Cohesiveness

When you are in a group, you want to feel that everyone is there for the group and wants the group to achieve their common goal. This can be thought of as wanting the group to have cohesiveness. However, too much cohesiveness can be just as detrimental has not having any at all. If there is too much cohesiveness in a group it can lead to group thinking and a lack of creativity when solving problems. In a lot of group meetings group thinking goes on because the members don't want to hurt the other teammate's feelings. A good way to get rid of group thinking it to assign someone at the meeting to play devils advocate. If there is a devils advocate in the group it helps to challenge the team to think of different alternatives. When a team is challenged that is when the best answers to solve problems get spoken about. So just remember that a group needs to have the perfect balance of cohesiveness in order to have a successful team.