WHAT IS A TEAM?
The most important characteristic of a team is that its members have as their highest priority, the accomplishment of team goals. They may be strong personalities, possess highly developed specialized skills, and commit themselves to a variety of personal objectives they hope to achieve through their activity; but to them, the most important business at hand is the success of the group in reaching the goal that its members, collectively and with one voice, have set. The members support one another, collaborate freely, and communicate openly and clearly with one another.
Most non-team groups, on the other hand, tend to be collections of personalities with their own agendas, which may be more valuable to those personalities than the agenda that the majority of the group members seek to fulfill. Discussions and relationships in such groups are often characterized by shifting agendas, power subgroups, a going along with decisions rather than a wholehearted commitment, and even a win-lose orientation: One person or subgroup gains its wishes over another.
STAGES IN BUILDING A TEAM
A common fiction among managers is that to get a team, you bring together a number of people (preferably compatible with one another), let them work and meet together and behold — you have a team. Actually, a team develops in stages, over a period of time.
STAGE 1: SEARCHING
The initial phase in the formation of a new group is often characterized by confusion over the roles that each person will play, the task to be performed, the type of leadership, and where the leadership will come from. (There may be a formally constituted leader, but most members are aware that others in the group will play leadership roles as well.) People have been assigned to the group, but they see themselves primarily as individuals. The group is still a gathering of persons.
Stage I is searching time: "What are we here for?" "What part shall I play?" “What am I supposed to do?" With the confusion you can always expect to find anxiety, even anger, and almost certainly dependence on a leader. When roles and tasks are unclear, people experience anxious feelings. They may be angry because they have been thrust into an unfamiliar setting without clear directions on how to deal with it. The interactions between people at this stage reflect relationships, biases, perceptions, and antagonisms brought in from outside the group. The roles that people initially experiment with in the new group situation usually resemble those they have performed outside the group. They are on the threshold of searching for a new identity: their group role.
STAGE 2: DEFINING
The second stage involves a definition of the task to be performed, or the objective to be reached, by the group. People begin to see what kinds of roles they want to play in reaching the objective. They tend to see themselves as individuals working with other individuals to perform a task. They are not yet a true group, but rather a collection of persons brought together for a common purpose.
Certain predictable interactions emerge. Conflicts may occur between those who want to get the job done quickly and those who want to proceed more deliberately. Clashes may also arise between those who have already decided on how the job should be done and those of a more experimental bent. Some people insist on applying solutions they brought into the project, while others worry about whether the problem or issue has been defined correctly. There are usually members who want a strong, autocratic direction from the outset, and others who prefer to work in a more democratic, open atmosphere.
There are usually many personal agendas. Some members want to gain influence in the group, either because they see themselves as natural leaders - as experts in the subject to be discussed — or because they want to see the group adopt their own priorities and methodology. Others want to use the group to increase their own visibility and power. Highly task oriented members may become impatient with those who wish to pay attention to the group dynamics —what goes on between people.
STAGE 3: IDENTIFYING
Members sense that they are no longer a collection of individuals, each with his or her own objectives and agenda, but actually members of a group working together toward a common goal. Whereas they previously saw themselves in roles that were self-serving, they now define their role as serving the group. Their old roles have become subordinated to the new one’s which are dedicated to helping the group achieve its objective. People who have been task-oriented now understand that it’s necessary to pay attention to the group process —interactions among the members — because it takes a balance of concern between the task and the people performing it to be wholly effective.
Up to this point of coalescence, members have retained individuality or joined subgroups in order to enjoy more influence. The fragmentation fades as people identify with the group. The group takes on a unique personality of its own, just as its members are unique personalities.
STAGE 4: PROCESSING
Not only do members work together on the task or the objective, they evaluate their effectiveness in doing so. They experiment with new roles that will help the group be successful, such as leadership. Formal leadership may become less pronounced as members pass the leadership around. The team members look at how they operate in hopes of developing even more effective ways to reach group goals.
STAGE 5: ASSIMILATING/REFORMING
Groups formed to do a task or project usually die when the work has been completed. There will probably be a period of grief and members mourn the passing of what was a significant, gratifying involvement.
Groups that have a permanent mission change. Some people leave, and others join. There is no dying. For them, the fifth stage is more accurately described as assimilating/reforming. They absorb new members and close ranks when others leave. New dynamics emerge. From time to time, the group changes its personality as it changes its membership and its tasks.