“Facilitating Difficult Participants: Team Stages, Team Roles and Challenging Behavior"

“Facilitating Difficult Participants: Team Stages, Team Roles and Challenging Behavior" Andy Kogerma DFCS Education and Training Section 404-272-7613

Teams Definition: • A group of people working together towards a common goal • Teams usually have 7-10 members, 25 at the most

Buckman’s Stages of Group Development • Forming • Storming • Norming • Performing

Stage 1: Forming: Personal Group members… • Rely on safe, patterned behavior • Look to the group leader for guidance and direction. • Have a desire for acceptance. • Form preferences for future subgrouping. • Rules of behavior: keep things simple and to avoid controversy • Serious topics and feelings are avoided.

Stage 1: Forming: “Task” functions Group members… • Attempt to become oriented to the tasks as well as to one another • Seek to define the scope and nature of the task • To grow from this stage to the next, each member must relinquish the comfort of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict.

Stage 2: Storming • Characterized by competition and conflict in personal-relations dimension • As group members attempt to organize for the task, conflict inevitably results in their personal relations. • Individuals have to bend and mold their feelings, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs to suit the group organization. • Group may become polarized between differing views/personalities

Stage 2: Storming • May be wide swings in members’ behavior based on emerging issues of competition and hostilities…some members may remain completely silent while others attempt to dominate. • In order to progress to the next stage, group members must move from a "testing and proving" mentality to a problem solving mentality.

Stage 2: Storming • The most important trait in helping groups to move on to the next stage seems to be the ability to listen.

Stage 3: Norming • Group members are engaged in active acknowledgment of all members’ contributions, community building and maintenance, and solving of group issues. • Members are willing to change their preconceived ideas or opinions on the basis of facts presented by other members, and they actively ask questions of one another. • Leadership is shared, and cliques dissolve.

Stage 3: Norming Group members… • Begin to experience a sense of group belonging • Creatively share feelings and ideas, soliciting and giving feedback to one another • Interactions are characterized by openness and sharing of information on both a personal and task level. • Feel good about being part of an effective group.

Stage 4: Performing. • Not reached by all groups. • In this stage, people can work independently, in subgroups, or as a total unit with equal facility. • Members are both highly task oriented and highly people oriented. • Group identity is complete, group morale is high, and group loyalty is intense. The task function becomes genuine problem solving, leading toward optimal solutions and optimum group development.

Functional and Non Functional group roles: Group “Task” and Group “Maintainence” Roles

Group Task Roles • These functions are required in selecting and carrying out a group task. • Mostly positive, but can be overused.

Group Task Roles • The initiator suggests or proposes new ideas or new ways of regarding the group problems or goals. • The information seeker may ask for clarification of suggestions, information and facts. • The opinion seeker asks primarily for the opinions of other group members or for clarification of opinions already stated.

Group Task Roles • The information giver offers facts or generalizations that are “authoritarian.” May relate his or her own personal experience. • The opinion giver states his or her beliefs or opinions. • The elaborator spells out suggestions in terms of examples, furthers development of a discussion point, or tries to deduce how an idea or suggestion would work out if adopted.

Group Task Roles • The summarizer or integrator shows or clarifies the relationships among various ideas and suggestions, tries to pull ideas and suggestions together • The orienter defines the position of the group with respect to its goals and points to departures from agreed-upon directions or goals: “We’re getting off track here…” • The energizer prods the group to action or decision. He or she attempts to stimulate or arouse the group to greater or higher quality activity.

Group maintenance roles These functions are required to build and maintain the group itself. They are most often positive and productive.

Group maintenance roles • The encourager praises, agrees with and accepts the contributions of others. • The harmonizer mediates differences. • The gate-keeper and expediter attempt to keep communication channels open by encouraging or facilitating participation of others. • The standard setter expresses standards for the group to attempt to achieve

Non-functional group roles • These roles block the group’s progress. If identified they can be neutralized. • Individuals who play these roles may not know other ways to participate. • A strong leader can encourage them to make positive contributions before the group becomes frustrated

Non-functional group roles • The aggressor may work in many ways: deflating others; expressing disapproval of the values, requests or feelings of others; attacking the group or its problems; joking aggressively; taking credit for the group’s successes

Non-functional group roles • The blocker tends to have negative reactions and is stubbornly resistant. • Tries to maintain or resurrect an issue after the group has finished with it.

Non-functional group roles • The recognition-seeker works in various ways to call attention to him or herself • Examples: Boasting, acting in unusual ways, trying to prevent being placed in less important roles, etc.

Non-functional group roles • The self-confessor uses the group setting to express/explore personal and non-group-related feelings, insights, or ideologies. • Facilitator must NOT engage on this level

Non-functional group roles • The playboy/girl makes a display of his or her lack of involvement. • May take the form of cynicism, nonchalance, horseplay, and other forms of negative behavior.

Non-functional group roles • The help-seeker tries to get “sympathy” from others or from the whole group • Uses expression of insecurity, personal confusion, or depreciation of him or herself beyond reason.

Non-functional group roles • The special interest pleader speaks for a specific group or view • Usually cloakes biases in the stereotype that best fits the particular need.

Non-functional group roles • The dominator tries to assert authority or superiority. • She or he consciously or unconsciously works at redirectingthe team towards a particular agenda. • Examples: flattery, superiority, ordering others around, or interrupting others’ contributions.

Dominators • Most dominators mean well, are not trying to harm the group • Truly believe everyone wants to hear their POV

Dominators • Main reasons for their behavior: high anxiety or a need to control or both. • An anxious person will talk for long period of time, shifting from subject to subject • Tend to be self-centered and even narcissistic. • May dominate to avoid talking about a difficult subject or to avoid intimacy.

Dominators • Dominators are often loners and may play the "victim" role too. • Usually are not aware of what they are doing and how it impacts group process. • When stopped, may start in again: “Yes, but…” • It takes firm facilitation to stop them and keep them stopped.

Destructive dominators • A small percentage of dominators • Intentional goal is to wreck or destroy the meeting • Normal facilitation techniques are ineffective

“Facilitating Difficult Participants: Team Stages, Team Roles and Challenging Behavior"