Programme for week commencing 22nd March 2012

Too often in Rotary we tend leave all we’ve learnt in our business, professional and community lives at the door and start learning skills all over again, only to find it makes lots of extra work. Following on from the CARE Model of how we build relationships in the eClub and using the mind map if that’s good for you, this week we want to remind ourselves of how a good Team develops, not forgetting we will go through a process of Forming, Storming, Norming and then Performing.

Group Dynamics

It is the understanding of group dynamics which will help us as a new eClub start to focus on where we want to be as we move forward to performing as a caring and efficient team.

The Individual – see diagram

Every individual is different, each of you bring different skills, talents, learning styles, experiences, hates, hopes and aspirations, which is why over the past weeks we have put a lot of emphasis on getting to know each other, building trust and relationships. Of course this will increase in time as the eClub develops and we get to know each other better. However the more we know about what individuals can offer, the greater chance of us ensuring that we use our talents and interests to our greatest advantage.

The Group – see diagram

Knowing the individuals within the the Group, will therefore help it to function as a team, making sure we use everyone’s talents and skills, ensuring everyone is engaged, knowing what learning styles work for particular people and ensuring members are engaged in the right areas. Up to now we’ve talked about people being in ‘forums’, we intend to change this to Action Groups, forums give the sense of talk shops, what we want is for our groups to be engaged in doing Rotary and developing Service above Self.

The Task – see diagram

As within the CARE model, there is a process before you can get to engagement, where the ‘Activity’ helps to form the relationships that enable better engagement. As we all know it is pointless sitting with a group of people if we haven’t something to do with them, this could be anything, such as a discussion, activity or building something.

Ensuring the Individual, Group and Task are considered as we move forward – see diagram

Quite often if we are not careful many of you will have experienced where the Task has taken over everything, it has become more important than the Individuals or the Group, or an individual dominates in a Group and everything goes to pot, even some Individuals opt out. Hence why to begin with we want to concentrate on developing our relationships within the eClub, getting to know each other and what we can offer, so that when we work together within our different Action Groups we can really work at using this model of group dynamics and working together for equilibrium (see above diagram).

This diagram shows what happens when the TASK becomes more important than the Individuals or the Group.

So in the Action Groups (formerly Forums) you’ve been allocated to, have you discovered yet what each person brings to the group?

We already know that Janice likes to use Mind Maps, what do others use when planning, are they visual, audial or kinetic thinkers?

Are you happy with the Action Group you’ve been put in? We have a chance to change things slightly as we prepare for the new Rotary Year 2012/13,  so if you think your skills, talents and experience would be better to help the eClub in another Action Group, please tell us now.

Has your Action Groups started to plan work for the new Rotary Year 2012/13? How can you help this to happen using your skills, talents and experience?