Teamworking!

A working group is a set of individuals who are aware of each other, interact with one another and have a sense that they are a group (Schein, 1988). This is the idea that for successful teamwork, you must cohere into a group.

People live their lives working in teams, and groups and it is often essential to be a successful team. Throughout my life I have been in and out of different teams and groups and often have had a clear goal or outcome, whether it is to win a football match, or complete an assignment.

In March 2011, a group and I performed a Charity event to raise money, but it was also for a module assignment at university. The overall outcome was a massive success and we rose just over £200 and gained good recognition with an overall mark of 57%.

It is very easy to account this team effort to Tuckman’s theory on how groups developed, however I believe that a relevant theory for this group is Gersick’s model for temporary groups. The idea of having only 2 months to create a whole event sounds easy, but it really wasn’t. However that mid-point in the model served the group very well as that is the point where each member put significant amounts of effort into making the event a success. This was aided by the team’s composition (Belbin 1993). Each member had their different characteristic in terms of team working, and this helped the group prevail in the assignment, and helped the group to ‘get on’ and work together well. The main bonus from Belbin’s theory is that the team knew each other, and that there were no personality clashes. We all had clear and defined objectives/goals which aided us in working well together.

During assignment 1, I had a relatively successful group that I was a part of. Tuckman (1973) suggests this idea of group development: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.

Did we progress through the 4 stages?

The group that I was a part of already knew each other rather well, which made the Forming (testing) stage easy enough to develop through, and the idea of being comfortable with one another meant that the Storming (infighting) stage wasn’t an obstacle, as people could put forward their views and any conflict was controlled. The Norming (doing) stage is where the group took a stumble. ‘Getting our act together’ and actually doing the work and developing a structure for the work took time as people were seen as ‘lazy’ for the earlier stages of the assignment. However as time drew on the structure of the group became more apparent and everyone worked hard into the Performing (identity) phase and developed a closeness. The group had matured and everyone understood their role within the group which eventually led to the assignment being completed well, and in turn, a satisfying grade handed to us as a group.

Both of these are examples of where I have been directly involved in team working and many of the theorists do have valid studies to show that these stages, and roles are relevant in everyday life. They also do show that to be in a successful team, the group must develop (Tuckman) and that different roles need to be established to prevent a conflict (Belbin).