Stages Of Group Development

In today’s dynamic global environment, many organizations struggle to achieve a better organizational performance. The performance of employees plays an essential role in assisting the organizations to confront with the diverse challenges and intense competition among the organizations. In order to achieve the organization’s goals, many organizations tend to get the tasks accomplish within the work groups instead of individuals. “A group is defined as two or more interacting and interdependent individuals who come together to achieve specific goals” (Robbins & Coulter, 2014, p.444). Most of the work groups are developed to complete the specific tasks and work assignments that have been assigned by the superiors. According to Robbins and Coulter

Storming is a stage in which the intragroup conflict takes place (Robbins & Coulter, 2014). According to Schuman (2001), hostility exists among the group members during this stage because of their sense of individuality and resistance to the group structure’s formation. ‘Infighting’ occurs in this stage and the interaction between the group members is unsteady. In this stage, the group members’ ideas, opinions, and perspectives are expressed on the issues such as authority, leadership styles, problems that need to be solved, and others. When the issues are discussed, the conflict arises and this polarizes the group. In a research done by Ali Adnan, Aisha Akram and Fehmida Akram (2013), in the storming stage, some group members tried to dominate, some members showed disliking over other members’ ideas, and some members remained silent. The presence of conflict caused the group members to remodel and identify the new unified norms, goals, and values in order to harmonize their relationships with one another. This condition results in the emergence of the group’s goals and hierarchy of leadership that are accepted by all the group members (Robbins & Coulter, 2014). As a result, the conflict is resolved and the group prepares to proceed to the subsequent

In this stage, the group members begin to perform after they experience the previous stages which are forming, storming and norming. In this stage, it is more emphasizes on the interdependence between the group members to accomplish all the tasks on hand. This stage occurs when the group members are able to work on the group tasks, solve the problems together and are familiar with each other (Robbins & Coulter, 2014). For example, the group members know the strengths and weaknesses of each other. Therefore, the group members work together in helping each other to solve the problems. Thomas Edison State College (2011) also mentioned that the structure of the group helps to support the tasks performance and led to the flexibility of the group members. The flexibility of the group members helps to strengthen the task performance and gear up the capability of the group (Shih & Garcia, 2011). According to Shih and Garcia (2011), the members become more adapt themselves in group and manage well in their task and role function. Through this, the performance of the group becomes more effective. Furthermore, the group members accomplish their task by their own. In this stage, the group members develop the good characteristics among themselves such as co-operate with others, high group moral and strong group loyalty. For example, when the group members are united with each other, it increases the productivity of the group and