Blog 2

In the fall of 2009, I was placed in difficult position. I was SCA president of Hickory High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, and was in charge of planning and organizing the powder-puff football game for the junior and senior classes. This event was my brain child of the year before, and everyone was expecting it to be bigger and better. The group I was working with contained some good friends of mine, who I had known all throughout my high school career. Unfortunately, this caused some division in the group, as we were not used to working on large projects together, and were comfortable enough with each other to be blunt. Feelings were hurt, and large loads of work fell on some, while others were discouraged and zoned themselves out of the project completely.
From reading chapter 9 of Group Dynamics of Teams by Levi, I became aware of ways to make decisions in groups, without conflict, and for the greatest good. Though we had known each other before the project started, the nominal technique I believe would have been effective. This technique is mainly used for “non” teams who do not want to gain relationships. But seeing as everyone know each other already and were friends, I believe these techniques would take hard feelings out of the situation. It is a democratic technique that would have been fair to everyone.
Though my group is a team, and plans on building relationships with each other, I think this same technique for the base of making large decisions on our action at the Boys and Girls Club would work effectively. It would keep negative feelings from forming, and be the fairest way to decide big decisions about the future of our team.

Blog 1

My time at Virginia Tech has been amazing so far, mainly due to the men I live with. I live at a house on Willard Drive, with guys I know from Young Life and my freshmen year. They are my best friends, and we have more laughs than I can remember. However, when this "team" was first forming, we went through the stages of group development as described by Tuckman and Jensen(1977). We got to know each other, had some problems, created social norms, and are performing at living together day by day. Adjourning has yet to happen, but I'm sure it will be sad. Though I didn't realize it at the time, this process could have been much easier, had we known what to expect, and the norms would possibly be different.
As we got to know each other last year, my roommates and I had a few issues. One was snoring. My snoring is awful, and the guys didn't like that. This caused some conflict within the group, that could have been avoided. Had we addressed this issue as a group, instead of just getting into small, heated conversations later, it could have saved them all some sleep.
Then the norming stage began. My roommates and I all enjoy cigars, and we accidentally fell into the habit of smoking them very often. This is not a healthy habit. Now however, it is difficult to break this norm, because it is what we know and are used to doing when we are all together. Other norms were positive, such as eating together every Sunday night. But in retrospect, if I had known the norming stage was occurring, we could have addressed the issue and not have fallen into the social habit of doing this.
Finally, the performing stage is ongoing for my household. We get along pretty well, but due to my newfound knowledge of the performing stage which we are currently in, I believe we can do better. We can treat each other better as individuals, and take care of the house better corporately. This is one stage that has been happening, can change still, and will look a lot better in the future. I'm sure our landlord will be quite happy.
The house I live in has a fabled past, and present. The Willard House has been lived in by Young Life leaders for about twenty years now. Alumni have a blog to keep in touch, http://willardhouse.wordpress.com/
The current men residing in the Willard house also have a blog, willardhouse.blogspot.com
Also, five of us lead Young Life in the New River Valley. This link will take you to it's homepage.