Every person in the world has been a member of a group at some point in their lives. It could have been at school, at work, or at other social events and issues. Teams are bound to have people with conflicting personalities and talents, which can potentially lead to conflict at some point in a team development process. The most challenging group in my entire life was at work since the people there had various interests, hobbies, conflicting personalities, and all had to work in one room, thinking about similar issues.
Forming was difficult, but not as challenging, since I did not possess the knowledge about every employee; everyone was friendly and tried to appear better than their actual personality. There have been uncertainty and lack of orientation since I had little knowledge of people there and struggled to determine who was in charge. Storming was the most challenging for me, as I have no liking for conflicts, which emerged during this phase. Personalities started to shine, which was strange at first, but I soon accommodated to the current.
Norming and Performing were the best parts of working in a group since everyone worked on the same task and relationships appeared harmonic. Although at the time I was not too fond of individual personalities, I was entirely accommodated to their workflow and communicated with ease. The part of the equal hardness was the Adjourning part, where people started to leave the collective. Some left due to the other job opportunities; some – were terminated or reassigned, including a few of my best friends. However, if I knew of the stages before entering that position, I would undoubtedly be less assertive at the Storming stage since my assertiveness sometimes became aggressive, which was unnecessary in that particular group environment (Woodcock, 2018). Moreover, I would help the group work through their conflicts to achieve the Performing stage quicker and improve the overall performance.
Reference
Woodcock, M. (2018). Team development manual. Routledge.