Rim - operating agreements, norms, culture
The rim represents the groups agreed upon ways of operating. These operating agreements or group ‘norms’ are significant in directing the code of behaviour for all group members. Norms can be established either implicitly as the group develops over time or they can be formally set by or for the group. Each individual member within the group is responsible for abiding by and ‘living’ these agreements and as such it is often beneficial for the group to explicitly clarify these agreements in order for the group to be able to undertake its tasks efficiently.
Group norms can develop into traditions and customs over an extended period of time that become an integral part of a group’s culture.
In effective groups the individual members clearly understand, agree to and are committed to the norms that guide the way that the group will operate. They also are confident to communicate issues or concerns about the norms with the collective group.
The wheel model helps us visualise the impact of a faulty rim/operating agreements on wheel function/group effectiveness. The wheel model helps us visualise the impact of a faulty rim/operating agreement on wheel function/group effectiveness. A wheel with a faulty rim falls apart as does a group with no operating agreements.
Key points to remember are:
- Norms can be explicitly established within a group by allowing time for the members to determine common behavioural expectations and ways of operating.
- Group members are more likely to show a commitment to actioning and enforcing group norms that they have a voice in constructing.
- Group members are able to function freely and creatively in a group environment that has a clear and agreed upon operating agreements.
The group norms and culture is closely related to the groups core values (hub) and jointly these variables have a significant impact on the quality of the group’s functioning.
What student's say...
Experience 1'We were all allocated to an on line discussion group and we were supposed to contribute to the group by sharing information about our readings. My group just didn’t seem to work at all. Nobody knew how they were going to function in this group and so it ended up not working at all. I submitted a couple of reading summaries for others to make comment on however I no one responded so I just thought why bother?'
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Experience 2'One of the best group experiences that I have ever been in was our sports festival team. The group was formed randomly but we spent a lot of time before we began participating in the Festival discussing how our team would operate. We openly discussed the commitment that each one of us would make to various aspects of the group’s work. This included how we would go about completing the readings and the best way to share the different roles and responsibilities that were associated with the tasks for the group. Everyone had a chance to voice their views and in the end we were all very clear on how we would operate. This seem to just translate so easily into action as a result our group learnt lots and the workload was fair on everyone'. |