Team development is an integral facet of any workplace environment. Individual employees are often required to participate in teams (in which they may or may not wish to participate) in order to increase workplace cohesiveness. Teams allow individuals the opportunity to meet and associate with co-workers, and allow businesses the avenue for completing certain tasks in a more efficient manner. The team dynamic can be experienced in a number of ways, including face-to-face teams and virtual meetings. No matter the construct of the team, each team and its individual members will undergo the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Tuckman, 1977). This essay will explore those five stages, the benefits of developing strong team skills, as well as the differences between virtual and face-to-face meetings.
The five stages of team development are: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The initial stage of team development is the forming stage. During this stage, individuals come together to form their respective team. Sometimes these individuals know each other or have worked with each other beforehand, which allows for a faster and more fluid formation stage, and other times these individuals are complete strangers to each other. In either scenario team members will be put in a new situation to create a unique team dynamic. The forming of this team dynamic is characterized by individual anxiety. Individual team members enter the forming stage with initial anxiety, unsure of their ultimate place in the group dynamic or how they will fit in with the other members of the team. Through this uncertainty, team members initial are dependent upon the designated team leader until they are comfortable enough with each other. It is important for the team leader to establish the team’s goals and give each team member individual goals as well as team-based goals in order to strengthen the bonding experience.
Following the forming stage, team member begin to quarrel over the best way to successfully reach the team’s goals. This stage is known as the storming stage. Employment settings in relation to group dynamics mean competition. Individual employees are each looking to advance their own careers. Thus, in the storming stage, individual team members approach the team goals in different ways, with different individual objectives, and this results in conflict among team members. Team members can experience anger and frustration during the storming stage due to these conflicts. Therefore, team member must also communicate and work together to redefine ever-evolving team goals.
The Norming stage is the fallout of the storming stage. If teams have successfully quelled frustrations, they will enter the norming stage, which involves “setting more flexible and inclusive norms and expectations. Members should experience an increased sense of comfort in expressing their ‘real’ ideas and feelings. Team members feel an increasing acceptance of others on the team, recognizing that the variety of opinions and experiences makes the team stronger and its product richer” (Stein 2017). This is stage of team development in which people distance themselves from their individual goals and begin truly adopting team goals. Team members will become more productive and being demonstrating more of the qualities one typical associates with teamwork. Due to this shift, the team enters the performing stage.
The performing stage is when teams get the bulk of their respective workloads completed. Now that teams members are well acquainted and inside jokes are common, team members begin accommodating each other in working towards the team’s goals. “A ‘can do’ attitude is visible as are offers to assist one another. Roles on the team may have become more fluid, with members taking on various roles and responsibilities as needed” (Stein). The performing stage ultimately leads teams to their initial goals, developing each individual member’s competencies along the way.
Finally, team members enter the adjourning stage. This stage occurs right before the project timeline is finished. The adjourning stage includes feelings of sadness, reduced team satisfaction, and a drop in productivity. The adjourning stage also allows team members to focus on their experience, looking back on what they learned and celebrate what they achieved.
As individual members look back on their respective team experiences, it is important for them to review useful learning experiences that they can apply to future team scenarios. It is important to develop strong team skills. Strong team skills reflect strongly on employees because almost every workplace requires the interactions of its employees. Honing team skills means that an employee will be well-liked within the office or workplace setting; this leads to that employee being viewed positively be his or her peers. Working well with others not only benefits the individual, who will become highly regarded and valuable, but it also promotes a positive workplace environment.
Teamwork can also be developed through virtual meetings, such as teleconferences. These virtual meetings have positives and negatives when it comes to the team dynamic. On the positive side of the spectrum, virtual meetings allow team members to keep in touch from all across the globe. Thus, teams do not have to be centralized in order to function as an efficient unit. This is a major difference from face-to-face meetings, in which team members must all be present in the same room. However, teleconferences also carry with them negatives. Sometimes, virtual meetings can be ruined by faulty teleconference connections. Virtual meetings are different from face-to-face meetings in that regard. Another difference between virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings is that virtual meetings do not allow attendees the ability to experience the subtleties of human communication, such as hand gestures.
