Team Management Blog 5

Video 1

‘’According to CIPID SHRM and Business Strategy article most organizations today recognize that people are fundamental to sustainable value creation, which is why Team Management is often referred to as a business's most important asset. Furthermore, individuals’ knowledge, skills and abilities are assets which the organization should invest in and use to create sustainable value for the organization and the various stakeholders’’ (Houghton 2020).

According to an article in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teams go through different stages of development and one of the best theories for a team's stages of development was implemented in the mid of 1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman. Although many authors have written variations and enhancements to professor's work, the descriptions of ''Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning'' provide a useful framework for looking at your own team. Furthermore, Tuckman’s stages of development assist team leaders to understand each stage of a team development with it is own recognizable feelings and behaviors, understanding why things are happening in certain ways on your team can be an important part of the self-evaluation process (Stein 2013). 

According to an article published in LinkedIn, Tuckman’s fist stage ‘‘Forming’’ is described as team members of the team are just getting to know each other, which is called orientation process in Human Resource Management. Nevertheless, this process could be merged along with product knowledge according to the nature of business (Bahakin 2018). Although Judith Stein explained Forming can be structured into three different categories as feelings, behaviors, and team task (Stein 2013). 

''The typical behaviors of stage one ‘’Forming’’ in HR perspective are the polite stage of candidates, focus on getting acquainted and feeling comfortable within the team, conflict is low, suppressed, need for approval is high, ability to accomplish group tasks and stay focused is low. little listening, high distortion of what is heard, watchful, guarded, personal feelings kept hidden, much giving of asking for information and data, some inclusion and exclusion issues with “new” and “old” team members''. Also, the study has discovered the following as the implications that could be made by team leaders or the Team Management. Use culture-setting activities to understand the nature of each team member, help team members identify and prioritize their goals, use brainstorming processes to surface hopes, fears, and expectations of members, identify team-directed procedures and establish ground rules, have everyone identify the roles needed and begin defining roles and responsibilities, help the team members set norms for communicating, resolving conflicts and presenting ideas, have the teams reflect on what worked well in the team and what didn’t as a feedback process or appraisals in a timely manner (Hennen 2014).

Video 2

Team Building is a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams, often involving collaborative tasks. Also, it is distinct from team training, which is designed by a combine of team managers and Human Resource learning and development team. Furthermore, many team-building exercises aim to expose and address interpersonal problems within the group during such activities. Furthermore, authors stated that the formal definition of Team Building includes (Salas et al. 2008), aligning around goals, building effective working relationships, reducing team members' role ambiguity, finding solutions to team problems and it is one of the most widely used group-development activities in an organization (Klein et al. 2009). What the experts say in today’s complex and collaborative workplace, the real challenge is to manage not just your personal workload but the collective one, says (Cohen 2016). Nevertheless, helping your team manage the time well is a critical factor for its success (Fernandez 2016).      

In any functional team, cohesion amongst team leaders and decision makers are vital. Cohesive leadership means that team leaders are acting together as a unit and making decisions as a leadership team instead of each branching off into their own work and operating individually. Henceforth, this will ensure that the team will be steered in one direction instead of multiple due to team leaders not being concise and consistent with their instructions. And cohesive leadership will require team leaders to have strong communication skills (Patrick 2014).

There must be an effective channel of communication from top to the bottom of the chain of command and vice versa. Also, an effective channel of communication will allow messages to be transferred accurately without a delay to the intended recipient, this will speed up decision making processes and the operations of the team. Furthermore, effective communication will increase the flexibility of an organization and cause it to be less susceptible to changes in the external environment and a faster decision-making process will allow organizations a longer time to adapt to the changes and execute a contingency plan (Patrick 2014). Stated in an article that effective communication is about more than just exchanging information. It is about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information. And be able to clearly convey a message, team members should listen in a way that gains the full meaning of what is being said and makes the other person feel heard and understood (Robinson et al. 2019).

The principal work for the team during the ‘Forming’ stage is to create a team with a clear structure, goals, directions, and roles, so that members begin to build trust and win trust. Therefore, a good orientation process according to Tuckman’s Forming theory can lead the new team members to be cohesive of the organizations mission, vision, and goals. Furthermore, during the Forming stage, much of the team's energy is focused on defining the team and the organization. Therefore, task accomplishment may be relatively low (Stein 2013).

Content 1 (Organizational Behavior Long n.d).

List of References

Bahakim, MS 2018, ‘’Group Dynamics’’, LinkedIn Business. <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/group-dynamics-mahmoud-bahakim/>.  

Cohen, J 2016, ''How to Boost Your Team's Productivity'', Harvard Business Review.

Fernandez, R 2016, ''How to Boost Your Team’s Productivity'', Harvard Business Review.

Hennen, MA 2014, ''Stages of Group Development'', Extension Center for Community Vitality.

Houghton, E 2020, Strategic Human Resource Management, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2020, 151 The Broadway, London SW19 1JQ, UK Incorporated by Royal Charter, Registered Charity no. 1079797 123. < https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/hr/strategic-hrm-factsheet>.

Lencioni, P 2014, IESE Business School 2011, The Four Traits of Healthy Teams.

Long n.d. ''Reason for Forming Groups or Teams'', Organizational Behavior. 

Michael, A 2015, Industrial/Organizational Psychology an Applied Approach (8 ed.), p. 483. ISBN 9781305118423.

Robinson, L., Segal, J., Smith, M., (2020). ''Effective Communication'', Helpguideorg International. Tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization (ID #45-4510670). <https://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships-communication/effective-communication.htm>.

Salas, E., Diazgranados, D., Klein, C., Burke, S., Goodwin, GF & Halpin, SM 2008, ‘’Human Factors’’, The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Stein, J 2013,’’Using the Stages of Group Development’’, Human Resources, Building NE49-5000, 600 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139.