The Importance Of Group Norms In Task Group Meetings

Norms: As stated in module three of the course lecture, “norms are shared expectations and beliefs about ways to behave" (Muskat, Winter 2016). Our group norms were to exercise confidentiality; to follow the order of participation, where the leaders spoke during the task group meetings unless someone else was assigned to do so; and to be respectful of other members in the group by remaining professional throughout the session. In following the order of participation; we had to keep in mind that, “whenever people are together in face-to-face groups, they are communicating. Even if they are not communicating verbally, their nonverbal behaviors communicate intended and unintended messages" (R. W. Toseland & R. F. Rivas, 2009). These norms were set by the leaders of our group and worked very well for our group because we had a clear understanding that the breach of these …show more content…
This structure was established with the leaders setting the date and time for the groups meeting. Other members were given three different options of these dates and times and the date and time that got the most availability was chosen. We met with our subgroups first to develop an agenda for our day and then we met with the task group. Our first meeting with the task group was to establish a timeline of when we will meet with our subgroup and when we will meet with the task group. We had one meeting session that lasted 15 hours; throughout the 15 hours we took breaks from the task group to meet with our subgroup. The task group was content with this structure because we all agreed that we wanted to accomplish our task before we left the building. During our task group session, we did not have activities as the group 's main focus was to complete the task at hand. The introduction of activities in the task group would have been inappropriate and