Understanding and Assessing Team Dynamics

by Vern R. Johnson

Katzenbach and Smith¹ have offered a very useful definition of teams:

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

The term small number is deliberately vague. Other sizes are known to work in specific situations, but as a general rule, five to nine team members is a good range to use, unless there are compelling reasons to do otherwise.
While a great deal has been written about teams and their characteristics, it is important to understand that the concept of a team is an abstraction. Teams do not exist in the sense of being entities that can be directed or nurtured; but individuals who are working together as teams can be influenced in these ways².

Teaming requires the overlap of task and relationship behaviors

Technical professionals are very good with tasks. Their affinity for tasks probably played into their decisions to become professionals, their educations further honed those skills. But successful and productive teaming isn’t just about accomplishing tasks — it’s about accomplishing tasks and fostering relationships.

It has been estimated that some 50 percent of a professional’s job deals with relationships. In fact, it is the overlap between task productivity and relationship morale that results in effective team output. So, a team’s effectiveness can be measured by its ability to achieve its objectives and satisfy the needs of individual team members at the same time.

Task behaviors, which focus on problem-solving and decision-making knowledge and skills, are directed toward reaching objectives.

Behaviors that contribute to effective task accomplishment in a team include³:

• Initiating activities by clearly defining the team’s task
• Seeking information regarding what is known about the task
• Sharing information openly between members
• Summarizing related ideas
• Clearing confusion to reveal alternatives
• Agreeing as a team on a possible solution

Relationship building behaviors deal with building morale through investments in the interpersonal attributes of motivation, confidence and group dynamics that describe teaming. While usually not given the same emphasis as problem-solving and decision-making knowledge and skills, these behaviors are every bit as important.

Behaviors that contribute to effective relationships and high team morale include:

• Listening and paying attention to the ideas, opinions and suggestions of others
• Seeking agreement by getting people to explore their differences
• Inviting all members to participate as the team makes progress
• Encouraging the contributions of others by being non-judgmental, friendly and responsive
• Compromising and accepting workable alternatives in the interest of problem resolution
• Setting ground rules to support team activities and decision processes

The key to successful teaming is balance. Adequate attention should be paid to both task and relationship behaviors without either dominating the central focus.

Selecting team members

Diversity in team composition expands the team’s knowledge, skill and attitude base and strengthens its ability to build relationships and accomplish tasks.

Since a team can only be as good as its individual members, identifying people with the required team skills is important. All team members must be analytical enough to understand data and evaluate ideas, and be capable of working with other people. In addition, the following is a useful checklist to consider when selecting team members. While members should demonstrate most of these attributes, and every attribute needs to be present on the team, no person needs to possess all of them:

• Knowledge relative to the task
• Open-mindedness
• Creativity
• Cross-functionality
• A vested interest
• Commitment to the task

It is usually valuable to include someone on the team who brings a "random element" to team activities. This person might be someone who is not normally associated with the other team members.

Stages of team development

Teams mature as their members learn to work together on the assigned task. During the process of maturing, teams tend to go through predictable stages of growth. Several models of team development are available in literature. Tuckman⁴ summarized the results of more than fifty studies into a four-stage model, where the stages are referred to as forming, storming, norming and performing. To this list it may be informative to add a fifth: transitioning.

Each of the stages can be described in general terms that are usually quite apparent, or in terms of the task and relationship behaviors that are prevalent. The following presentation will attempt to do both. Once this model is understood, observed behaviors can help determine the level of a team’s development, leading to an understanding of how leadership can help a team reach its optimum performance in less time.

Stage 1: Forming — The individuals who have agreed to be team members initiate their activities as an immature group getting acquainted. A sense of belonging and the main emphasis for members is to determine if they have membership. They have already decided that they will contribute to the group once others recognize their membership. Sometimes, too much agreement occurs during the forming stage, and in almost all cases, minimal actual work is accomplished.

During this stage, task behaviors focus on understanding goals and can be described by the word orientation. Relationship behaviors focus on establishing membership and understanding roles, and are described as dependency.

Stage 2: Storming — Individuals jockey for influential positions within the group. The honeymoon is over. Conflicting goals and ideas emerge. Again, minimal work is accomplished during this stage.

