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Four (Five) Stages of Team Development BruceTuckmanFormingIn the first stages of team building, the forming of the teamoccurs. The individual's behavior is driven by a desire to beaccepted by the others, and avoid controversy or conflict.Serious issues and feelings are avoided, and people focus onbeing busy with routines such as team organization, whodoes what, when to meet, etc. Individuals are also gatheringinformation and impressions about each other, and aboutthe scope of the task and how to approach it. This is acomfortable stage, but the avoidance of conflict and threatmeans that not much actually gets done.

The team meets and learns about the opportunities andchallenges, and then agrees on goals and begins to tacklethe tasks. Team members tend to behave uite

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independently. They may be motivated but are usuallyrelatively uninformed of the issues and ob!ectives of theteam. Team members are usually on their best behavior butvery focused on themselves. "ature team members begin to

model appropriate behavior even at this early phase.Sharing the knowledge of the concept of #Teams $ %orming,Storming, &orming, erforming# is e(tremely helpful to theteam. Supervisors of the team tend to need to be directiveduring this phase.

The forming stage of any team is important because in thisstage, the members of the team get to know one another,e(change some personal information, and make new friends.

This is also a good opportunity to see how each member ofthe team works as an individual and how they respond topressure.Storming)very group will ne(t enter the storming stage in whichdifferent ideas compete for consideration. The teamaddresses issues such as what problems they are reallysupposed to solve, how they will function independently andtogether and what leadership model they will accept. Teammembers open up to each other and confront each other'sideas and perspectives. In some cases, storming can be

resolved uickly. In others, the team never leaves this stage. The maturity of some team members usually determineswhether the team will ever move out of this stage. Someteam members will focus on minutiae to evade real issues.

The storming stage is necessary to the growth of the team. Itcan be contentious, unpleasant and even painful tomembers of the team who are averse to conflict. Toleranceof each team member and their differences should beephasized. *ithout tolerance and patience, the team will fail.

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This phase can become destructive to the team and willlower motivation if allowed to get out of control. Some teamswill never develop past this stage.Supervisors of the team during this phase may be more

accessible, but tend to remain directive in their guidance ofdecision$making and professional behavior. The teammembers will therefore resolve their differences andmembers will be able to participate with one another morecomfortably. The ideal is that they will not feel that they arebeing !udged, and will therefore share their opinions andviews.Norming

The team manages to have one goal and come to a mutualplan for the team at this stage. Some may have to give uptheir own ideas and agree with others in order to make theteam function. In this stage, all team members take theresponsibility and have the ambition to work for the successof the team's goals.PerformingIt is possible for some teams to reach the performing stage.

These high$performing teams are able to function as a unitas they find ways to get the !ob done smoothly andeffectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for

e(ternal supervision. +y this time, they are motivated andknowledgeable. The team members are now competent,autonomous and able to handle the decision$making processwithout supervision. issent is e(pected and allowed as longas it is channeled through means acceptable to the team.Supervisors of the team during this phase are almost alwaysparticipative. The team will make most of the necessarydecisions. -owever, even the most high$performing teamswill revert to earlier stages in some circumstances. "anylong$standing teams go through these cycles many times asthey react to changing circumstances. %or e(ample, achange in leadership may cause the team to revert tostorming as new people challenge the e(isting norms anddynamics of the team.Adjourning (and Transforming)

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In 1977, Tuckman, jointly with Mary Ann Jensen, added a fifth stage to the4 stages adjourning , that in!ol!es the "rocess of #unforming# the grou",letting go of the grou" structure and mo!ing on$ %ome authors descri&e thisstage as '(eforming and Mourning), recogni*ing the sense of losssometimes felt &y team mem&ers$ Adjourning in!ol!es dissolution$ It entailsthe termination of roles, the com"letion of tasks and reduction ofde"endency$ The "rocess can &e stressful, "articularly when the dissolutionis un"lanned$

Solomon Implication

The experimenter arrives and tells you that the study inwhich you are about to participate concerns people'svisual judgments. She places two cards before you. Thecard on the left contains one vertical line. The card on theright displays three lines of varying length.

The experimenter asks all of you, one at a time, to choosewhich of the three lines on the right card matches thelength of the line on the left card. The task is repeatedseveral times with different cards. On some occasions theother subjects unanimously choose the wrong line. !t is

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clear to you that they are wrong, but they have all giventhe same answer.

Norms and status

In the field of organizational behavior it is actually the effect onindividual behavior that is under study. The field intends to correlate themanner in which rules and expectations influence the decision makingchoices of each member within the organization.

Group norms are specific parameters, or limitations, within which each

member of a group is expected behave personally and towards others.This is done to set the tone of the group; if the group is going to beserious and goal oriented, discipline and rules are a must. If the tone ofthe group is casual and lively, then the norms are more lenient. In thismanner, group norms affect by setting up the boundaries and the toneof the role of each individual within the group.

!tatuses constitute the chain of command that enforces group normsand that sets and maintains the group tone. The upper rankingmembers of an organization evaluate performance, and confirm whetherthe organizational mission is being carried out or not. They also shouldserve as supporters and models to their peers and as examples tothose below their own status in the group. In this way, statuses affectindividual behavior because statuses represent leverage within theorganization; the more leverage someone has, the more influential theircontrol. Therefore, more evident boundaries are created from person toperson once a role becomes delineated. These boundaries ultimatelyaffect the dynamics and interaction within the group.

"n !mplication of the Stanford#rison $xperiment

%or this weeks blog i will be again evaluating the methods of an

experiment in which i personally find fascinating with regards to its

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findings and research area, the Stanford prison experiment. !n & (&

a team of researchers led by #hillip )imbardo carried out an

experiment focusing on the effects of becoming a prisoner or prison

guard. *ith regards to this blog i will start off by talking about the

disadvantages of this study before moving on to discuss and outline

the advantages of )imbardo+s study.

The first implication to this study lies within it+s procedure.

Obviously due to the fact the prison was constructed within the

basement of Stanford niversities #sychology -epartment the

student participants therefore knew the study was all fake, as a

result this could have caused a lot of problems. %or example, if the

prison guards knew that the experiment was all role play they could

have asked more ruthless and aggressive than they would have in

real life. !n addition, the prisoners may have dramati/ed their

reactions to certain conditions or actions carried out by the guards

due to their knowledge of the nature of the experiment. This can

affect the validity of the experiment in a negative way, this is

because rather than measuring the effects of becoming a prisoner

or guard in the real world it is rather measuring what happens whenpeople take up these roles when they are in a fake dramati/ed

world, and thus 0uestioning the experiments ability to generali/e its

results to the real world.

The second implication of this experiment focuses more on the

ethics of the experiment, in particular the distress it caused the

prisoners of the experiment. Throughout the experiment a number

of prisoners experienced deterioration+s in their psychological healthand as a result five of the prisoners were removed from the

experiment as well as the experiment eventually being shut

down. Obviously this carries implications with regards to

ethical guidelines, for example the researcher has a duty to not

cause any damage to the participants but as we can see this

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experiment clearly caused psychological problems to its

participants.

%inally, i will now move on to talk about the !mplication of this

study. The first advantage of this study is refers to the overall

findings of the study and how it gave us a much more detailed look

into obedience. !n particular how the participants acted as a cause

of the situation and not due to there own personalities. %or example

the prisoners, even though in real life they may have had strong

characters with strong self1esteem when put into the role of a

prisoner they acted just like they had had all their human rights

removed and had no voice in what happened to them. "s a result

this shows how people will naturally listen to people of an authority

figure.