5 Stages of Team Development free essay sample

There are five stages of team development. Forming is the first stage of team development in which people join the group. In this stage, team development involves getting acquainted and understanding leadership and other member roles (Hellriegel amp;Slocum 2007). Team members in this stage were high dependence on leader. Team members are unclear about individual roles and responsibilities and tend to rely heavily on the leader to answer questions about the team’s purpose, objectives, and external relationships (Nelson amp; James 2008). During the first day of the tutorial, we will very curious about our classmates because we have never met before. I am afraid of being alone and I remain silent from the moment I went into the class. Fortunately, our group lecturer, Miss Karen is a very kind and friendly person. She organizes an ice-breaking activity to give us an opportunity to introduce ourselves and to know each other. We will write a custom essay sample on 5 Stages of Team Development or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page We were divided into two groups and we are told to know the friends beside us and present their personal information in front of other classmates. After the ice-breaking activity, we are divided into 5 or 6 groups to let us know our classmates in a given time. In the group, there is low cohesiveness and effectiveness. As in cohesiveness, we are differing by our races, skin colors, and also languages. Even if we are speaking English which is a universal language, different people from different part of the world such as the Nigerians and also the Asians have different slang which makes us hard to understand each other at the first meeting in the class. It is because we need time to cope with it and get used to the slang first. Once we can communicate well, all the barriers may be able to break through and hence cohesiveness can be achieved. Effectiveness is born out of cohesiveness. It is certainly a must and a requirement for it in order to be success in the team in terms of effectiveness. Members of less cohesive teams are less concerned about the team’s welfare (Daft 2008). Members of the team should communicate more and select their most fond of jobs that are to be assigned to them in order to get the maximum best results out of it. Other than that, there should be a same goal which every one of us understand and be able to carry out the jobs and get it done relatively to the goal set earlier. After the forming stage of the team development, we moved to the next step which is the storming stage. During this stage, a lot of conflicts and uncertain will occur among the group members and it is the most decisive part of the team development. Some member may leave or attempt to separate themselves because of the emotional stress generated during this stage (Hellriegel amp;Slocum 2007). During this storming stage, out team member had a few meetings to decide on the topic of our team showcase. We all know what we wanted to achieve, which is having a successful team showcase and have great marks for the assignment. However we were all uncertain of what product or services we should choose. When we were providing the ideas, conflicts also occur among us because some of us may not agree with the idea provided by other people. Therefore some of the group members isolated themselves and refuses to provide ideas to prevent conflicts. Our group leader Hafiz decided that we should vote for choosing which ideas and it is indeed a good way to reduce the conflicts among our team. After we had discussed and reach an agreement upon the topic, Hafiz and Samuel suggested that we should divide our team into subgroups to increase our team effectiveness and also to bring up cohesiveness among the members. In my opinion, our team member did work effectively when providing ideas and deciding how to divide into subgroups. Storming stage is definitely a critical process for us because our team member had not generated unity among ourselves. Besides that if we do not handle the conflicts properly, the storming process would be consider fail and may create long lasting problem in our team. In another hand, success in team storming could set a strong foundation for the later effectiveness of the team. In order to be more effective and cohesive in team, I strongly recommend that I must not be shy and be more patience when listening to the leader’s instruction. I should have more confidence when I talked to the international students and be brave enough to communicate and discuss the project tasks with each other. I should contribute more useful ideas to the leaders during the brainstorming session. I should also ask question when I do not understand with the initial task. Sometimes, I have to support our friend’s idea when I agree with it. To improve the effectiveness and cohesiveness of a team, I feel that I should do more research when providing an idea and I should be more patient when listening to others thought. The task and the instruction from the leader should be recorded to avoid from forgetting the task. I also should be punctual for the meeting and group discussion. Besides that I should be more cooperate with my team members when deciding about what need to be done and how to do it. We recommend that our team should communicate more by hanging out to create a stabilize bond between each other by having meals together during lunch time or even have more meetings so that we have chances to know each other better. Different skin color is not a barrier for us all if we trust each other without doubts. Therefore we need to fully utilize our limited time it with beneficial activities, meetings and discussions as possible. Besides that team members should create a team norm about how to behave during discussions for example being punctual and serious. Team members should also complete his or her work on time so that the assignment could be done punctually. Any questions or conflicts should be made clear to maintain good relationship among members. In conclusion, the forming and storming stage of a team development is very important to decide the effectiveness and cohesiveness of a team. There would be a lot of conflicts and unpleasant between the members because they had just know each other. However if a team members could be patience and tolerate to each other, we could develop a better, efficient and effective team. The quality of a team depends on how the members act and behave. References 1. Daft, RL 2008, The Leadership Experience, 4th edn, The Thomson Corporation, United States of America. . Hellriegel, D amp;Slocum, JW 2007, Organizational Behavior, 11th edn, The Thomson Corporation,United States of America. 3. Nelson, DL amp; James, CQ 2008, Understanding Organizational Behavior, 3rd edn, The Thomson Corporation, South Western, Canada. 4. Robbins, SP, Judge, TA, Odendaal, A amp; Roodt, G 2009, Organisational Behaviour: Global and Southern African Perspectives, 2nd edn, Pearson Education South Africa, Southern Africa. 5. Samson,D amp; Daft,KL 2009, Fundamental of Management, 3rd Edition, Congage Learning Australia.