Question

You are a housepainter who just joined a crew of four other people who have been working together successfully for 3 years. Explain how you and your new crew would move through the five stages of group development.

Answer 1

For every group, it is important for the group members to be able to work together and with collaboration so that the outcome can be good. There are 5 stages of group development. They are -

a) Forming :-

As I am a new crew here, so I may try to know other crews by orientation. If there is no knowledgeable and eligible leader in the group, I may try to be their leader. As there is a high risk of failure in this initial step, I must try to coordinate with other people in the group to know them and may able to fit them.

b) Storming :-

This step is very critical as I may get to know other crews' true personality and they may guess mine. There is a chance of conflict raising and may increase in competition among ourselves regarding doing good paining work. The focus may shift from team building to individuality and this lead to underperformed painting work. If problems in this stage not solved, then it may stay for longer period of time.

c) Norming :-

If I would be successful to get through the above stage, there is still a chance of getting United with other crews. As the team is getting united so among us the team roles must be divided with agreement. If anyone is eligible then they would take the leadership position whereas me along with other would take different role according to our skills. This would help us to focus on the team goals and help to paint houses effectively.

d) Performing :-

After spending lots of time with my crews, I become very mature and experienced. This made me very organized and well planned while at work. As the conflict become lessen, so team has become very stable and thus our productivity has also increased. Now each and every crew dedicated themselves for establishment of team goals. Although problems still arises, but we crew people handle it maturely and focus on solving the problem from the root.

e) Adjourning :-

This is the final stage of group development where most of our team goals have been accomplished i.e. we have painted the house successfully and thus gave a final touch to it. Now, as the work has become very less, so I or other team members may assign to other group according to their wish. As the team broke, I have went through an emotional phase.

Hope this helps:)