The 12 Angry Men Film

The film 12 Angry Men consisted of twelve members of the jury who tried to solve a murder trial case. Trapped in a room, all men put their heads together by communicating and listening to each other. Each juror voted unanimously and in order for them to make a decision every juror had to agree to the same thing. However, out of all the jurors (Henry Fonda) the architect had a different perspective. Just when all eleven jurors had agreed that the boy was guilty the architect stood up and said the boy was not guilty. The case was about a lady who had given her testimony in court swearing she saw the little boy kill his own father. One boy's fate is on one man’s hand. As the architect tried to prove his point towards the others, the old juror

decided he will back him up and help him. In this type of situation the jurors are a problem solving group. There are four distinguishing features of a group and in the 12 angry men film there was only two displayed features; which are, “the people must be interacting together to achieve common goals, and the people should be interacting face to face.” In the film the dozen jurors did interact with one another to reach a common goal, and interacting face to face. They all interacted with each other to come to a final agreement and decision over the boy’s innocence status. However, they failed two features of what makes a group. The number of people in the group was too many, the term group refers to a small group with only three to seven people. The group also failed to have multiple number of meetings over an extended period of time. They were discussing everything all in one day. They could have met more than one time it could have helped them come up with a better solution instead of getting frustrated and wanting to leave. They failed to have multiple meetings with only a small number of people to interact and understand each other better.
Ethics, gender, and culture impacted the group because the man that grew up in the slums spoke up when everybody began to conclude that boys that are from the slums are a menace to society. Everybody else came from different types of culture and economic status, so their judgment are just based on opinions, not facts. Therefore they are ignorant on their judgement of people from low income housing. Also, the man with the running nose said that “the boy cannot even speak good English” meaning he was biased towards non-American people. Another demonstration of how people’s background plays a huge roll in the trial is when the man said “That’s how I grew up” when he tried keeping things calm when the group of men began to argue. Everyone’s belief of “kids” from the slums seem to input a huge deal of influence in the decision making process. The twelve jury members were highly culturally diverse. Each had their own individual differences, which made it harder for all of them to come up with a decision. Ethics is a major thing to successful problem solving groups. They need to have the accurate information and data. It is agreeable that each men had things to say but not all information was accurate which made it a bigger conflict to problem solving. They did engage in the basic steps of problem solving process. In the beginning, the foreman tried to keep the group in order but the rest of the men did not listen, got off subject, and just got caught up in an argument. Of course there are gaps between the communication processes because the men constantly took breaks or argued about who was right. For the most part the architect helped the foreman with the process. They would identify the evidence, analyze it, put it into play, give possible outcomes, choose the best outcome and then run with the final decision. They stuck to the outcome and applied this same process to the rest of the evidence.

The way the group handled their conflict was in three different ways. The first way they handled their conflict is called unethical behavior, by using their personal interest while arguing amongst each other. The second way that they handled their conflict is that they were assigning fault, when two people or more were fighting with different interest they would blame the other party that does not agree with them. The final way that the group was handling their conflict was that they were arguing using the passive aggressive style, where one person is being passive while the other is being very aggressive with their argument. The roles of the twelve men at the jury varied from person to person. Since all the names are not available their personalities will be presented by their individual numbers. Foreman: was responsible for organizing the jury. The second juror was the shy person that eventually overcomes his shyness as the play progresses. Third juror was the bully that had father son issues and he is the last person to vote not guilty. Fourth juror was a stockbroker that wore glasses and he has a serious mood throughout the whole play. Fifth juror gives the information about knife fighting because he himself grew up in the slums. In the beginning the sixth juror was happy because he did not have to return to work but his attitude towards the case is cautious because he does not want to let a killer back on the streets. Seventh juror was the funny man that wants the case to end so he can watch the ballgame. The eight juror was the man that votes not guilty at the beginning because it is not easy to put a man to death. Ninth juror was the oldest man in the group that listened to everyone’s opinion. Tenth juror was the strongest attacker of the defendant on the case. The eleventh juror was the Russian watchmaker that is very patriotic. Finally the twelve juror was distracted often and he worked for a marketing agency and shows that off very often.

The leader in the 12 Angry Men film was the architect he was a very strong leader.

He spoke up and stood up for himself even when he was alone. Although the eleven jurors plead the boy guilty, they were being non rational. They did not have enough evidence to accuse the boy guilty they just based it on the little boy’s culture and where he came from. Therefore, the architect saw things differently and wanted true justice and fairness. He wanted the other men to be reasonable and to look at other outcomes that could possibly not make the boy guilty. The architect was very effective, some of the traits he displayed were creativity, desire to lead, fair-mindedness, rapid information processing, self-confidence, trustworthy, and a democratic leader. His leadership style was a democratic leader because he allowed others to participate in the decision making rather than talking over them. A democratic leader participates with the group in deliberating and decision making members are empowered to actively participate. That is how it took place in the film, all twelve men had a say in everything, and participated. The architect was very inspiring and influential, he made other really think. As a result, they did display characteristics of a successful

group.
In conclusion the twelve jurors did display characteristics of a successful group.

They showed decision by group meaning that the majority will win. There was many times in the movie in which the men were constantly voting on the faith of the young man. There was also group diversity by bringing twelve people from different ways of living to bond and compromise on a decision. These people were and are in different living conditions. Also how they were raised during their childhood made a difference in their decision making. There was many perspectives on coming up with their decision. In order to come up with a decision at the end they all had to communicate and understand each other. The movie showed a very good example of a problem solving

group.