Part 1: Post a Response

We have all worked in a group or team at some point in our careers. A team is brought together to achieve a common goal.

The team needs to have members who have complementary skills and who are committed to a common purpose to achieve performance goals.

However, teams don't move immediately toward performing, but instead evolve over time.

There are five stages of group and team development.

1. Forming - Getting oriented and getting acquainted. High degree of uncertainty as members as they try to figure out who is in charge.

2. Storming - Personalities start to emerge, along with roles and conflicts within the group.

3. Norming - In the third stage conflicts are resolved, relationships developed, harmony and unity surfaces.

4. Performing - The members concentrate on solving problems and completing the assigned task.

5. Adjourning - Members prepare to disband. Some members may be reassigned, terminated from the group or the group is resolved.

Think about a time when you joined a new group . . . it could be at work, in a family setting or with a social group.

- Which of the five stages was the most challenging for the group to work through, and why?

- How might you have helped the group work through that stage differently based upon what you know now about the five stages of group and team development?

Part 2: Respond to a Peer

Read a post by one of your peers and respond, making sure to extend the conversation by asking questions, offering rich ideas, or sharing personal connections.

Post 1

In one of my classes while completing my bachelors degree, I had to complete a group project. I think the stage that I found to be the most frustrating and the most challenging is the storming, followed by the performing stage.

I am a very efficient worker, and procrastinating drives me insane. I am rarely late to appointments and I always complete tasks on time or ahead of schedule. My parents taught me at a young age that "if you aren't early, your late". Often times, I have an unrealistic expectation of others to be the same way. This is very frustrating.

Anyway, it also proved to be a challenge for me that others weren't performing in a way that I expected and assigned tasks weren't getting completed in a timely manner or at all. I felt like I had to pester people to concentrate on solving the problems and completing the work. Ultimately, the project would be completed and all would end well but boy was there some struggles in there.

I think that these issues can be corrected with good communication, but sometimes when taking online courses with no face to face contact, this can be challenging.

For me, I think that I could have avoided the frustration and worked through these stages by setting expectations of my group members and making it clear from the beginning that not just one or two people was going to do all the work for the entire group. This would have alleviated some of the frustrations from the get go.

Post 2

With over 30 years of administrative assistant experience and 15 with Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC), I have had many opportunities to serve on both teams and cross-organizational working groups assigned with the tasks of solving challenges facing NGC. Most of the teams and cross-organizational working groups that I've been assigned to supported the aerospace and information technology sectors of our business.

That said, many of the individuals that I worked with are highly educated, possess many years of experience, and have held managerial positions at various levels within NGC and other companies prior to hiring-on at NGC. These individuals are usually Type-A personalities meaning that they want to be in-charge (formally or informally), believe that they have the best solutions to solve the challenge/task and that they are highly confident that they can complete the task at hand with little to no problem.

These personality traits are core to what motivates them as they have a high degree of "self-efficacy" with a proven track record of success, something that drives them to repeat. It has been my experience that when working with employees of this nature, the stage of team development that is most challenging is the "storming" stage. I say this because I have observed that when one employee states their view or presents a possible solution, one or more of the other employees in the team/group counter that view or solution with why it probably won't work with debate, sometimes heated ensuing afterwards.

In my view, this debate only serves to extend the time duration of the "storming" stage, which in turn, delays the time before the team/group enters both the "norming" and "performing" stages. I agree that healthy debate should occur, but not debate that goes on for what seems to be indefinitely and possibly hinders timely progress towards task solution.

The debate usually ends with the employees agreeing to disagree and then one or more of the employees suggests that the team/group "brainstorm" to capture all possible solutions so as to be able to fully evaluate them through comparative analysis resulting in a prioritized list of options for presentation to management for decision.

Early in my career I provided administrative support only. However, over the years as I gained both experience and the trust of those senior to me, I often recommend to the employee that has been formally placed in charge, earlier in what I now know to be the "storming" stage of team/group development - that we might want to suggest to the team/group we begin to "brainstorm" so that we capture everyone's ideas, thoughts, and recommendations (sooner rather than later) for further analysis and evaluation and ultimately arrive at a team/group consensus.

I have found that this has been accepted by the various teams/groups to which I have been assigned. I now work with the employee that has been placed in charge to recommend this early on in the "storming" stage by suggesting something like, if we begin to get slowed down we might want to begin "brainstorming" soonest. I then defer to their decision as to when they want to invoke the "brainstorming" process.