-Negotiation and Conflict resolution guide for team managers
Abstract
The teams are comprised of team members all of whom are complicated individuals that depict range of behaviors when asked to operate as a unit. The manager’s job is to manage the best combination so that the team is able to be high achieving and self driven. This may need an identification of stage in which the team is: Forming, storming, norming or performing. Then the teams have to be individually analysed for specific traits. In this paper, we have discussed this process of analysis and come up with a step by step approach to help a manager of a non-perfect team to convert his team into a perfectly cohesive entity. Truman’s theory of groups’ stages has helped us, and other researchers who have carried out research and experimentation in the same field.
Successful Team Building
Negotiation and Conflict resolution guide for team managers
Team building us equal parts art and science. The art portion of the job demands good soft skills like negotiation and artful handling of team members and any conflicts that might arise in the course of business. The science part of the manager’s job is knowing the stage of development through which the team is undergoing, and help the team move smoothly onto the next stage. The framework that is most widely used to understand and manage the stages of progression of teams was theorised by Bruce W. Tuckman in the mid 1960’s. According to Tuckman’s model, there are four stages of team development as follows:
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
The manager’s meeting gave more information on the above stages that I will discuss. At each stage, the team members go through certain feelings and have certain behaviours which contribute to the identification of the stage. A knowledge of these is must for a team manager. The first stage, Forming consists of the team members getting acquainted to each other. They are strangers and feel some anxiety as to how they will gel with other team members and how will they contribute to the team overall, but they also feel excited and look forward to the work ahead. The expectations from the team are high as well. As a result, the behaviour of the team members tends to be inquisitive. The manager’s strategy at this stage should be to have a proper kick-off and orientation, so that the process of team member’s getting acquainted with each other is aided.
The next stage is in team development is Storming. At this stage, the team members have started to communicate, but want to preserve their individual identity at the same time. There might be ego clashes and a certain disregard for the authority at this stage. Team members might feel frustrated as their views start to be questioned by other team members, or they are collectively not certain about process. Thier behavior might thus get a bit less polite than in the forming stage. Here the manager should restructure the work to be done, streamline work processes and properly set a leadership tone.
The third stage is norming. Here the members of the team have bonded and found meaning in the team work. They have realised that they can get more done by being a part of a team and existing in harmony with team members. The feelings are now genuine and everyone makes an effort at providing solutions rather than asking questions. The manager at this stage should aid the harmony by promoting open communications culture.
The last stage is performing. Now that the teams have found harmony, there is trust between members and the team performs well as a whole. The feeling is that of content and trust and everyone behaves as a part of one whole. At this stage, leadership (at least need for guidance) is minimal and the team has become a self driven. Thus the manager should take a step back if the team is performing at the optimum potential. This is the stage that every manager strives to achieve to make their teams most functional (Stein Judith 2016).
Thus as a manager, the main take-away would be to know the behaviours of team members as exhibited at each stage of team’s development. Only then the end stage of a performing team could be achieved. Taking an approach of providing solutions to the troubled managers, first the identification of difficulties is a must. Then the attributes of a successful team could be seen for comparison purposes. Post the analysis stage, recommendations can be proposed and a detailed step-wise plan could be devised to achieve a high performing team.
Identifying the difficulties that managers might have establishing high-performing and self-directed teams should be the first step in the diagnosis of an under-performing team. Tuckman’s model can be of help here. If the team is displaying any of the characteristic behavior of forming, storming and norming stages, then the team is on it’s way to performing stage, but is not either high performing or self driven. Here the manager might face different kinds of problems at each stage. At forming stage, the manager might face resistance from team members to get acquainted to each other. He/she might also face problems like anxiety from the group, as regards the work to come, and possible help or no help from colleagues. The storming stage might be particularly tricky for the manager. This is where a lot of friction and conflict between team members can arise. Different points of view and disagreements can cause productivity to hit rock bottom. Inability to handle these in-fighting combined with a resistance to authority can be a problem that the manager will have to face with lot of tact. At the norming stage, a lot of problems with internal conflicts have been resolved, but team members are still acting as individuals with high egos. They know the importance of the team, but are not yet very high performing and are least self driven. The problem of cohesion is the prime hindrance to achieving the perfect functional team.
