The Forgotten Group Member
Case 7 W-112

I. Group Development
After reading the case “The Forgotten Group Member”, I determined that the group was in the storming process, which is the second stage of Team Development. I believe this because it is defined by tensions in the group that will eventually evolve and coalitions begin to form. Storming stage is a period of high emotionality and tension among the group members. The narrative clearly suggests the tension Mike is having with his team members. Christine did not understand that during this process you inevitably will have disagreement while you are coming together in defined roles. This knowledge would have allowed for more empathy within the process. If we examine her behavior within the text, we see that her concern was only with the outcome. This actually neglects the most important parts of the process.
II. Problem Identification
The primary problem of the group and Christine is that they did not move through the forming stage properly before jumping into the storming stage. The secondary problem flows with the first problem which creates no direction for the team members and minimizes their ability to accomplish the task at hand. If Christine had a clear understanding of the stages of group development I strongly think she would have relied on the Foundations of Team Performance to provide her with the necessary tools to be an effective leader. In the beginning, Christine should have made sure that she spent more time getting to know the team members. She did not do enough questioning or getting to know what each team member actually wanted to achieve collectively and individually. She seemed more concerned with her personal grades and accomplishments, which she has always been. This is fine if you are not in a group environment, however it is not good practice when you are in the forming stage of team building and you are the team lead. In addition, if Christine would have done the group work in the forming stage, she would not have had such difficulty in the storming process. Christine would have identified that Mike was bright, but a lot of things going on that distracted him from completing the task at hand or simply in my opinion sensitive.
III. Retrospective Evaluation To by pass this road block Christine should have devised a plan to allow for all participants to have first and second roles on the team. Kind of like a understudy. This would have made sure the team was prepared in a situation where as a team member like Mike, which for some reason appears to be suffering from role conflicts. In my opinion, it is a perfect opportunity to pair Mike and Janet as that primary and secondary role, respectively. Since Janet was always doing more than expected, she would have had no problem with stepping in and helping Mike’s part in the event that he continued to be the social loafer in the group. While all of this is taking place, I believe Christine should be in communications with Mike to try to find some common ground with him or what she could do to motivate him to want to maximize his performance. She should have posed questions to Mike asking if there is anything that she or any of the other team members could assist him with. Also, initially questioning everyone was there anything that could impede you from being successful and can we fix it, or better yet what do we need to do to solve it. In the handling of Diane, Christine should have recognized that there is an opportunity to get the most out her by just making her spokesperson of the group. This would demand her verbal responsiveness at the highest level. In turn, it would get her the opportunity to present and explain so much more and offer her brilliance which normally she would have just been lost in the crowd. I believe Christine should made Steve more of her right hand man to double check things to make sure the group was on top of their work throughout the weeks. Basically Christine did a poor job of recognizing what skills were available to her and how to create a mutual understanding necessary to maximize the group’s functional ability. The team member active partners a clear understanding how each of their individual goals will be utilized to accomplish the overall objectives as a cohesive team. Another solution is for Christine to understand it is necessary to maximize and match each team members skills with their responsibility and clearly explained how you want to accomplish the tasks at hand in the most efficient and timely manner. As a team lead, you need to make it clear what you expect in the beginning so that there is no misunderstanding. Also, she must understand roles and role dynamics. She must set a clear, understanding, and challenging direction for the team. Not only ask much of each individuals contributions but one that makes it clearly understood the critical nature of the input provided by the member to the overall group. Second would be matching tasks with skill sets. It does the team no good if the best person for the job is working on something that is one of their weaker points. You must be able to find significance when applying talent to task. Next, I believe it is critical to give positive feedback. No one wants to hear about the only things they didn’t do so well with. Positive reinforcement is the key in keeping that ending result from the member at a quality level. Christine also needs to establish framework for the members that can include but is not limited to communicating high standards, creating a sense of urgency, modeling expected behavior, create a sense of urgency, and fostering team interaction spending time together. Christine’s leadership skills may have been more effective if she was able to get the members of the team to understand the team concept were as creating a situation in which the tasks are based solely on an individual. When a leader first noticed there is a problem with the team group it should be probed to get feedback as to what the accomplishments have been made and discuss and difficulties the team members were experiencing. After each team member provides feedback the team can come up with an improvement plan to keep the project on track. The problem should never be dwelled on.
IV. Reflection
Since she did not perform or convey any of the must have contributions of a team leader outlined in the text her group would not be successful. In addition she did not attempt to do any team improving processes. The fact that Mike was allowed to be in role conflict during the entire team exercise is evidence of this. Moreover, Christine did not match the skills of the individual group members to the task need to be performed. From this I would conclude that she was not an effective team leader.