The selection of a meeting location is very important because the attitudes of participants are affected by the choice. Leaders have more difficulty accomplishing objectives if the room is too hot, the seats are too uncomfortable, the whirr of air vents makes it difficult to hear, and if there is a constant din of noise bustling outside the meeting room doors.
Guided discussions are a type of structured exercise that enable meeting leaders to ask the group a series of planned questions designed to get them to wrestle with topics and issues at a deeper level. As they answer the questions, the facilitator summarizes their content and may also play devil’s advocate to drive for deeper content or application, and guides the discussion to the next question.
Developing the meeting outline is to plan the activities that will guide the group to achieving the desired outcomes. For example, an outcome might be for the group to create a list of 10 suggestions to assess the current morale of a particular department. As you are designing the meeting outline, select the most appropriate tool or technique to lead to the desired outcome.
Tips and strategies for improving communication, cooperation, and trust when building team cohesion.
The "Be a STAR" method of building trust divides the necessary trust-building behaviors into four action areas:
Cohesive teams are unified, allowing members to work together in productive harmony. True cohesiveness is only possible when members cooperate with each other, acting together to further the team's goals. Cohesion also requires mutual respect and trust, and it has effective communication at its base.
Trust is the confident reliance in the character, abilities, and actions of others. When you trust someone, you believe she will behave in a certain way based on both your personal feelings about her and the available evidence.
So trust has both an emotional and an intellectual component. Your general feelings about someone, your comfort level with the way he behaves, and your intuition about his character all affect your decision to trust.
Team members need to cooperate to get the job done, whatever that job may be. You can apply three simple strategies to promote cooperation among your team members:
Good communication, along with cooperation and trust, are the threads that bind a team into a cohesive unit. Without good communication, cooperation and trust are unlikely to develop. In a cohesive team, communication is clear and positive, and ideas flow freely. Poor communication, on the other hand, leads to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, missed opportunities, and conflict.