Next we can identify the characteristics of a high performing teams for comparison purposes. According to Ammeter & Dukerich (2002), characteristics of high performing teams include:
Team members having umteen trust amongst each other
The whole team works towards a singular goal
Team members are clear regarding their role and assignments
Team members actively promote a harmonious culture
Democracy is the way for the team to make important decisions, after everyone is heard
Conflicts and criticism are considered constructive and are received positively by team members
Members consider themselves part of the whole, and objective of the team is respected against individual achievement.
Now that we have seen characteristics of successful teams and the problems faced by managers of not highly achieving teams, we can compare and recommend a solution to the managers of imperfect teams. The end state or a desired team is the one that inculcates all or most of the characteristics of successful teams. Recommendations to managers to improve their team’s will be: Firstly, managers should diagnose the stage their team is going through as per Tuckman’s model. Secondly, managers should understand their teams as unique and not straightjacket them as per theory, just apply theory to behaviors that can be identified. Thirdly, managers should encourage healthy practices such as open discussions, decision making by polls and incentivization of overall goal than individual achievements. Lastly, managers should create a step by step approach to dealing with challenge of making their team into a self driven entity, that needs the least amount of supervision and performs as required by the organisation that employs them.
The step by step plan should help the manager drive his team to become the high achieving team. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: Identify the various characteristics (specially the negative one’s) exhibited by team members. According to this, the manager will be able to narrow down to the stage at which his team is, and handle the problem, aided by theory and research.
Step 2: At Forming stage, the most aggressive members should be identified and moulded for goal achievement. They are the potential derailers of plans, but when in sync, they can also contribute the maximum. All team members should be properly oriented and goals and plans should be laid down with everyone’s contribution. This makes everyone responsible for success or failure, not just the manager. At storming stage, all conflicts should be handled with tact. The manager should satisfy the queries of all team members and negotiate truce where there is conflict. Well defined tasks can smoothen this stage out to a great extent. At norming stage, the manager should state his authority. He should gain respect rather than demand it, and should encourage open discussions, accept positive criticism and lay down further plans after discussion with the team (Tuckman & Jensen).
Step 3: All of the stages of forming, storming and norming, should lead to performing stage. But this will be possible only if all conflicts are resolved. At this stage, the manager should consider the individual characteristics of team members, and utilize each one for contribution to the team goal. This part demands the manager to be good at knowing the psyche of team members and their capabilities.
Step 4: The manager should take a step back from managing in details as the team starts to drive itself. At this stage, the manager’s role is to negotiate with external parties and interfere only when there is an issue, like non-performance, or a problem. Otherwise, he should let the team function as a unit that will drive itself, and be high performing.
Step 5: Lastly, the manager should carry out a collaborative evaluation of the team as a whole and individuals at the end of the year or period. The aim should be to award achievements of the team and individuals that will serve as positive reinforcement. Also it will make aware, the members if they are doing anything that is not in the best interest of the team or is in line with best practices.
References
Ammeter, A. P., & Dukerich, J. M. (2002). Leadership, Team Building, and Team Member Characteristics in High Performance Project Teams. Engineering Management Journal, 14(4), 3-10. doi:10.1080/10429247.2002.11415178
Stein, J. (n.d.). Learning & Development. Retrieved July 10, 2016, from http://hrweb.mit.edu/learning-development/learning-topics/teams/articles/stages-development
Tuckman, B. (n.d.). Group Development. Encyclopedia of Management Theory. doi:10.4135/9781452276090.n96
Tuckman, & Jensen. (n.d.). 5 Stages of Group Development - Florida State University Retrieved July 10, 2016, from http://www.med.fsu.edu/uploads/files/FacultyDevelopment_GroupDevelopment.pdf
