This is the first stage of team development. This is the stage when the foundation of the team is laid. During the Forming stage, team members have a high dependence on their leader for guidance. Learn the practical strategies you can use during this stage to help your team develop into a highly effective performing team.
Good team development begins on day one and forming is the “Getting to Know You” stage. You can compare this stage with your first day at school as a child, or perhaps with your first day on a new job. Some obvious behaviors are; everyone is polite, overly cautious, and generally doesn't know what to expect. This is the first stage of group development – Forming where the team members are trying to get to know one another and getting comfortable with one another.
In the Forming stage, the team comes together and members try to know each other and establish a common understanding and formulate roles and responsibilities. Team members may be excited and enthusiastic, but they may also be anxious. In this stage, the members try to explore and understand the behavior of the team members. They make their efforts in understanding the expectations of the peer team members, are polite, and exploring how to gain acceptability and fitment into the team. Because everything is new there is a fair amount of confusion and anxiety as members are naturally trying to understand their own roles, the roles of the other team members, and their purpose in the group. This is entirely natural and to be expected. People are unsure, suspicious, and nervous. Productivity might be low as people try to put their best foot forward.
It takes time for any new team to become a cohesive unit, “Forming” starts with lots of exploration as group members get to know one another. Think of this stage as an exploration period in which individual roles and responsibilities are being sorted out. In this stage, team members are generally enthusiastic and motivated by a desire to be accepted. They're typically very polite to each other and trying to figure out similarities and differences with others. First impressions play a key role as people try to figure out the similarities and differences. Issues that may arise are questions of whether each person feels like they belong to the group, whether other members can be trusted, and who is in charge.
Orientation is the most important task in the forming stage and members are looking towards the leader to provide the required direction. During the Forming stage, team members have a high dependence on their leader for guidance and the leader's task is directing, so that the group can get coordinated in their efforts.
This is also a good time to look at how the group is organized because the group has not yet molded into a strong, effective unit, therefore it's still relatively easy to reorganize the group if required. It's also helpful to set group ground rules, which are expectations about how work will be done, decisions will be made, and how people will treat each other. In short, the leader has a wonderful opportunity to be sure that the right people are in the right place using the right process. “Forming” stage is usually short, and sometimes may only last for a single meeting where the team members get introduced.
Forming an effective and cohesive team is fundamental to the overall success of the team and pulling the right team together from the start has benefited far beyond just completing tasks on time. Now we will focus on different strategies for dealing with issues that may arise during the first stage, “Forming”. You'll learn strategies for selecting high-performing team members most suited for your project or team, as well as recommendations for performing proper introductions, clarifying team purpose and context, and making sure team members understand their responsibilities. As a leader, you can use several strategies during this stage to build an effective team.
Suggestions for the Team Leader/Member in this stage:
A manager or an employee in an organization who is experiencing a high level of stress may develop high blood pressure, ulcers, irritability, difficulty in making routine decisions, loss of appetite, accident proneness, and the like. These can be subsumed under three general categories, physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. Stress can give rise to a number of changes.
Teams are part of the modern organizational culture. Whether you are a team leader or a team member, having a better understanding of how teams work, and being able to identify where the team is in the process, is a critical part of ensuring the team is ultimately successful. Start with the basics and understand what a team is and what role they play in an organization.
Reasons behind Wastage of Time
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Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.
Evidence of the medically damaging symptoms of work stress necessitates applying the treatment of stress management. Stress management is increasingly drawing the attention to the management experts not only as a remedial measure but also as a way to resource management. If the workplace can be made a little more lovable the increase in the achievement of the organization may be much time more. If group stress can be removed by introducing group discussions and recreational facilities a long-lasting team spirit may get developed.
Collaborative leadership is all about collaborative problem-solving and decision-making or can also be defined as the leadership of a collaborative effort. . The term started to appear in the mid-1990s in response to the formation of long term public-private partnerships to rebuild public infrastructure. Learn how you can use principles of collaborative leadership to enhance your leadership skills for being an effective leader.
Concept & Definition of Stress
Stress is a popular expression used by people in day to day life. Pressures of day to day living sometimes necessitate coping or dealing with them and stretch the body beyond its natural capacity. They are called stressors. Stress is a natural, ongoing dynamic, and interactive process that takes place as people adjust to their environment.
In its simplest sense, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action. Decision making is a key skill in the workplace and is particularly important if you want to be an effective leader. When decisions have to be made, there are several stages that you should go through to reach a practical solution. Understand the meaning and importance of decision making and how to look at it as a process.
Tips for Effective Time Management
After studying and analyzing how time is spent, why time is wasted, and where time is wasted you need to decide about the changes required for effective utilization of time. For this purpose, a large number of remedial measures can be taken by you. The first and foremost determinant of a planned and purposeful utilization of time is to develop consciousness of the value of time at all levels of the organization. Planning, goal setting, and defining priorities are concerns to addressed immediately.
Many different types of teams have been identified by social scientists. Managers may encounter the diverse types of challenges while managing different kinds of teams. Challenges associated with Cross-Functional Teams might be different from that of a Geographically Dispersed Team or a Virtual Team. This article explores some common categories and subtypes of teams.
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