Group Think

There is talk that the Patriots will go 16-0 and Notre Dame's football team could lose every game it plays this season.

No I'm not talking about sports - I'm talking about groups. Specifically groups of people that work together towards a common goal, there by creating a team.

Why is it that some teams work and others fail? There are limitless questions and answers on this subject, and we all reflect back on personal experience as our own guides towards making teams work. There is also resources, experts and literature on teamwork, some of which was our reading assignment for this week. (Verzuh, E. (2005). Building a high-performance project team. / Lipnack, J. & Stamps, J. (1997). Working smart: a web book for virtual teams)

In my first post I spoke about how I have seen and been affected by the goodness in people, and a great example I was fortunate enough to experience a few years ago.

Green 5

In an effort to prolong the inevitable entrance into the corporate world, I entered an Americorps program after college. Americorps*NCCC is a team based service program where 18-24 year olds are organized in groups of about a dozen and work together across the country for 10 months. The teams are numbered and organized by color units - my team was Green 5.

I can honestly say that it was one of the most rewarding and most challenging experiences of my life. Going suddenly from living in my own apartment for 3 years in college, to living, working, eating and sleeping with the same 11 people day after day, week after week and month after month was quite an experience - one I will never forget.

We had our ups and downs, like any team, but by the time we graduated, I had made some of the strongest relationships of my life, and we had accomplished our ultimate goal - that of service.

Computers cant hug

As we move forward towards a truly global economy, one where the world seems to be shrinking by the day, how do we apply our collective knowledge towards effective team building and maintenance over the Internet? Can we? My mother works in HR for a software company, and she just got back from a trip to India where she facilitated team working exercises - is face to fade the only way?

As with anything new, there are hurdles and obstacles. CMC group development brings along too many issues to cover here, so I'll focus on a few. One, how can we account for different experience levels? That is, maybe some members of the team will have no CMC group experience while others are seasoned veterans? Will computer communication become so important in the future that it will require its own specific training? (instead of taking public speaking classes we take computer speaking classes?)

Another issue that comes to my mind is trust. How do you trust someone you've never met? With the lake of eye contact, and physical presence, I would foresee some trust issues being created, especially when teams are still new. In Green 5 sometimes we would settle issues with a bottle of wine, a good talk and a hug, whats the virtual equivalent?

Candice talked about the Chicago Bulls in her blog, a group that had such good teamwork and leadership it was able to dominate in it's own sphere. This inspired an interesting question - which group, if any, will be the first dynasty in the virtual world?