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The Forgotten Member Case Study

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“The Forgotten Member” Case Study

1. Group development
After carefully reviewing details given for the case, it seems that the group is stuck between storming and norming stages. Even though four members of the team accepted each other and started working together on the assignment, there is one person that has been, as per title of the case, forgotten member. Mike does not participate in the meetings and is not contributing as expected by the team. At the same time, team members are not concerned about his absence. Moreover, Mike’s hostile behavior causes further isolation. In the storming stage of team development, leader’s role is to help clarify membership expectations and find ways to accomplish team goals while also meeting personal needs potential (Schermerhorn, Osborn, Uhl-Bien, Hunt, 2012). Christine lacks experience and skills to lead the group through the team development stages. In result, the group has never come together to reach next stages of team development namely norming, performing, and adjourning. Each person works individually on the designated section, there is no communication and shared responsibility for the overall result.
Knowledge of stages of team development would certainly help Christine to understand group dynamics and prepare solutions for different challenges right from the beginning.
2. Problem identification The main primary problem is lack of leadership skills, especially in a team formation process, and passiveness of a team leader. Equally important issue is Mike’s social loafing, a tendency of people to work less hard in a group than they would individually (Schermerhorn, Osborn, Uhl-Bien, Hunt, 2012).
Christine made very important observation of each member’s behavior in the forming stage. Unfortunately she did not apply any strategies that might solve the issue. As pointed out by Edgar Schein, people at

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