Tuckman’s stages in team development
Analyze the importance of teams in modern day management.
The need for forming teams within organizations increased since the inception of globalization that prompted rising competition. Modern workplaces have become more collaborative owing to the growing pressure on organizations to deliver quality services and products and within time (Nielsen and Nielsen 2013).
In order to track the origin of teams, one must first understand the changes that took place within the different management schools. Probably Elton Mayo conducted the first experiments on the effectiveness of teams within the workplace from 1927 to 1932 (Rowlinson and Hassard 2013). The experiment was conducted to understand the influence of teams on productivity. The findings led Mayo to conclude that employees within a workplace are motivated not merely by money but also by the working conditions and attitudes of others. Mayo’s experiment was a milestone back in the 1930s within the study of teams and was popularized as the Hawthorne Effect. Later, with the development of the various schools of management thought that included the Behavioral School, which focused on human relations (Martin, Gomez-Mejia and Wiseman 2013). It was further expanded in the 1950s when human relations were studied in association with the science behind it. Therefore, the concept of teams gradually originated and became an influential part of any organization.
The report will discuss the emergence of teams and its influence on the modern workplace and then elaborate on the different models and stages in team development. In particular, Tuckman’s stages shall be discussed in the report. Further, the report will focus on the transition of decision-making from the managerial level to decision-making in teams.
In 1965, Bruce Tuckman developed the first concrete model of team development that contributed greatly towards the effectiveness of teamwork in the contemporary global work environment (Cheng, Macaulay and Zarifis 2013). Tuckman proposed the five stages of team development starting with forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
Figure 1 Tuckman’s five stages of team development
(Source: Created by author)
The Forming Stage: The first stage is known as the forming stage where every member of the team knows about each other. The primary outcome of the forming stage is that each member is briefed about his or her responsibility within the team. The leader’s role is the most crucial in this stage. The leader thus has to be directive, able to control things and keep every member focused on target.
Managerial decision-making to decision-making in teams
The Storming stage: In this stage, the team witnesses clash of ideas and egos among members that sometimes even lead to strained relationships. The major issues that characterize this stage are the role of the leader, power and the decision-making process. The leader’s responsibilities are enhanced in this stage because he or she is accountable for the constructive thinking of the entire team. The leader is responsible to mitigate the arguments that arise and the conflicts among the team members. Apart from that, the leader has to make sure that the purpose is clear to each team member and uses his or her skills to attain those purposes.
The Norming stage: this stage is characterized by the presence of calmness after the storming stage. The group members gradually learn more about each other and cohesion starts to build. The leader in this stage starts to feel a bit relaxed with things settling down and then delegates responsibilities to the team members. With work becoming more efficient, the leader starts to increase the responsibilities of the team members and assigns tasks that are more complicated.
The Performing stage: In the performing stage, the team members develop a strong bond and they now understand the purposes and responsibilities clearly. They also develop the ability to manage conflicts through discussion and save the team objective from being affected by the conflicts. The leader, in this stage now has the opportunity to focus on the outward goals. He or she plays the role of a visionary who aims to take the team to higher levels. In addition, the leader explores and scrutinizes each member to find who would be able to replace him or her as the future leader.
The Adjourning stage: Tuckman included this stage later in the year 1977 by collaborating with Mary Ann Jensen, his colleague (Kirschner et al. 2015). According to them, the adjourning stage is the final stage in team development and involves the dissolution of the team after attaining the objective or the goal. Teams that have collaborated for any specific project, the adjourning happens rather quickly, whereas some teams might function longer and permanently without having to go to the adjourning stage. The leader at this stage has no further authority to instruct or guide the members.
Prior to the development of teams, decisions in any organizations were taken by the managers without having to consult any other member. However, after the teamwork and team development concept emerged and began to influence organizational structure and function, the decision-making process started to change. The focus shifted from managers to groups or teams when it came to decision-making. Several researches and studies have been conducted in this regard and most studies found that team decision-making had more positive impact than the decision taken by a single entity. According to Chiclana et al. (2013), group decision-making capacitates the organization to solve even complex problems and the number of alternatives increase from which the best one can be easily chosen. The author further states that the decisions made by a team ensure a better understanding of the objective by the team members.
Frey, Schulz-Hardt and Stahlberg (2013) further the claim and states that individual decision-making at the managerial level fails to value the opinions and ideas of the subordinate members thus making them feel inferior and affecting productivity. Team decision-making, states the author, is an essence of any organization and its effectiveness has been exemplified by most of the modern organizations. In contrast to it, decisions taken at the higher level without the consent and agreement of the members at the lower level has negatively influenced companies, Volkswagen emissions scandal being recent evidence. In order to attain deeper insights into the two types of decision-making, it is important to break down the two concepts.
Managerial decision-making involves three major issues – crisis, non-crisis and opportunity problems (Ford and Richardson 2013). The crisis problem arises when severe difficulty has to be met with immediacy. On the other hand, non-crisis problem arises when the problem needs resolution but not at an immediate basis. Lastly, the opportunity problem for managers is the situation where a company could utilize an opportunity if proper actions are taken. Managers with the help of the decisions they take resolve these problems. Various models of managerial decision-making also help define the reasons behind the decisions taken by the managers. A crisis could be explained as a situation where an organization is confronted with an ethical issue when one of the employees indulges in unethical behavior. The manager has to make a quick decision regarding media brief and the fate of the employee. As Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2013) remark, managers have the responsibility to be make crucial decisions that have repercussions to even their jobs. Therefore, managers have to be extra cautious while taking any decision.
