Teamwork, Collaboration and Conflict Resolution

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Please see the attached file.

1. Why is it helpful for members of teams to know and to be able to recognize the stages of team development?

Dr Bruce Tuckman published his Forming Storming Norming Performing model in 1965. He added a fifth stage, Adjourning, in the 1970's. The Forming Storming Norming Performing theory is an elegant and helpful explanation of team development and behaviour. Similarities can be seen with other models, such as Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum and especially with Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership® model, developed about the same time.
It is helpful for members of teams to know and to be able to recognize the stages of team development for various reasons. For one, Tuckman's model explains that as the team develops maturity and ability, relationships establish, and the leader changes leadership style. Knowing this HELPS the team know what to expect both from the group process and from the leader. This helps to keep the team members more focused on the task because they will not be questioning the group process when they know what to expect. It also acts as a deterrent for misunderstandings due to group processes afforded each stage of group development. The leader, for example, begins with a directing style, moving through coaching, then participating, and finishing delegating and almost detached. At this point the team may produce a successor leader, so with an understanding of the group stages, members will expect this and not be alarmed or fight the process and the previous leader can move on to develop a new team. In Tuckman's Forming Storming Norming Performing model, Hersey's and Blanchard's Situational Leadership model and in Tannenbaum and Schmidt's Continuum, we see the same effect, represented in three ways. It often saves time and misgivings, and lessens the likelihood of conflict arising because of normal group processes. http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm
See extra reading below describing three models of group development.

FINAL COMMENTS I HOPE THIS HELPS AND TAKE CARE.

Extra Reading: Tuckman forming storming norming performing model (excerpt)
Bruce Tuckman's 1965 Forming Storming Norming Performing team-development model
Dr Bruce Tuckman published his Forming Storming Norming Performing model in 1965. He added a fifth stage, Adjourning, in the 1970's. The Forming Storming Norming Performing theory is an elegant and helpful explanation of team development and behaviour. Similarities can be seen with other models, such as Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum ...