Bruce Tuckman's Theory Of Team Development

Introduction:

In year 1965, Bruce Tuckman proposed a theory of team development. Since then, the importance of teamwork and team dynamics were started to be noticed. By definition from Oxford Dictionary, team means ‘A group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport’. It also means ‘Two or more people working together’.

However, ‘team’ has no longer just used to define a group of players in a game or sport, it is a crucial component in any organization nowadays. When 2 persons or more form a group to accomplish a mission, they are called as a team. In order to define clearer the meaning of team, it consists of group of people with different skills and different tasks, who work together on a common project, service or goal,

First, the team formation process must be studied and fully understood by a team leader. It helps the team and the leader to understand and appreciate the stages that they are undergoing. It might also help to fasten the process in forming a successful team.

Secondly, in order to form an effective team with great teamwork, the team members and the leader must understand what the success factors are. The teamwork skills are the key to a success team. Without understanding these success factors, a team cannot be success and the teamwork is usually weak.

Last but not the least, good team dynamics determine how far a team can go. Team dynamics are how team members interact with each other and the behavioural relationship between members of a team. Team dynamics are usually unconscious, and influence the direction of a team’s behaviour and performance unnoticed. They are created by the nature of the team’s work, the personalities of the team members, their working relationships and the environment in which the team members

A common goal must be agreed upon by every team members before anything else can proceed. A group leader must also start to identify the strength and role of each team members when the conflict is still low. If a team leader fails to do so, the team formation stage might takes longer time and might affect the second stage of team formation. The second of the team formation process is the ‘storming’. In this stage, intra-group conflict and hostility start to arise. This is a very crucial stage and most of the failures start at this stage. In this stage, people starts to push against the boundaries set in the forming stage (Forming, storming, norming, and performing 2016). This is mainly due to the difference styles used by different team members in doing the same thing. Besides, individuals may show resistance results from the autonomy and assertion in leadership. In terms of productivity, the role of the team and its members may still not clearly define. As a result, people might feel overwhelmed by their work tasks or they might not be comfortable with the arrangement or tasks allocated to them. The leader should call for the team to refocus on its goals and breaking the larger goals into smaller and achievable steps. Works are just started and normally not very