Abstract
Tuckman's five-stage model of small group development was evident in a previous course taken by the writer, in which business negotiations were simulated and conducted with a small group of peers. During the process of group development, forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning occurred, each stage playing a pivotal role in group development and the conducting of these assignments. From beginning to end, the group was shown to be amicable to avoid conflict, have tensions as a result of changing expectations of individual roles, settling into a cohesive rhythm and understanding, and delegation of trusted tasks to others. The following paper explores these stages in more detail.
In a previous class I took, I was tasked with working with a group of fellow students in order to negotiate business deals. This was an MBA-level class I was taking to work toward a degree in Business, and so throughout the class we were assigned to a specific group of fellow students who constituted our "company" in each scenario. In this class, we had approximately four different kinds of negotiations we had to successfully navigate, all while working together to use our skills and find a successful outcome. Our grades were dependent on our performance in each negotiation; point values were given to the amount of ground we gave up on a number of factors.
Over the course of this class, we made five negotiations from week 7 to week 11 – Two of them were face to face negotiations, where each team was in the same room, and the third was conducted over email. For our first negotiation in Week 7, the negotiation was about the selling of a car to a person from a foreign country. My group involved the selling of the car, and the other group was the party interested in buying it. Our target was to sell the car for $12,500, or as close to that as we could.
The development of our group to perform this task and the tasks beyond followed the Tuckman stages of small group development. This first stage of forming is characterized by dependence and patterns of behavior; everyone tries to get along and be accepted by the group (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). Lacoursiere calls this stage 'orientation': all of us had "fairly strong positive expectations" regarding our performance in the group, and attempted to conduct ourselves accordingly (Tuckman & Jensen, p. 422). One tries to prevent controversy from starting conflicts early in the group dynamic, and topics are kept lightweight. During the forming stage, we attempted to get to know each other as a group. At our first group meeting, we just got to know each other and attempted to be courteous around each other. Individuals behaved cordially, and we tried not to conflict with each others' personal space or sense of worth. Overall, we got along well, especially at first since we were just meet-and-greeting, and not actively pitting our ideologies or preferences against one another.
The team work that went into the negotiation group, in general, evolved greatly from our first meeting. While forming was certainly a factor, there were already aspects of the next stage of group development - 'storming.' Storming is characterized by conflict and a certain dissonance between the ideas and preferences of the individual and those of the group as a whole (Tuckman, 1965). In Lacoursiere's stages of group development, this is also known as "dissatisfaction," which is "characterized by an increasing sense of frustration, along with depression and anger" (Tuckman & Jensen, p. 422). When we conducted our first group meeting after being given that first assignment, I considered it to be extremely ineffective, because no one recorded or kept track of time; also, a lot of time was wasted listening to everyone’s ideas, some of which were overly complicated. There was one classmate, John, who repeatedly attempted to usurp control within the group and order people around; he may have felt we were not treating him equally, which is a substantial problem for team members (Blanchard & Parisi-Carew, 2009). However, once we were able to make our frustrations known to John, he apologized and we started over. All of these factors led to us having our highest levels of animosity with each other throughout the group exercise. Everyone was getting used to how everyone else worked, and we needed to figure things out before we could reasonably proceed with the plan.
Our storming period of group development was fairly short; we attempted to be honest about our communications and our grievances, and most of the group members were fairly patient and kind to others in the group. At this point, we started the norming stage, which is characterized by group cohesion and the acknowledgement of all the attributes that each member can contribute to the group (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). Lacoursiere included this stage in his "production" stage of group development, where "a more realistic portrayal of what could be accomplished" was found (Tuckman & Jensen, p. 422). At this point, the group was very willing to alter whose ideas of who would take what task, and were gracious enough to step aside when they needed to.
These different ideas came from expression of the cultural diversities that we all shared, most of the group being from the same relative culture. As a result, it was easy for us to communicate with each other, meeting for two hours apiece three to four times a week. However, as the weeks went by, and we learned more and more about the negotiation process, we became more accustomed to each other and how to interact in a negotiation environment. John, for example, began to calm down and bring his ideas forth to the group, instead of insisting on them being the way things were done. He would not delegate tasks, but rather vocalize his ideas in the form of questions or suggestions to the group. With this in mind, egos began to settle, and we became far more productive.
In terms of group behavior, all members attended all meetings, and were all punctual in their attendance. Our behavior was extremely professional, and each member worked hard to contribute to the group as a whole. Work interdependence was high, as multiple parties worked with each other in order to achieve the needed results and strategies. One of the members was highly active in terms of creating ideas and developing them in the form of strategies; thus various ideas emerged as we kept on moving ahead with negotiations every week. This prevented members from participating in unmitigated communion and making too many concessions in the negotiations, thus minimizing relational anxiety between group members. Our highly efficient and productive storming and norming stages of development permitted us to trust our fellow team members; at this point, we had reached a rapport which allowed us to form a cohesive whole during our exercises.
Once the preparation for our first negotiation was underway, we underwent the performing stage of group development, which was indicated through the proper delegation and autonomous performance of our tasks in the interests of the larger group (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). This was also part of Lacoursiere's third "production stage," as we set about accomplishing the more realistic goals that we could get to during this negotiation (Tuckman & . We did not have the time or the opportunity to fully discuss things in committee, but we had reached the point where group unity was evident, and production could begin. We were extremely productive during the active negotiations, and had a very clear grasp of what each member was capable of, trusting in their competence.
