23
Feb 22

Blog #4 Team Cohesion

Throughout high school, I participated in Relay for life, a nonprofit, charity organization. I was a part of the Relay for Life committee that’s mission was to raise money to fund cancer research and reach the $50,000 goal. To create a successful all-day and night event, the group needed to plan fundraisers, organize teams, and plan ceremonies. These included the opening, fight back, survivor and caregiver, and luminaria ceremonies.

The group had nearly one-hundred members which consisted of teachers, students, and cancer survivors. As a whole, we were highly united as a social group. We looked forward to our daily interactions and after school get-togethers. However, we were not organized with respect to reaching our performance goals. According to Gruman et al. (2017), we were high on social cohesion and low on task cohesion (p.134). To solve this issue, we split into subgroups that were assigned to completing specific tasks. For example, one subgroup was responsible for raising fundraisers and collecting donations. We combined our individual skills and abilities to create balance in our group.

Each subgroup had a leader that made sure each member was doing their best and fulfilling their assigned task roles. My task role was to create social media campaigns, while another individual worked on collecting data. Although the leader was the one in charge of our group, the members were also involved in making decisions. This is called democratic leadership. This method of leadership is related to higher task cohesion. In turn, task cohesion correlates with team confidence and performance (Gruman et al., 2017, p.136-137).

Although the event was successful, the group experienced some difficulty regarding intrateam norms in the beginning. This ultimately disrupted the cohesion of the group and negatively affected the group’s synergy. During group discussions, several members would interrupt while the leader was speaking, have separate conversations, not maintain eye contact, go on their cellphones, and criticize their ideas. These nonconformities caused our group to experience process losses because we could not effectively and respectively interact with one another to discuss and coordinate events.

This caused us to be behind on schedule. Therefore, it was essential that the leader schedule a meeting to handle the conflict among members and find solutions. The leader communicated her feelings, expectations, and reminded us of our goal. She asked us for our feedback, and we gave suggestions for optimizing communication. In the example provided by Eccles and Tenenbaum, two strategies for optimizing communication among teams are developing a shared language and cross-training (Gruman et al., 2017, p.146). A few days after the meeting, there was a noticeable difference in the way the groups functioned. We were able to collaborate and function effectively, ultimately creating the optimal group experience and achieving our shared goal.

 

Reference

Gruman, J.A., Schneider, F.W., & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology:

     Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.


28
Feb 17

Cohesive Roots in the Chicago Blackhawks

My journey down to Wrigley Field holding a mock Stanley Cup on the night of the 2015 Blackhawks victory.

Lia Stoffle, February 28, 2017

As a Chicago native, hockey has always been a huge part of my life. I had an uncle who worked in the Blackhawk’s locker room, my dad worked on Stan Mikita’s house, I met Chris Chelios briefly and we reminisced about my uncle, and even the little one I provide childcare for plays on a travel hockey team. Now, those names may not mean much to those who are not interested in hockey, or are not from Chicago, but if you google them you’ll see what I’m talking about. The Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups since 2010, which has made living near Wrigleyville, the sports center of Chicago, incredibly exciting. I will never forget being out at my favorite local dive with my boyfriend, surrounded by friends. We were all screaming at the televisions, our hearts racing as we watched the final seconds of the game. The clock ran out of time, and champagne showered over us. We had all paid out our tabs before the end of the game, and subsequently ran down to Wrigley Field to fill the intersection of Clark and Addison. It is probably my single favorite memory of living in the city so far.

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