Work teams can be highly motivating and can reduce overhead costs. Teams with clear, limited objectives and the right skills, feedback, and incentives will perform well. Personality difficulties, resistance to change, and lack of training can short circuit their effectiveness. (SK)

Describes successful effort of small women's social services agency to modify its way of operating by means of problem-solving process involving board and staff members. Notes that conflict between staff members actually involved fundamental issues facing organization in transition from informal, volunteer effort to established, service-giving…

The authors introduce the concept of group facilitation skills for managers. They describe a framework that will help managers recognize group process problems, diagnose underlying causes of group problems, and consider how to take the group past its problems. (Author/CH)

Describes team-building activities for mental health counselors who function as consultants to staffs, groups, or other intact work systems. Provides rationale for application of strategic systems and sociodrama techniques to an adventure activity that allows a group to metaphorically enact its common issue. Provides example of a consultation…

Graphic family therapy based on changing family dysfunctioning through self-discovery is described. The stages of this design are discussed and specific graphic excercises for eight categories of family dysfunction are described. Two illustrative cases are presented. Conclusions regarding results, future research, training and other clinical…

Presents both logical and empirical evidence to illustrate that the conventional scoring algorithm for ranking tasks significantly underestimates the initial level of group ability and that Slevin's alternative scoring algorithm significantly overestimates the initial level of ability. Presents a modification of Slevin's algorithm which authors…

This paper addresses the use of one technique, role play, in the resolution of conflictual situations at various levels in the school system. While a variety of options for dealing with conflict are discussed, primary emphasis is given to that method which resolves the conflict and leaves the relationship intact. The method of role play and its…