6. Do any of the theories emerge as better than the others? Why do you believe this to be the case? What situations might surface that would make a different theory or theories better at explaining the situation?