Recently, my closest friends from high school and I decided to form up to open our crepe café. At the first stage “forming”, according to Tuckman’s, we found it very easy since we are closed and have things in common. We are all dessert lover. When the idea came up, everyone agreed and very excited. During the forming stage, we discussed about our purpose, set and assigned tasks, and established timelines. We don’t have to start forming personal relationships since we are very close. We have known each other for more than 8 years. Then, the need of clarity about our activities and goals as well as guidance how we will work led us to the second stage as “storming”. We have set up a meeting daily to share and confront one another’s ideas. Some conflicts occurred almost in every meeting but, unlike many others, the problems surprisingly can be solved quickly. It’s said that you should “never do business with friends.” I wholeheartedly disagree. After months that we gathered together, we have already proved that it doesn’t always true. At the third stage “norming”, we have set role for each member according to each specialty. One member is assigned to be an accountant while one is a chef and the other is a marketing director. When we successfully established strategy for achieving our goals, we then moved to the fourth stage, which is “performing”, as we are now “performing” very hard towards our goal. At present, our first branch is successfully launched and we also plan to open our second branch by next year. These steps might be repeated again when there are new plans such as for festive seasons.
Each member in our groups is unique yet unity. We play more than one role, at the same time or over a period of time. Each member’s roles depend on one’s abilities, personality and preferences. One member is initiator and coordinator. She is the one who always come up with new ideas, task, or goals and suggest procedure or ideas for the task as well as good solutions for problems since she can also easily define a group problem. She is good at seeing everything in a big picture in every angle. On the other hand, another member tends to be more detailed. This member is me. I would call myself an elaborator and coordinator. I love giving ideas and example. In the meeting, there is one member who is a recorder. I would call her a secretary. She is the one who records ideas, suggestions, and solutions since others are continuously bringing information, ideas, and suggestions. In some meetings, our roles have been switched or shared. Luckily, we are all mainly playing positive roles. Sometimes one member became a dominator as we needed a quick action while one’s sense of humor worked in some situations. None of us are recognition seeker who seeks attention, blocker, or joker. Therefore, I could conclude that my team functions effectively.