It is important and has been retouched upon many times in class that trust and cohesion can only take place when a level of confidentiality is being maintained.
When a safe and trusting atmosphere is available, we are encouraged to disclose personal information at our own pace. This is known as self-disclosure. We self-disclose gradually through taking risks of revealing parts of ourselves every time we speak. We also do it individually by taking in the reactions of others in the group. As trust is developed, cohesion occurs. The greater the level of trust each person has, the more the group has a togetherness. Our level of trust and cohesion can be assessed and observed when we started to spontaneously give our opinions and thoughts in early group discussions. From the spontaneous conversation we came up with ideas that have helped us to derive possible goals.
To get the ball rolling on developing a group goal, we broke into subgroups and brainstormed. "(The) subgroup approach is an excellent icebreaker, and, when the entire group gets together again, there is generally a greater willingness to interact" (129). This allowed us to draw more ideas from everyone and it was less of a risk for us individually because there were smaller groups involved. Instead of coming up with a clear group goal we produced more a set of guidelines, designed to help us create a group goal later on. It is imperative that "group goals and individuals goals can be jointly determined by the group members and the leader. If a group is without clearly stated goals, animosity can build up that will lead to fragmentation of the group" (144).
This in turn ended up inadvertently establishing group norms. Although a few key norms or rules were established at the very beginning such as self-disclosure and confidentiality by the leader, we as a group took part in structuring our time together. This created additional trust and cohesion.