Members with uncertain relationships may feel inhibited from offering their ideas if they feel their ideas will be rejected, which they may internalize as a form of personal rejection. Ground rules and a facilitator reduce this risk by placing the rejection of individual ideas in a context which may be less threatening to the group members who may be at the margins in terms of the strength of their relationships to the other members. The value of facilitators in meetings is widely recognized and regularly employed in many organizations. Facilitators are trained to recognize and cope with relationship interactions to keep groups on task and as many of the members as possible engaged and contributing. Information technology can significantly enhance the role of the facilitator and the productivity of the group.
Information technology is employed in most group interactions today.
It is probably impossible to attend a meeting wherein a presentation is not being offered from a computer, or someone is not taking notes on a laptop computer or personal digital assistant. Yet in most group interactions, technology plays, at best, a limited supporting role. It is not integrated into the format of the meeting as an enabling tool. In some, highly specialized, meeting venues information technology takes a central role, where each member has access to a keyboard or some other input device for the purpose of anonymous voting or some other form of interactive participation. These types of systems are best suited for particular, somewhat unique tasks, and are not appropriate or even practical as a general format for conducting a meeting.