Tuckman's Theory of Group Development

Describe the Five Stages of Tuckman’s Theory of Group Development

Mark Smith wrote a great article online called, “Bruce W. Tuckman - Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing In Groups,” being a social psychologist, his first professional job was working for the US Navy in a think tank and he received many articles from his mentor Irwin Altman about group development (Smith, 2005). He received just about anything that was ever written by Tuckman, 50 articles total when identifying the key components he gave a great description of what each meant, sometimes it is hard to get a handle on what different models mean, but I really liked his point of view (Smith, 2005).

Forming- Orientation, testing and dependence, this is when a group of people are gathered together to work on a project, some people will know each other and others may be a new face in the crowd (Smith, 2005). I usually have jobs where I work alone and I prefer it that way and when we have team meetings with about twenty people I would sit back and listen and see what happens. I only knew a few people on our team but the others I knew by reputation or I had seen in the halls at work. This is the time when leaders are picked, someone who is a go-getter and confident in their skills will usually take control of the group, people are generally nervous in this stage and wondering if the task will be a success. At another job I had we had to break off in teams of two or three people to answers training questions, we were opening a store so everyone there was new to each other, but many of the people have worked in the jewelry world for over fifteen to twenty years so those were the one's who generally spoke up the most.

Storming- This is the conflict stage, this is when disagreements happen because people may have a certain way of doing things, I would say that most people can voice their opinions in a professional manner but just with differing viewpoints. People who are more confident in their skills will be the ones to speak up more and give direction to those who are not as confident, it does not really matter what the age of the person is because someone who is very young could be a fast learning. For me in this stage this is where the group may go faster than I can process things, if it is something new I may ask for help from a manager and have some one-on-one time. So the conflict may be within me and how the system works, at my last job we spent a month in training during that time I learned that my way of absorbing lots of information was different then people on my team. I felt lost when the trainers went so fast and they were mean to us and we had to sit up in front of the class and do mock calls which was very hard since I was still learning the information from the day before. Their teaching style did not fit my learning style and they taught us all the same way, I did very well in an online setting but this was different asking for help was hard because the trainer was mean.

Norming is group cohesion; this is when people are working pretty well together, Smith writes, “Resistance is overcome in the third stage in which in-group feeling and cohesiveness develop, new standards evolve, and new roles are adopted (Smith, 2005)”. When this happens people are set on reaching their group goals our book states, “A feeling of team spirit is experienced because members believe they have found their roles (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009)”. This sounds like a nice place to be once through the first two stages then people feel comfortable to speak up when questions or ideas are brought up and constructive work can be done, sometimes working with a group I feel that not a lot of work gets done and I could have done better as an individual.

I found a great chart online at Bussinessweek.com; it is interesting when they note that not all groups meet the performing level, what do you think about that? Have there been times when you worked as a team, started a project and nothing really became of it? The performing level is when things get accomplished, roles will shift based on the groups needs and people will be working on different tasks to complete the project (Business Week, 2011).

The final stage is when the group says goodbye in the adjourning stage people who have worked together on a project for months may feel a sense of loss if they have really bonded with the group. My group project was the Seacoast Century which is held every year at the end of September in Hampton NH, my part was to organize massage therapists and I posted an ad on Craigslist and I got five people to come to the event it took months of planning. Sometimes when people volunteer for events, things come up and they do not show up but I am so glad the five I had did. I gave them club t-shirts and water bottles from my favorite bike shop and we had a really great day, it was sad to see them pack up and go. I know I will ask them to come back to some events that I volunteer for next year they were a great crew and the riders really loved the extra attention after such a long ride.

Bussinessweek. (2011, December 15). Better together tuckman's stages of group developmenet. Retrieved from http://bx.businessweek.com/teamwork/view?url=http://blog.socialcast.com/e2sday-better-together-tuckmans-stages-of-group-development/

Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R.  (2009). Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills & Best Practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Smith, M. K. (2005) 'Bruce W. Tuckman - forming, storming, norming and performing in groups, the encyclopaedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/tuckman.htm.