In this negotiation, my group was very well prepared to handle the procedures involved. We made a declaration of the design of the car that would be attractive to potential buyers – one that would make purchasing the car a good deal. During the negotiation process, we were able to successfully get the buyer excited about the car’s features and agree that it was a good deal. Once we told them the price, however, the buyer informed us that they did not have that amount of money in cash. Their apparent strategy was to make us fall into the status quo trap of decision making, wherein we would be willing to accept what we had available to us, thus saving them money in the long run (Hammond et al., p. 3). We were then able to make an arrangement wherein the cash they had was given to us right then, and the remainder of the amount was paid in installments of $500 every month for six months. The buyer was in agreement – the group was convinced of the features of the car, as well as its value. This deal with our group was one of the most successful transactions made between the other groups.
During this first negotiation, we found that we worked extremely well together; despite having moved on to the performance stage, some of us had anxieties and running doubts regarding the changing of norms as a result of our first negotiation. However, we managed to exercise creative problem-solving in our various negotiations, which helped us break out of our sense of normalcy and rhythm and give us the faith to continue improvising (Rickards & Moger, 1999).
Given our success with the first negotiation, it was interesting to see how well the performing stage would extend to further tasks and new assignments. We were in the same group, and had already gone through the storming and norming process. Week 11’s negotiation was more difficult, given the multiple parts that that were involved in the negotiation - it involved representing a publishing company that wanted to secure a book deal with a big author. We sought to use varying negotiation strategies, including showcasing the importance for both parties that the author allow more weeks to promote the book, and to put it in more book clubs, while giving us the budget freedom of not taking large contract bonuses (Heavrin & Carrell, 2008).
In order to prepare for the final negotiation, our group went through a significant number of steps. Our overall goal was to be as prepared as possible for the negotiation and come up with a strong strategy that addressed all the points that we needed (Spoelstra and Pienaar, 2000). We got an early start on the preparation, meeting several days ahead to discuss the negotiation and what we needed to do. Three meetings, each meeting taking up three hours, were held, in which we discussed strategy, analyzed the subject of discussion, learning more about its various aspects and attributes. The first day we read the case and analyzed it thoroughly; the second day, we distributed tasks among the group and determined the most important points, and the third day, we did a practice negotiation. We searched the Internet in order to learn more about the subject and each side of the argument, finding out what the other side wants and is primarily concerned with (Amantullah et al., 2008).
Preparing for the negotiation is the most crucial step; without a proper strategy, there is no way that you can relate to the other side and communicate your demands. It lays the foundation of a successful negotiation – there are several key objectives involved in preparing for negotiations, including our overall objective, the points at which we could compromise, and the alternative goals that we have in the event that the other group does not accept our original demands. What’s more, we also determined the reasons why they need to negotiate (their overall purpose), what resources they currently have (Havrin & Carrell, 2008). By analyzing these factors, we were able to understand the goal much better, and determine just what kind of challenges we would face during the negotiation.
During this time, we fell back into a bit of a storming stage; anxieties were high because the grade stakes were higher in this assignment, and John began to become more passionate about his ideas. John was falling into the overconfidence trap of decision making; his confidence was growing too high to be supported by the rest of the group due to our success (Hammond et al., p. 9). In order to fix this problem, we figured out new ways to include John in the decision making process. By giving him a slight bit of smaller authority, and by rewarding his ideas, we were able to keep him as part of the group (Blanchard & Parisi-Crew, 2009).
It seemed as though all John needed was a small bit of validation in order to respect the opinions of the team members; once that was accomplished, we experienced few problems from John afterward. We were again in the 'norming' stage, and during the final exercise we performed admirably. In the end, when we collected all of these points, we ended up being the winner; our overall negotiation plan included a strong strategy that addressed all the needed points successfully, and our agenda permitted us to finish in time and get what we wanted out of the contract.
At the end of this difficult series of negotiation exercises, it was time for the adjourning phase of our group's development. We no longer had to work together, and so task behaviors were terminated, and we disengaged ourselves from our relationships with each other (Tuckman, 1965). Lacoursiere called this final stage "termination," in which we experienced "sadness and some self-evaluation" (Tuckman & Jensen, p. 422). We truly enjoyed working with each other, so we were fairly sad about that experiencing ending; furthermore, we did look at ourselves and determine what this meant for our group and our individual capabilities to work in a team.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the interaction and the work performed by the group as a whole; by finding common ground and working together as a unit, successful outcomes were had in most negotiation examples. The Tuckman model of group development closely mirrored that of our initial group interactions. During the forming stage, we attempted to get to know each other and avoid conflict. In the storming stage, we began to conflict over ideas of how to proceed with each negotiation in the class. During norming, we began to compromise and reach consensus regarding how we would conduct these negotiations. In the performing stage, we split up into our component tasks during the negotiation process itself and behaved as we agreed during group meetings. Finally, we adjourned at the end of the class, separating ourselves from the group and making peace with the other group members. This business negotiation course was very difficult, but its direct experience and high-pressure context gave me firsthand experience of the difficulties of operating within a group.
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