Mind Mapping for Acing Group Discussions

Mind Mapping for Acing Group Discussions

Group discussions are an important part of most B-school selection processes. The trait that the schools look for during a group discussion is usually effective communication skills. “Effective” is the key word here as it incorporates not an ability to ramble on aimlessly , but an ability to understand the topic at a deeper level using which drive discussions, give direction if it goes wayward, get group acceptance,  structure and  even reconcile different points of view.  Hence subject matter knowledge is usually a secondary matter. But one common difficulty that aspirants dread and usually end up facing is that, at times they just go blank and are not able to come up with the basic content that will enable them to demonstrate the above mentioned skills. Most of the times this is not due to non-familiarly with the subject content  as even though the subject difficulty levels are varying in each GD, the levels of knowledge of most of the aspirants is the same and hence usually no one is really ever out of his leauge.  So the problem boils down to pressure and an inability to draw upon their knowledge during the crucial time of the GD.

One technique that can be used to solve this problem is known as Mind Mapping. It is a technique that is primarily followed in organizations during brainstorming sessions. Though it has other uses, like helping in memorizing difficult subjects, it’s also very effective for clearing mental blocks and generating content during group discussions. In this technique the idea emulate the way the mind thinks on paper and in that process speed up and aid the thinking process.

Basic Technique

Generally once the topic is given to the group, varying amounts of time from 30 seconds to even 2 minutes is given to think about the topic before start of discussion. During this time usually the aspirants start jolting down the points that come to them in form of a list. In Mind Mapping technique, instead of jolting down as a list, the topics are drawn in form of a mind map, as show in the figure.  For example, this was the simulation of an abstract GD topic “Blue” and it took less than one minute to draw on paper



Advantages

Some of the advantages of this technique are -:

1.    Since you are jolting down in the same manner than the brain thinks, after some practice, the pace at which ideas come is increased multi-fold and potential blocks to thinking are removed.

2.    By nature of the diagram, you avoid wasting time of writing long sentences, which you mind end doing by habit while using the list method

3.    The Mind Map inherently lends a structure to each of the sub-topic making it easier to take that structure into the discussion

4.    As new points come up from other people during the actual discussion, it’s easier to see where they fit into among your own points and helps you make natural entries into the discussion

5.    Particularly helpful during abstract GD topics as this helps generate a lot of different perspectives which is one of the parameters on which you are evaluated in a Abstact GD

6.    You retain more content from every GD, mock or otherwise, which is adding more towards your preparation.

Even though content is secondary in most group discussions as compared to delivery, it is still important and Mind Mapping is a technique that can go a long way in easing your worries about not being to generate enough ideas to talk in a group discussion.