Task behaviors of the storming stage can be described as organization. The relationship behaviors focus on influence and are described as conflict.

Stage 3: Norming — The group becomes a unit as a code of behavior is agreed upon and conflicts are resolved. The coalition of individuals begins to become more productive as the members share ideas and beliefs more freely. During this stage, moderate levels of work are accomplished.

Task behaviors include sharing skills and knowledge, and can be described as open data flow. Relationship behaviors are characterized by efforts to work together and are referred to as cohesion during this stage.

Stage 4: Performing — The group has become an effective team, capable of solving problems. As the group of individuals becomes a closely-knit team, synergy is created. The result is a high level of work accomplishment.

For the performing stage, the task behaviors are defined as problem solving, and the shared leadership-based relationship behaviors as interdependence.

The forming, storming and norming stages produce minimal task results. So, it's tempting to try to bypass those stages and focus activities directly on task performance. But experience tells us that time invested in the first stages will pay off in large dividends as the project progresses. The predictable stages of team development depend on factors such as individual and team maturity, task complexity and leadership. These stages are inevitable, though they may vary in duration from team to team, or from project to project for a given team. Attempting to bypass them will ultimately yield less optimal results.

Stage 5: Transitioning — Once the project is completed and the team members go on to another task, or if the team's membership changes, the team will digress from the characteristics described in the performing stage to one of the other stages. The white waters of change may even cause them to revert to the characteristics described in the forming stage.

Over time, individuals move through the team effectiveness cycle from task to task, and from team to team. The resulting set of projects eventually becomes a career.

Which stage of development best describes your team’s behaviors?

As presented in an earlier Today’s Engineer article, self-assessment is a required skill for all life-long learners (November 2004).

A questionnaire has been designed to help you identify the current stage of your team's development. Team members should complete the questionnaire individually, then the scores for all team members should be added to identify the highest cumulative scores for relationships and tasks.

Before proceeding further in this article, stop now and take a few minutes to assess your team’s stage of development. Click on the ASSESS button below and complete the resulting questionnaire.

Team leadership needs

Knowing where your team is developmentally will help determine the team’s leadership needs, which will vary according to where it has progressed in the development cycle. These needs are described as follows:

Forming — The appropriate leadership style during this stage is directing. The leader provides high levels of directive behaviors that focus on close supervision and instructing the team members of what, where, how and when to do things. In addition, the leader offers the team low levels of supportive behavior that focus on listening to what its members have to share, encouraging team members, and involving them in decision-making activities. The leader also provides information and develops skills, while seeking opportunities to make sure roles and goals are clearly understood.

Storming — The appropriate leadership style is coaching. The leader continues to provide high levels of directive behavior, but increases supportive behavior, including more listening and soliciting more input from team members. At this stage, conflict resolution becomes a leadership requirement.

Norming — The appropriate leadership style is supporting. The leader decreases the level of directive behavior, but continues to provide high levels of supportive behavior by helping team members work together. An emphasis is made on preparing the team for the next level of activity by helping them assume decision-making responsibility.

Performing — The appropriate leadership style is delegating. The leader reduces the levels of both directive and supportive behavior. The members of the team are now able to provide their own leadership. But the team leader still needs to monitor goals and performance level.

Parting thoughts

To succeed on teams, people must be effective team members and excellent individual performers at the same time. Building a successful team means learning how to meet the expectations and personal growth needs of team members while ensuring that the team is able to effectively contribute to the company’s success.

Bibliography

1. Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K, The Wisdom of Teams, Harvard Business School Press, 1993.
2.  “Making Perfect Harmony with Teams,” On Q, ASQC, pg. 3-4, November 1995.
3. Hill, R.L., Fisher, D.J., Webber, T., Fisher, K.A., Group Process Questionnaire, Facilitator’s Guide, Orion Ltd., pg. 11-13.
4. Tuckman, B.W., “Development sequence in small groups,” Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 1965.

Vern R. Johnson is Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is IEEE-USA's Career Activities Editor. This article is adapted from materials in his book, Becoming a Technical Professional (Kendall/Hunt Publishing, Dubuque, Iowa, 2003). Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org. Opinions expressed are the author's.