Decision-making within teams concern with the decisions that is taken by a team collectively for the benefit of the organization. Team or group decision-making also involves certain risks that the members must overcome. Smith (2014) elaborates the issues faced by teams in organizations during the process of decision-making. The author points out that risky shifts, commitment escalations and polarization might lead to ineffective decision-making within teams. In order to avoid or address these issues, teams need to communicate properly, ensure group effectiveness by creating the ideal climate and set fixed goals. it is also important to choose members who have the ability to transform and acquire new roles and responsibilities during crisis. In this way, the team leader is relieved off the burden of taking decisions alone and is able to rely on other team members.
Organizations nowadays have a separate section dedicated to different teams that look after specific projects. In the early days, an organization used to have only a few departments where people used to work individually. However, the modern structure of organizations has drastically changed and it is inclined more towards providing available space for teams to work. As Van De Mieroop and Schnurr (2017) observe, the modern day workplaces provide evidences of egalitarianism where managers and employees park their vehicles in the same parking lot and have lunch in the same cafeteria. The gap between managers and employees are becoming blurred each day in terms of physical structures. This proves that the physical structures of organizations facilitate teamwork. Google Inc is one of the best examples of modern day workplaces that lay exceptional emphasis on teamwork. The office of Google has almost all the facilities that promote both teamwork and individual creativity.
Salas et al. (2015) are of the view that the presence of separate rooms for employees working in teams in the top organizations speaks volumes about the shift in the mindset of management experts regarding the value of teams. Apart from the physical structures that include the brick-and-mortar companies, technological structures have also shown evidences of assisting teamwork. In the views of Ashoori and Burns (2013), “today’s complex sociotechnical systems involve more than just single operators and often include rich team indicators”. The author further elaborates that the technology that was used previously for supporting single users, are now applied for assisting team collaborations. In addition, it has also been noticed that technological advancements in business and management are dedicated towards teamwork. The physical structures also include the organizational structure that mentions the members of the organizations. Previously, the structure was made up only of the higher management that included the executive officers and managers. However, in the modern setting, the workplace as well as the organizational structure has the presence of effective teams.
It has been found on several instances that managers have played an active role in promoting teamwork. Although managers are sometimes accused of disturbing the balance of teams, it is true that they play an important role in making teams work effectively. Toegel, Kilduff and Anand (2013) have identified many ways by which managers might also contribute towards promoting teamwork. The first is establishing proper communication within the organization and amongst the teams. Communication plays a crucial role in establishing and destroying the team. Poor communication leads to negative results while good communication leads to positive results. It is the managers’ responsibility to ensure communication gaps within the teams are filled.
The next is clarity of expressions. Managers must set specific and clear goals for the teams to follow. Each member must be briefed specifically regarding the goals they need to achieve that align with the objectives of the organizations. Trust is another important factor by which managers could promote teamwork. Developing and maintaining trust could go a long way in helping managers build a strong set of teams that could prove healthy for the organization. Trust is gained through proper rectification and solution of problems. Quick and instant solutions to problems by managers are encouraged by teams as a sign of good leadership and this motivates the team. Kwon and Rupp (2013) mention that team working can be achieved by investing more on human capital and managers can do that. Managers can promote organizational commitment by investing on human capital thus promoting and facilitating teamwork.
Social loafing refers to the situation where individuals tend to give least effort when in a team compared to when they work individually. Many studies and researches have been dedicated towards finding ways for overcoming social loafing but hardly any attempts were successful Rich et al. (2014). In order to understand the ways in which social loafing could be overcome by applying the principles of teamwork, it is important to discuss the principles first. Teamwork principles include:
- Effective communication
- Conflict management
- Strong leadership
- Mutual understanding and respect amongst team members
- Productive working relationships
These above-mentioned principles when followed, contribute largely towards ensuring an efficient and strong team. Social loafing occurs when members in a team show lack of interest and effort towards achieving the target. With the help of effective communication, the roles and responsibilities could be properly disseminated amongst members so that they could be encouraged to work effectively. Further, managing the conflicts that arise within teams with proper techniques leads to the reduction of social loafing. The leader here has an important role in managing the conflicts. A strong leadership where the leader knows the strengths and limitations of each team member is largely effective in instilling the members with enthusiasm. When effective communication and strong leadership inspire the team members, they develop a sense of respect and understanding for each other. They think as a team rather than as an individual. The mutual respect and understanding displayed by members of the team contributes to social facilitation and absence of social loafing (Takeda and Homberg 2014). Therefore, it is evident that principles of teamwork contribute towards not only effective results but also ensuring active participation of each member.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that teams constitute an important part in the modern day workplace. However, it is also imperative to state that building and maintaining a team is difficult on the part of the manager or the leader. The leader must possess all the qualities that make her or him a strong leader who is able to effectively disseminate roles and manage conflicts. The report presented a detailed analysis of the origin and role of teams within organizations in the global environment. In doing so, the report provided the different views and opinions of different authors. Tuckman’s model of team development was also explained in the report to give a better understanding of the significance of teams and teamwork. The model has five stages of team development that were explained with the help of a diagram. The report further provided instances of physical structures in the modern workplace environment that promote teams. The organizations in today’s world are increasingly realizing the importance of teams and thus are giving more emphasis on providing separate sections for teams. The report than highlighted the role of managers in promoting teamwork. it found that managers have an important role in promoting teamwork by setting specific and clear goals for the teams and allowing them the space to explore their potential. The report then discussed the issue of social loafing that arises when members within a team give less effort than they do while working individually. It presented the means by which teamwork principles could assist in reducing social loafing
References:
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