The Dynamics Of Working In Teams: Rogers Team Experience

Group Process

Technological advancements & other Impacts of globalization are making the societies more complex, the role of working in teams & groups in order to resolve the concerns & problems in the society & workplace is growing at a fast pace. It is impossible to think that a citizen or an employee can merely learn few of the skills & can contribute efficiently to their social or workplace settings without interacting with colleagues & peers. In order to have a successful career &also to contribute meaningfully towards the society, it is becoming significant to have the capability of working effectively in a team or group (Stulberg, 2007).

The old model of management of control & command is losing its efficiency as significant motivation for the employees to stay in their professions is personal development & growth & not only a monotonous task they do at workplace. In today’s world, work is becoming gradually complex & entails better non-routine functions with interdependence that are matched well to teamwork. Groups have become more effective way of handling this work & hence becoming quite common in major fields of life & as well as at workplace.

The movement to working in teams from individual contributor role also comprises a shift towards a facilitative approach to leadership from a control oriented management. As a consequence of this trend, it is significant to understand major facts which are impacting the impact the dynamics of team & group life (Tuchman, 2015).

At the time of studying several elements & facets of the teams & groups dynamics in Learning in Teams & Groups, I got a tremendous opportunity to have a bigger insight of few of the principles by creating & working on numerous group assignments during the complete year. WIth the help of this paper, I will be reviewing the critical aspects of teams in context to working of Rogers team.

The significant learnings would be made out in correlation to the experience of the group together with how it could be used for my personal development & work setting. I’ll be using Group Effectiveness Model by Schwarz, as a lens to sight the work of the Rogers & assess whether the team develops to an efficient team. The model of team efficiency is grounded on the 3 standards of personal, process & performance & all the 3 aspects of group context, group structure & group process. I’ll be using these aspects to inspect what I have learned about teams & groups during the complete year with my experience as a team member in Rogers (Varney, 2009).

Group Process

In order to examine group process, I’ll be reviewing Tuckman & Jensen’s theory of group development. While analysing the group development of the Rogers there are evidences which support Tuckman model.

Tuckman & Jensen’s Stage Model of Group Development

This model comprises of 5 stages, that are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing & Adjourning (Tuchman & Jensen, 2015).  

Forming Stage

In this stage, members of the team or group get a chance to know about each other, & they try finding the ways on how they’ll be operating. At this stage, there is a discomfort amongst the team or group members because of unfamiliarity along with confusion as to how the group will be functioning together. At this point, it becomes significant for development of the team to have a clarity of  purpose, definite objectives & plans & goals, on how team would be accomplishing its tasks.

At initial stages of Rogers, a quite confusion & discomfort was seen, as per my knowledge this was primarily because of the fact that we didn’t knew each other well & didn’t had clear objectives & goals & an understanding on how we had to operate as a team together.

Several group development models propose that social relations lead a team’s performance stage. Hence, it becomes crucial to focus on emerging social relations, initially at the time of existence of the team. Social “icebreaker” event serve as group warm-ups & become important for initial 10 meetings. The shoebox exercise worked as an icebreaker which assisted the Roger’s to share information regarding our personal life to our new team members. Listening life stories about the members of the team, certainly this assisted in developing a sense of relationship & connection. It was an important initial stage of progressing towards cohesiveness (Smith & Berg, 2009).

This 1^st task of developing a team charter further assisted us to know all of the team members & plan how we desired to complete the work assigned. Outlining our group norms, values, expectations, roles, goals & purpose was also a significant step to be taken at the early stage of our team work. With the help of this exercise, we got a chance to learn more about each of the group members & also openly discussed our interests, goals, on how we could together work & also have considered how we’ll be able to handle the conflicts or challenges. These were the elementary forming stage elements.

Storming Stage

 The Rogers also faced the stages of norming & storming & as per my point of view, a clue of the performing stage was noticed throughout our 3 team projects. According to Levi (2011), in storming phase, there are frequent confusions & conflicts among the group members about the project requirement & roles.

The Rogers also experienced some confusions about the roles of the group members & sometimes there was disagreement of direction for the tasks of the project. Sometimes, one or other members in the team had strong interest in a specific way of problem solving which build various tensions amongst the team members for a short period. But, the storm passed & every time we could make decisions which everyone in the team seemed to support with full commitments (Dove, 2008).  

