EDP 814 Module 2 Group Formation, Norms and Roles Example

Stages or a Midpoint Jolt? How One Product Team Developed

Student Name

Doctor of Education Program, Aspen University

EDP 814: The Social Psychology of Groups

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Stages or a Midpoint Jolt? How One Product Team Developed

The composite medical device product team examined in the first module was formed eighteen months before a planned launch. Its history over the first year offers a test of two models of group development. As before, the company and team are fictional. The sections below trace the team's development, its norms and its roles.

Tuckman's Stages

Tuckman (1965) reviewed studies of small groups, mostly therapy, training and laboratory groups, and proposed a developmental sequence. At first, in forming, people probe what the group is for and lean on whoever leads it. In storming, conflict arises over tasks and relationships. In norming, cohesion develops and norms are accepted. In performing, the group channels its energy into the task. Twelve years on, Tuckman and Jensen (1977) reexamined the evidence and appended adjourning, the winding down of a group whose work is done. The model describes a linear sequence driven by the group's internal development.

Gersick's Midpoint Transition

Gersick (1988) observed eight project teams with deadlines from start to finish. Rather than moving through stages, each team adopted a working pattern, with its own assumptions, almost immediately and then held onto it for weeks with little change. At about the midpoint of its allotted time, regardless of how long that was, each team went through a transition, abandoning its opening approach, seeking out people outside the team and taking up a fresh view of its task. A second phase of inertia followed, ending in a burst of activity near the deadline. Gersick proposed that the midpoint, by making time salient, triggers change.

Which Model Fits

The team's history fits Gersick better. Its framework, work divided by function with Hana as coordinator, was set in the first meetings and held for months despite tension. The change came not gradually but in a burst around month nine, when the slipped submission made time salient: Hana met the vice president, the team rewrote its plan and adopted joint weekly reviews. Tuckman's model captures the emotional quality of the conflict, but its linear sequence does not explain why the storming lasted so long or why change arrived when it did.

Norms

Feldman (1984) argued that groups enforce norms that serve important functions: those that facilitate the group's survival, make members' behavior predictable, help the group avoid embarrassing interpersonal problems or express the group's central values. Norms develop through explicit statements by leaders, critical events in the group's history, primacy, the pattern set at first, and behaviors carried over from past situations. The team's early norm that each function reports separately came from primacy and from members' past teams. The norm it now enforces most, that problems are raised in the joint review rather than in hallway complaints, came from the critical event of the slipped submission and protects the team's survival.

Roles

Two informal roles stand out. A regulatory specialist, Dev, acts as a gatekeeper, controlling what reaches regulators and when. A marketer, Rosa, with an engineering degree, has become a bridge between engineering and marketing, translating customer feedback into technical terms. Neither role is formal, but both affect the team's work, and the joint reviews have made Dev's gatekeeping more visible and collaborative.

Lessons for Leading

The analysis offers three lessons. First, the framework set in a team's first meetings is likely to persist, so leaders should set it deliberately. Second, the midpoint is an opportunity; leaders can schedule a review then, rather than waiting for a crisis. Third, norms that emerge from critical events can be reinforced by naming them, as Hana did when she thanked members for raising a problem in the joint review.

Where the Models Came From

The models' different fits partly reflect their sources. Tuckman (1965) drew mainly on therapy groups, human relations training groups and laboratory groups, which often had no fixed deadline and whose task was in part the group's own development. Gersick (1988) studied project teams with defined deadlines and external tasks. The product team resembles Gersick's teams: its task is external, its deadline fixed and its members experienced professionals rather than strangers exploring group life. Tuckman and Jensen (1977) themselves noted that few later studies tested the stage model directly, which leaves its fit to work teams an open question.

Looking Ahead

Both models make predictions about the team's final months. Gersick's model predicts a final burst of activity as the deadline approaches, with the team completing work using the framework adopted at the midpoint. Tuckman and Jensen's adjourning stage predicts attention to closure and separation as the team nears its end. Hana can use both: she can protect the midpoint framework from being abandoned under deadline pressure, and she can plan for adjourning, including recognition of the team's work and a review of lessons for the company's next product team.

Roles and Norms Together

Roles and norms reinforce each other. Dev's gatekeeping role was tolerated under the early norm of separate reporting, since no one saw what he held back or why. Under the new norm of raising problems in the joint review, his decisions became visible and open to discussion, and he began explaining what regulators would likely question before engineers finalized test plans. Rosa's bridging role grew under the same norm, since the joint review gave her a regular place to translate between functions. Feldman (1984) observed that norms clarify what is expected of members in their roles; at the team, a change in one norm reshaped two informal roles, and both changes helped the team.

Conclusion

Tuckman's stages describe the feel of group development, but Gersick's midpoint model better explains the timing of the team's change. Feldman's account explains why the team now enforces open problem-raising. For leaders, development is not a fixed sequence but something to shape at the start and at the midpoint.

References

Feldman, D. C. (1984). The development and enforcement of group norms. Academy of Management Review, 9(1), 47-53. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1984.4277934

Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31(1), 9-41. https://doi.org/10.5465/256496

Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022100

Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of small-group development revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), 419-427. https://doi.org/10.1177/105960117700200404