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Team Building Skills Activity

Learning Cooperatively

Your success in the Stock Market Game simulation depends in part on your successful participation in a cooperative team. You will be making decisions as a team as you build your team portfolio, and to be successful, you should apply these important ideas used in face-to-face cooperative learning:

• Be responsible for your own learning.
• Share your knowledge freely.
• Learn what you can from others.
• Foster interdependence by asking for and giving help.
• Express your ideas openly.
• Listen carefully to feedback.
• Be a good critical friend.
• Share responsibility for decision-making.

Consensus Building

Consensus building is a simple concept--producing a team agreement at the conclusion.

You will be using consensus building when you decide as a team how to build your portfolio.  Will you buy and sell everytime you meet?  Will you set a limit on the number of stocks you will hold in your portfolio?  Will you invest your $100,000 all in the first few meetings? Will you buy on margin?  Will you short sell? How will you select stocks?  How will you decide when it is time to sell?

Key Elements of Consensus Building

Consensus building is a continuous process and your team will be involved in these steps at various stages and times in your decision-making.

1. Listen. Be sure that each team member has a full understanding of what other team members are saying.
2. Contribute. Share all relevant information even if it conflicts with personal interests.
3. Inclusion. Ensure that everyone is included in the decision making process.
4. Evaluate. Determine what points team members agree on and what points they disagree on. Spend time evaluating the differences.
5. Time. Don’t waste time discussing those points that team members already agree on.
6. View. Conflict about ideas, solutions, rationales, and predictions should be viewed as helping rather than hindering consensus. These conflicts help ensure that all sides of an issue are explored to the satisfaction of all team members.
7. Look. Observation of both verbal and non-verbal signs from team members will help determine when consensus has occurred. In many cases a formal vote on an issue is not necessary.
8 Compromise. When used in consensus building, it doesn’t mean that a team member will give up a position in exchange for support on another point. It does mean that the opinions of all team members are equally important, that each member will discuss an issue with an open mind, and is willing to fully support a decision made by the team.

So, remember these 8 key points and you are off to successful team building! And hopefully, to successful portfolio building!  Good Luck!

Try this consensus building exercise!

Choosing a Team Name

• Start by brainstorming - everyone list several ideas with a reason - with no evaluative comments. Get into the habit of requiring everyone on your team to participate. Let your style show with the names you suggest!
• Evaluate the list of ideas. Have each person choose their first two choices for names and see if you have overlap. Reduce the list to four names or less.
• Discuss - don't vote! Ask each person to give a pro and con for each of the top four names. Based on this analysis, choose your top two names. Do pros and cons on the top two names, with each person making a proposal for the top name and others chime it with support.
• Decide - if necessary, take a vote at this point to select the team name. Voting is only used when a team just can't make it to consensus.

Congratulations!  You've just engaged in consensus building.