Norming Stage was when the team develops more cohesive. Conflicts are reduced & the team is quite confident. During this stage ground rules or norms are developed & social relations are established ample to form an identity for the group (Schwarz, Davidson, Carlson & McKinney, 2015).

Performing Stage
In this stage, the team has become matured & knows how they’ll be operating & can successfully focus on their tasks. Using the norms which are developed there is cooperation, collective decision making & collaboration (Dwyer, 2013).

As per my point of view, Rogers evolved into a cohesive group with confidence amongst the team, social relations becoming better & reduced conflicts, which exemplifies the norming stage. By the end of the year, we improved our work and moved nearer to the performing stage.

Forming Stage

With the aid of practice & understanding of the skilled facilitator approach, the discourse of the group advanced into a cooperative effort to accomplish the end tasks in hand. Moreover, the team members social relations progressed to the point where the team enjoyed being with each other & in fact there were moments of fun & creativity at the time of completing the work assigned to each one of us. We have yet not attained the adjourning stage of the group development; however, I believe, we’ll get an opportunity to review, meet & assess our work before we separate (Goleman, 2012).

Punctuated Equilibrium Model of Group Development 

Rogers demonstrated characteristics of punctuated equilibrium model of Gersick’s, in addition to Tuchman’s stage model. As per this theory, the first half of the allocated time for the project is a period of stability which is categorized by the project’s first meeting. Then there is a foremost transition close to the midpoint of project timeline when old patterns & frameworks are withdrawn & there is development of new perspectives & remarkable progress is made towards the deadlines (Gersick, 2014).

It was noticed that Rogers followed the punctuated equilibrium for all their projects. In the first instance, it was quite disturbing to believe that the first stage of our project was not much productive apparently. But, while there were no ample activities, the interests, concepts & ideas projected during the first meeting appeared to eventually contribute towards the project completion, although the ideas originally decided were changed & revised. Possibly, the first period can be considered as a reflection where key ideas were pre-digested & at the time of transition, these ideas were modified & reviewed to send them to the second phase to be completely digested with all value extracted & energy to contribute significantly toward the project completion (Hofetede, 2011).

Challenging aspects for Rogers while Performing as a Project Team

The utmost challenging part for all of us, while operating together in Rogers as a team was going over the storming & forming stages, & lack of clarity around the goals & roles was there & we still didn’t know much about each team members. It became more challenging when circumstances of conflict arose & we didn’t had the procedures of the ground rules & core values of the skilled facilitator approach & tend to function in a more independent way (Levi, 2011).

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the experience of being a part of Rogers and the complete classes of learning in team & groups. I believe it would be correct to say that Rogers worked efficiently as a team and as per Schwarz’s 3 criteria for group efficiency: Personal- Fellows experienced development & growth, Process- The group improved its capability of working together & Performance: The service exceeded or met the standards. A thing which I found was very affective in my group was learning taking place within learning.

We were studying regarding the teams & groups facet of group facilitation dynamics, whereas side by side in our groups we were experiencing practically several of the same issues. The learning within the learning was an influential experience & it has immensely aided me to gain bigger insight to the principles & theories being read. This was the lifetime experience and I would be carrying many of the valuable & practical insights with me which I’ll be applying with my future groups & team encounters.

References

Conflict. (Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 2008), Retrieved May 3, 2012, from https://www.dictionary.net/ 

Dove Nest (2008), Adair – Action Centred Leadership, Lake District: Dove Nest Group

Dwyer, J. (2013), Communication in Business: Strategies and Skills, 3rd Ed., Pearson Education Australis: Frenchs Forest

Gersick, C. (2014). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31, 9-41.

Goleman, D. (2012), The New Leaders: Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results, London: Little Brown

Hofetede, G., (2011), cultural and organizations, McGraw–?hill, London

Levi, D. (2011). Group dynamics for teams (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Schwarz, R., Davidson, A., Carlson, P., & McKinney, S. (2015). The skilled facilitator fieldbook: Tips, tools, and tested methods for consultants, facilitators, managers, trainers, and coaches.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Smith, K., & Berg, D. (2009). Paradoxes of group life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Stulberg, J. B. (2007). Taking charge / managing conflict. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Tuchman, B.C. & Jensen, M.A.C., (2015),”Strage of small group development revisited”, Group and Organizational Studies, vo.2, no.4, pp.419–?27

Tuchman, B.C., (2015), “Development sequences in small groups”, Psychological Bulletin,vol.3, no.6, pp.384–?99

Varney, G. H. (2009). Building productive teams: An action guide and resource.