Groups (Blog 9)

Last week we discussed many aspects of groups and how they pertain in a leadership environment, along with some assets to go with it. Groups are basically two or more people working together to initiate change. One of the developments of groups that we discussed thoroughly was Tuckman’s Model of Group Development.  In our blue prints we are able to look back at his model and see some basic trends that are graphed on page 114. There are five components to this model and they are as follows:

1)   Forming

-Forming is when a group comes together and gets to know one another. At this state in-group development people are polite by letting some of the inappropriate behaviors slide. This can also be referred to as the honeymoon stage.

2)   Storming

-Storming is the point at which the group begins to hit rocky waters as they try to achieve normalcy, create processes and other things of that nature. This marks the end of the honeymoon stage and the start of conflict begins.

3)   Norming

-Norming is the point at which the group begins to start a routine, solving problems that arose from the storming phase.

4)   Performing

-Performing is the time the group surpasses routine and actually gets into a rhythm of things. This is the begging of synergy between everyone.

5)   Adjourning

-Adjourning is the time when a group comes to an end. This is where they let go of the group structure, as well as the processes in an effort to move on.

Assets:

            -Knowledge:

            -Resource:

            -Skill:

            -Network:

Referring back to the chart I explained from page 114, the trends indicate the performance impact of the group as well as their team effectiveness. This trend informs us that the “working group” begins the trend and is an increasing trend as performance impact through the forming and begins to decline in team effectiveness as it passes through the storming phase, indicated as the “Pseudo team”. The trend then continues, labeled as the “Potential team,” through the norming phase increasing in both performance impact and team effectiveness.  Lastly, as the trend reaches the Performing stage it is labeled, “Real team,” and starts to flat line across, with its high point trend going in positive correlation between both performance impact and team effectiveness.  This is now labeled a, “High performing team,” as the trend stays straight across through the adjourning phase as well.

            In conclusion, I can relate this model to the way my Blue Chip Team 10 group interacted, as well as how my Hall Council team did also. At the begging of last semester, when I joined Blue Chip and we began our weekly team meetings, my team and I started off by getting to know one another, the forming stage. This goes in turn with my Hall Council team as well.  I would have to say relating to my blue chip team, we never encountered the rocky water caused from the stormy stage but went straight through to starting a weekly routine, like the norming and performing stages. Lastly, we reached the adjourning stage when the semester came to a close. This is all the same for my hall council team, though the adjourning phase for me occurred when I resigned in November.