Five issues in team building (coop ln)

Five Issues to be considered in team building

Team building exercises are very important in the development of base groups,
cooperative learning groups that will work together for an extended period of time on a
complex project. Experiences designed to facilitate group development should be focused on
some, or all, of the five issues outlined below.
Interdependence
This is the issue of how each member’s outcomes are determined, at least in part, by the
actions of the other members. The structure of the group task should be such that it requires
cooperative interdependence. Functioning independently of other group members or
competing with them should lead to suboptimal outcomes for the entire group. Both the
cooperative learning task and the team building task should have such a structure. Tasks that
require the successful performance of subtasks by all team members are called divisible,
conjunctive tasks. The team building exercise should be structured so that the group becomes
aware of, and experiences, their interdependence.
Goal Specification
It is very important for group members to have common goals for group achievements, as well
as to communicate clearly about individual goals they may have. Some team building sessions
consist entirely of goal clarification exercises. The process of clarifying goals may well engage all
of the issues on this list. Indeed, shared goals are one of the definitional properties of the
concept “group”. A simple, but useful, team building task is to assign a newly formed group the
task of producing a mission and goals statement.
Cohesiveness
This term refers to the attractiveness of group membership. Groups are cohesive to the extent
that membership in them is positively valued; members are drawn toward the group. In task
oriented groups the concept can be differentiated into two sub concepts, social cohesiveness
and task cohesiveness. Social cohesiveness refers to the bonds of interpersonal attraction that
link group members. While a high level of social cohesive may make group life more pleasant, it
is not highly related to group performance. Nevertheless, the patterns of interpersonal
attraction within a group are a very prominent concern, especially for undergraduates. Team
building exercises that have a component of fun or play are useful in allowing attraction bonds
to develop. Task cohesiveness refers to the way in which skills and abilities of the group
members mesh to allow optimal performance. Exercises that require the application of the
skills that will be necessary for completion of the group assignment, but require them in a less
demanding situation, allow the group members to asses one another’s talents, and can lead to
consideration of the next issue, the development of group members to asses one another’s
talents, and can lead to consideration of the next issue, the development of group members’
roles and of the norms that govern role enactment
Roles and Norms
All groups develop a set of roles and norms over time. In task oriented groups, it is essential
that the role structure enables the group to cope effectively with the requirements of the task.
When the task is divisible and conjunctive, as are most of the important group tasks in our
society, the assignment of roles to members who can perform them effectively is essential.
Active consideration of the role structure can be an important part of a team building exercise.
In some cooperative learning designs, it is the instructor’s intention to rotate task roles so that
all group members experience, and learn from, all roles. Even then, it is important that the
norm, in this case imposed by the instructor, governing the assignment of roles is understood
and accepted by group members. Norms are the rules governing the behavior of group
members and include the rewards for behaving in accord with normative requirements, as well
as the sanctions for norm violations. Norms will develop in a group, whether or not they are
actively discussed. The norms that govern most cooperative learning groups are imposed by the
instructor, but that does not preclude a team building assignment in which those norms, as well
as some that are specific to a group, are discussed and accepted.
Communication
Affective interpersonal communication is vital to the smooth functioning of any task group.
There are many ways of facilitating the learning of effective communication skills. Active
listening exercises, practice in giving and receiving feedback , practice in checking for
comprehension of verbal messages, are all aimed at developing skills. It is also important for a
group to develop an effective communication network: who communicates to whom; is there
anybody “out of the loop?” Norms will develop governing communication. Do those norms
encourage everyone to participate, or do they allow one or two dominate members to claim all
the “air time?” Team building exercises can focus on skill development, network design, and
norms, but even when the exercise is focused on another issue, communication is happening.
Watch it! Shape it!

This outline is not intended to present a series of team building exercises. Rather, it is
intended to help you evaluate the potential effectiveness of an exercise you design, or one that
you find in the numerous sources available. TEAMBUIKLDING is not a silver bullet for fixing
dysfunctional groups, or assuring that all of your cooperative learning group will work well.
Teambuilding exercises can be helpful in developing effective cooperative learning groups, if
they are selected to enable groups to explore the issues indentified in this outline.

From Darwyn Linder, Department Of Psychology, Arizona State University