Effective (Virtual) Team Behaviors

Prepared by Professor Stephen R. Ball, Cleary College, 8/29/99, from Scholtes, Peter, et al. (1988) The Team Handbook. Madison, WI; Joiner and Associates.

Stages of Team Growth

Sholtes notes four stages of team growth, with the final stage being the ideal for high performance and low conflict.

Stage	Feelings	Behaviors
Forming- members cautiously explore boundaries of acceptable group behavior.	Excitement, optimism; pride, initial attachment to the team; suspicion, anxiety about the job ahead.	Attempts to organize and define the job/tasks; to define group behavior; lofty or abstract discussions of concepts, and some impatience with such discussions.
Storming- most difficult stage. Realizing the task is more difficult than first imagined, members become testy and blameful, resisting the need to collaborate.	Resistance to the tasks and the variety of approaches of individuals on the team; sharp fluctuations in attitudes.	Increased arguing; defensiveness and "choosing sides"; setting unrealistic goals; disunity, increased tension, and jealousy.
Norming- competing loyalties and responsibilities are reconciled. Norms for group behavior are individually accepted.	Ability to express criticism constructively; acceptance of the team; relief in the belief that "everything is going to work out."	Attempts to gain harmony by avoiding conflict (avoid Groupthink, though!); more friendliness and personal sharing; sense of common team spirit; establishing and maintaining team ground rules. (This latter is a crucial element for team success.)
Performing- relationships and expectations are settled, strengths and weaknesses of members are known and accepted, roles are understood.	Insight into members' abilities; satisfaction at the team's progress.	Constructive self-change; ability to prevent/handle group problems; attachment to the team.

Some teams, both professional and academic, get stuck in the "storming" stage, and their work suffers for it. The following "Recipe for Team Success," "Working Through Group Problems" and "Ten Common Group Problems" will help you identify issues early and take constructive steps to move forward.

Recipe for Team Success

Element	Ideals	Potential trouble
Clarity of team goals	Agreement on mission and vision of the project's goals.	Frequent changes in direction or arguments about what should be done, frustration at lack of progress. Fix: stop and discuss the goals.
Clearly defined roles	Everyone understands what they are to do and when. In addition to other team roles, it is often useful to have one person as the facilitator (not "leader") who keeps things on track.	Confusion over who is responsible for what, members feeling stuck with the same chores. Fix: Have a focused discussion on roles.
Clear communication (especially important for internet-based teams.)	Make clear and direct statements or questions, be succinct, listen (or e-mail) actively to explore rather than debate others' ideas.	Use of tentative or conditional statements, words do not match tone or feelings, opinions are expressed as facts, "plops" and "discounts" (see below).
Beneficial team behaviors	initiate discussions seek information and opinions suggest procedures for reaching a goal clarify or elaborate on ideas summarize test for consensus keep the discussion from digressing compromise and be creative in resolving differences work to ease tension and resolve difficulties express the tentative group feeling and check for consensus before proceeding work for standards for decision-making	Reliance on one person- no shared responsibility, discussions that are stuck- wheel spinning. Fix: See Working Through Group Problems and Ten Common Group Problems.
Well-defined decision procedures	Discuss and agree on how decisions will be made, explore important issues by polling, decide important issues by consensus, explicitly test for consensus ("This seems to be our agreement. Does anyone feel unsure about this?")	Acceptance of opinions as facts, one or two people making decisions without team consensus, frequent use of "majority rules" to make decisions, silence interpreted as assent. Fix: early on, talk about and establish decision rules.
Balanced participation	All members contribute equally, in their natural style.	Watch out for some individuals exercising too much, some too little, influence over the group. Fix: over e-mail have someone moderate the discussion and make sure everyone has been involved.
Established ground rules	Ground rules for the team are discussed early and agreed to.	Existence of taboo subjects, no one can articulate what the group norms are, recurring differences about what is acceptable, general conflict. Fix: early on, talk about and establish ground rules.

Working through Group Problems (some techniques

Use constructive feedback techniques

• Be descriptive- describe the issue accurately, do not add motives that you do not know are there.
• Avoid labels- be clear, specific, and unambiguous. Words like "immature" are labels of behaviors. Instead, use "You missed the deadline we agreed on."
• Do not exaggerate.
• Do not be judgmental.
• Speak for yourself- let others speak for themselves.
• Talk first about yourself, not about the other person- these are your impressions. People get defensive when someone talks about "you." This is perhaps the most important feedback technique.
• Use statements rather than questions.
• Stick to issues you know for certain- do not represent your opinions as facts.
• Help people to hear and accept your compliments when giving positive feedback. (Yes, this means you should look for issues to compliment others on the team.)

General Guidelines for Group Problems

• Anticipate and prevent group problems whenever possible.
• Think of each problem as a group problem.
• Neither over- nor under-react. The range of reactions to a group problem can include:
• Do nothing- appropriate for small, non-chronic issues.
• Off-line (one-on-one e-mail) conversation with the person(s) involved in the disruption. This might be a role of the Facilitator.
• General group discussion about the issue, without naming incidents or persons.
• Off-line confrontation (moderate intervention). Same as the "conversation" only the facilitator is more assertive.
• Group confrontation- only use as a last resort, when other approaches have failed.
• Expulsion of the "offending" member from group. Sorry, this is never an acceptable option! For students in team situations, the goal is to mirror the business environment and provide experiences that will improve their effectiveness. You will rarely be able to use this option in business, and it will come with high long-term costs (you may be labeled as the one hard to get along with!). Involve your instructor in all team activities (sending agendas and minutes, for instance). Good instructors will let you flounder until the group finds a good solution, rather than "riding to the rescue."

Ten Common Group Problems

1. Floundering- wondering what actions to take next. Use project planning discussions, agendas, minutes and timetables to organize the group's work.
2. Overbearing participants- who use authority to overrule discussion or solutions. Use group consensus instead.
3. Dominating participants- who talk or bully their way into getting the group to go along. Use consensus and make sure that everyone is active. This is more of a problem in face-to-face meetings than in e-mail meetings.
4. Reluctant participants- who are never heard from! Make sure everyone participates in e-mail discussions about the project.
5. Acceptance of opinions as facts. Make sure that sources are noted and opinions are stated as such.
6. Rush to accomplishment- trying to finish too quickly with work that is too shoddy. Plan out the work; assign responsibilities and deadlines.
7. Attribution- assigning motives to others ("He's trying to sabotage our work!"). Check for understanding; ask!
8. Discounts and "plops"- ideas that are not acknowledged by others on the team. Develop a procedure for listing and later addressing each idea (Nominal Group Technique is good for this).
9. Wanderlust- digression and tangents. Keep the group on-task with project planning at the front-end, and agendas and minutes as the work progresses.
10. Feuding team members- who bring their "issues" in from outside. Refer to "General Guidelines" above.