The Stages of a Group: How to build group cohesion
How many of us when we start to meet with a group of people,
we experience either a great connection or a flop? Often, we begin to look at
ourselves and wonder what if this was really what we were supposed to do. Don’t
worry, don’t get stressed. What we have found is that groups experience a
natural outworking of how much they desire to stick together. The term is
called group cohesion, which is basically how sticky they are. Larry Osborne
has a book called “Sticky Church” and the process that Osborne promotes the
most as to how sticky a church will be is through their small groups. Osborne
says, “Anytime a group of friends commit to gather together to share their
lives, pray, and discuss the biblical text and life application…good stuff
happens.” The gathering together is how a group becomes cohesive with one
another. What is interesting though is that this just doesn’t automatically
happen. There are times when groups stick and times when they don’t. I believe
though that we have false expectations about when stickiness occurs, and this can
help us to take the pressure off of ourselves and have real conversations about
how to navigate groups.
Tuckman and Jensen (presented in Baron and Kerr’s Group
Process, Group Decision, and Group Action) have a staged process that they
share that a group experiences over a period of time that shows how they become
cohesive. I want to share their process points and give practical application
for how this works within groups.
1. Forming Stage. During this stage, Tuckman and
Jensen says that group members are most concerned about how they are accepted,
and it is a time of information-seeking of the group members. Think about this
when you are starting a group or adding new people into your group, they are
determining how they will like the group and how they will feel accepted into the
group. This is important for how we welcome new people into groups. We don’t embarrass
them by any means, but we encourage them to build connections with people in
the groups. For new groups that just started, many times this can be a
frustrating stage as everyone is getting to know each other. We can also take
this time very personally if someone doesn’t return to a group after their
first few tries. Here’s the reality, not everyone is going to gel with you or
with everyone in the group. Yes, we are bound together by the Holy Spirit as
believers, but there are times when personalities clash, even within the first
meeting. The best thing you can do is spend some time in evaluation: did we do something
to embarrass them? Is there something that is noticeably different in who we
are as a group? Did we do anything to make them feel unwanted? If you can answer
those questions in full assurance that you did all you could do, then don’t
worry. Do offer to help them to find another group where they may connect.
2. Storming Stage. Tuckman and Jensen say that during
this stage, that as members begin to feel more secure, there can be conflicts
to arise as people vie for power or confront their differences. As your group
continues to meet, there are going to be times when personalities or opinions
begin to clash. It may be that someone begins to dominate the conversation in
the group that makes everyone uncomfortable. Or it may be that someone is experiencing
an issue with what is being taught and rather than submit to the Scripture,
they try to have everyone agree with their personal interpretation to justify
their actions. This is where the group can experience, to bluntly state it,
awkward conversations. I know that we all want to sit around the circle singing
kumbaya, but the reality is that there can be some group defining moments here
that can either ostracize group members or help them to become even stickier. In
fact, I believe that a group that goes through conflict actually grows the most
together during their stickiness. One expert on group dynamics states that
groups of people band together the most around a purpose or around a mission to
fight. How true this is within groups! When we have these moments of conflict,
the best action to take is to rally around our purpose: The Great Commission as
we are making disciples through even conflict and to help people understand
that our group is going to fight for one another, especially through conflict.
Now I wish I could tell you that everyone makes the journey in this stage, but
the reality is that there will be some that will run away when conflict arises,
or they will look for another group to justify their personality or problems.
But those that make it through the storm, they truly begin to grow with one
another and see the group as a place for their growth through any more storms
that arise. It won’t be the last storm of the group, but the group begins to
learn how to lock arms together even more.
3. Norming Stage. From the storming stage, the next
two stages are intertwined. Tuckman and Jensen present that the next stage is
the norming stage, which is when a group develops roles and procedures, basically
social norms for how the group is going to operate. Baron and Kerr affirm that
when a group reaches this stage, hostility and conflict is deescalated and
cohesion increases even more. Therefore, group members begin to take up roles
within the group as active participants and see their lives more dependent
upon the group and its members. I like to think of this and the next stage as
the sweet times for a group. They are building life-long friendships that have
weathered storms together and their lives are interacting more on a daily
basis. I think about the early church in Acts 2 as they demonstrated this
norming period of roles and how the people were interacting with one another. Now
when new people come to the group, they are learning the group norms and see
now just how they are accepted into the group, but they learn the norms of the
group. They are learning their roles within the group beyond just being an
attendee.
4. Performing Stage. Tuckman and Jensen say that in
this stage the group can begin to address more effectively its various group
goals. The purpose of the group is clear and even challenged among each other
for its embodiment. The reason that this is intertwined so much with the third
stage of norming is that as the group has formed roles, the roles are designed
to execute the purpose of the group. For our purposes, this statement means
that a group learns together how to live out The Great Commission. They learn
how to care for one another, how to serve one another, how to share the gospel,
and how to live consistently in biblical community.
5. Adjournment (Deforming) Stage. The final stage
that Tuckman and Jensen presents is the adjournment stage that occurs when the
group is ready to disband. In this time, the group is emotionally prepared to
separate or has reached its goal. While we can look at this stage and get
depressed, there is a positive perspective to have at this time. First, if a
group has done its mission of living out the Great Commission, it will send
more people than it gathers. In fact, a healthy group will walk through all of
these stages and then be at a place where they are ready to form again with new
people. This is the call of the church to grow in perpetuity. We are to constantly
learn together how to live out our mission and then to go and express our faith
in a way that people desire to join biblical community as well. Yes, there are
times when groups disband. Yet, once again, if we are doing our role as helping
to connect biblical community, it doesn’t have to be a disbanding to stop being
in groups, rather it becomes a sending to be on mission. This is why starting groups,
not with the purpose of dividing a group, rather to start to form new groups,
is essential to growing a body of believers spiritually and numerically.
While this is a model and a theory of group stages, meaning
that it is not the final word on groups, seeing where your group is can be a
definite help to understand expectations and experiences. The reality is that
your group can move beyond stages and will even work through some quicker than
others. There can even be groups that get stuck in one stage versus another.
Seeing what may be happening can give an indication of where your group needs to
work on to take the next step!
Enjoy and grow together!
Joseph
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