Case Study 3: Building a Coalition
Keller Graduate School of Management
MGMT 591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior
March 22, 2015

Part 1: Group Development The five-stage group-development model consists of: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. (Robbins 275)
Forming stage. In this first stage, the team is getting to know each other, their backgrounds, work experience, and learning about their strengths and weaknesses. Informal leaders may start to emerge during this stage, and it’s important for management to recognize them. They are getting oriented with their surroundings as well as details about the task at hand. Management should be setting the stage for success by setting roles and responsibilities, providing instruction, guidance, expectations and structure. (Gervais 2014)
Storming stage. At this stage, personalities start to come out (good and bad), group norms and/or cliques begin to form, and conflict between one or more of the members occurs. Management must address deviant behavior(s), misunderstandings, gossip/backtalk, etc and encourage communication, trust, and respect for each other.
Norming stage. At this point, team members are conforming, getting along, supporting each other, and behaving in line with accepted and established group norms (such as showing up on time, contributing to the group effort, not speaking over each other, etc).
Performing stage. At this stage, the team members’ efforts should be synchronized, cohesive and should be functioning well while performing their project tasks. Management’s goal is to keep them motivated, committed, and adaptable to change - encouraging an optimal environment of cooperation and collaboration. Hopefully, the group is making effective and informed decisions, and moving towards successful planning and execution of the project.
Adjourning stage. In