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The Forgotten Group Member

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The Forgotten Group Member
Darrin Chatman dachatman08@yahoo.com GM591-Leadership and Organizational Behavior
November 13, 2011
Professor Jack Murphy

The Forgotten Group Member
Part I: Group Development The group is in the performing stage of their class project in Organizational Behavior. Moreover, the team can be characterized as an immature team due to team loyalty, cohesion, communications, and use of member’s resources. On the other hand, Christine could have addressed the stages of team development at the beginning of the creation of the group. Furthermore, she could have incorporated the stages during each week of the course. For example, as the “Team Coordinator,” Christine should have begun with forming the group to get to know one another whereby storming to define the groups tasks. Nonetheless, the stage of norming would have contributed to completing the performing stage with minimal conflict.
Part II: Problem Identification My opinion the primary problem is the lack of communication within the group. Christine made a suggestion on what time to meet to discuss the project and an agreement was never made. Also, every time she suggested a team meeting there were roadblocks due to other member’s commitment to work and other personal conflicts. Furthermore, the secondary problem within the group is loyalty and cohesion. The group could never perform on the same accord which caused a lack of cohesion. On the other hand, the group lost loyalty when they were having an unannounced meeting in which Mike thought was a secret meeting. Moreover, that meeting compromised the loyalty of the team. However, Christine should have researched the stages of team development in order to understand individual membership within a team. Also, she should have read in her OB text about the foundations of “Team Performance.” The main part creating a foundation is the listening to the team inputs such as resources, technology, abilities, values, and personalities. Moreover, the inputs of each team member would have created a team involvement process which would have created cohesion, communication, and decision making.
Part III: Retrospective Evaluation In essence, one of the best possible solutions to the primary problems is that the “Stages of Team Development” should have been studied by Christine and the team members. For the most part, the team should have studied the forming stage whereby the team would get to know each other. Next, in the storming stage the team would deal with tensions and define the group tasks. Third, the team would have used the norming stage to build a relationship and work together. Fourth, in the performing stage the team would have matured in their relationship and task performance. Lastly, the team could have adjourned in the final stage by disbanding and celebrating their accomplishments from their final grade. However, the Christine and the team could have used the steps in establishing “Foundations of Team Performance.” The team could have collected each member’s inputs such as their abilities, values, personalities, and diversity. Furthermore, the team could have created a “Team Process” whereby the team members interact and work together. For example, the team would establish norms, cohesion, roles, communication, and decision making. Moreover, the team’s output would give the “Team Effectiveness” whereby their accomplishments are recognized. Also, the outputs would give a census of task performance, member satisfaction, and team viability.
Part IV: Reflection In conclusion, Christine was not an effective group leader because she failed to establish an effective line of communication. Furthermore, the group took more of a lack luster approach in performing the tasks to complete the course project. My opinion, Christine should have studied and applied the “Stages of Development” to create an effective team. Also, as the Team Coordinator she didn’t establish some type of foundation to assist in the team’s performance. Moreover, she never found a way to make an effective and efficient team concept to complete each task of the course project.

References

Hunt, J. G., Osborn, R. N., Schermergorn, J. R., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2010). Organizational Behavior. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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