A group of united and skilled professionals is usually behind a high-quality service or a product. So, if you aim to have a profitable, sustainable empire, you need a close-knit team to make it happen. To get there, learning more about team-management skills and the stages of group development is the way to go. The effectiveness of a group is dependent on the attitude of its members towards task completion and the group development stages. Group dynamics helps reinforce positive behaviors such as sharing ideas, respect, trust and collaborating successfully.

With remote teams, it’s easy to run on assumptions until you’re almost up against a deadline — and then you discover that you didn’t get the outcome you needed. Help your team check in with each other by holding daily stand-up meetings or mid-week progress group development process reports to see if everyone is on track and has the materials they need. Choose a project management software that lets you plan the entire project and assign deadlines and responsibilities so everyone can see what tasks need to be accomplished.

Forming — Getting projects started

Without a doubt, the beginning of collaboration is a rough time for teams, since they can get stuck in the internal forming phase. In fact, they are even more challenging, so "storming" is the right name for this time. Cliques and factions are starting to form, there even can be power struggles.

For your team to work collaboratively with few interruptions, they need tools that operate intuitively and will save them time. Find tools that don’t require hours of training and automate basic functions to get the job done. For example, if the project includes updating social media, sending email marketing campaigns, or even creating lead magnets, a tool like HubSpot is great for this level of marketing automation. Before committing to a tool, give your team some time to work with it and test it out to make sure it fits their needs. Lots of tools offer free trials, so use that time to experiment and check its compatibility with other products you use. By starting with a free trial, you have the freedom to learn as much as possible about the product before committing to it.

Employee Training Rewards That Actually Improve Learning

Team members feel safe and are entirely loyal to the group, the team’s morale is super-high and participants are strongly motivated. The Norming stage determines a state of peace ✊after conflict resolution. At this stage, the participants show more respect to the team lead and more trust in each other. Team members can have different feelings and attitudes toward the project. Some people may be excited 🤩about the upcoming work, but the majority will be cautious, anxious 🤔and hesitant, avoiding expressing themselves. They don’t have a clear strategy, and this can result in a lack of initiative or everyone taking their own diverging paths.

Your teams will soon learn that conflict is not to be feared, and that they have the tools to find a productive compromise. Members accept the existence of a group, but conflict may develop over various issues such as leadership authority, control, and binding imposed on individual freedom. Group members negotiate roles that are needed for effective group functioning and members tend to adopt and maintain those roles for the duration of the group.

Key actions to support Adjourning

And, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone who might find it useful. At first, people are led by their natural desire to be liked by others and accepted among their peers. After all, when you have to cooperate with someone for a longer period, it’s easier to do it if you get along well — and that’s what the stages of group development get right every single time. To sum up, here’s a quick overview of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Adjourning Stage. Some may falter at the earlier stages, due to the inability to properly address differences between team members or address problems as they emerge. To provide a better summary of the behaviors, feelings, group needs, and leadership needs in the Norming Stage, check out the table below.

For the formation of the group, a series of stages is needed to follow. Most organizational experts prefer the five stages of group formation that are famous https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ for group development stages. During the Ending Stage, some team members may become less focussed on the team's tasks and their productivity may drop.

Key actions to support Norming

At the end of the project, set up an online meeting where team members come together to discuss the entire project, from the successes to the frustrations. Ask them to prepare examples beforehand outlining what worked and what didn’t, and then give each person five minutes to share their thoughts. Document the comments so that it’s easy to see which trends emerge and what changes need to be made going forward. This stage is complete when the members accept the common set of expectations like the fulfillment of roles and responsibilities consisting of an acceptable way of doing things.

A sense of community is established, and the group remains focused on the group's purpose and goal. In our example, the marketing team reached an agreement and restructured the roles of its members during the norming phase of group development. Team members remain happy and loyal towards to group's function, and they are quickly approaching the completion of the group's goal. The team is free of conflict, members trust each other, and productivity is at an all-time high. Despite initial struggles within the group, the marketing team successfully completes their goal two weeks ahead of schedule. Forming is the first of five stages in Bruce Tuckman's group development model.

What are the 5 Stages of Team Development?

Conflict can often arise if members of a team don’t feel as if their needs are being met by others on the team or the regular give and take of effective teamwork breaks down. Conflicts around how teams work together often come from misunderstandings in responsibilities or how roles interrelate. To effectively move forward with team development, a group first needs to understand their purpose and overall goals.

• When your marketing team is remote, you can hire the most talented people regardless of where they’re located geographically.
• For example, let the designers know that the user interface will be reviewed to see whether there’s an opportunity to make improvements.
• The workshop challenges members to reflect on where they can have the most impact and influence.
• Members feel confident in their individual abilities and those of their teammates.
• Sometimes your group may revert back to behavior from the storming stage.
• As team members learn more about each other their perspectives about each other change (for the better or for the worse).

Group leadership is very important, but the facilitator can step back a little and let group members take the initiative and move forward together. Group interaction are lot more easier, more cooperative, and productive, with weighed give and take, open communication, bonding, and mutual respect. A large part of giving your team members room to grow is by allowing them to focus on where they can have the most impact and refining priorities to remove or minimize extraneous concerns. Circles of Influence is a great method to help your group reflect on what affects them and the team and see how they can meaningfully impact what concerns or influences them.

Training for a Team

Display these on each wall of the workshop space (before or during the workshop). Your team has made it through the stormy weather of the previous stage. As team members get to know each other, they are ready to move to the next stage.