W1_James Makinde_Tuckman Analysis Assignment

1.       Problem Statement:

The aim of this blog is to determine the most appropriate leadership style for a team in transition from one stage of team development to another. This problem statement was based on the outcome of the exercise carried out using the Tuckman approach (3). The result of the questionnaire (1) as seen in the table below indicates that the Bistro 12 is in transition from the norming to the performing stage because of the closeness of the results with the highest scores.

	Forming Stage		Storming Stage		Norming Stage		Performing Stage
1	3	2	3	4	4	3	4
5	3	7	4	6	3	8	2
10	3	9	3	11	4	12	4
15	3	16	3	13	4	14	4
18	4	20	3	19	4	17	4
21	3	23	3	24	2	22	4
27	3	28	3	25	3	26	3
29	2	31	2	30	2	32	3
	24		24		26		28

2.       Feasible Alternatives

There are four stages of team development phases. These are:

·         Forming

·         Storming

·         Norming

·         Performing.

There are various approaches that leaders can use to manage teams at these various stages. This model has been documented by Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership® model(3) as seen below.

3.       Quantitative Comparison of Alternatives

Based on the result, the performing stage has the highest score of 28 while it is closely followed by the norming stage at 26. This implies that the Bistro 12 team is passing through a phase between either of the two stages as explained in (1). It is important to understand the attributes of these two stages according to the Businessballs(2) : Norming- “Agreement and consensus is largely formed among team, who respond well to facilitation by leader. Roles and responsibilities are clear and accepted. Big decisions are made by group agreement”.  Performing- “The team is more strategically aware; the team knows clearly why it is doing what it is doing. The team has a shared vision and is able to stand on its own feet with no interference or participation from the leader”.

As the result indicates, the two applicable leadership styles are the participating and delegating mode. The key attributes of these two leadership modes are:

·         Participating- Leaders facilitate and enables

·         Delegating- Leaders delegate tasks to the team and oversees performance and outcome.

4.       Performance Monitoring & Post Evaluation of Result

Bistro 12 leaders should use a combination of coaching style asking the team for their solutions before giving their own while at the same the leaders and team members should recognize the contributions of others and ensure that credit is awarded where due. This applies as much to team members validating the leader as the other way round (2).

The key aspect of the benefit of this approach is that the team will continuously progress towards the performing stage and not degenerate. This can be measured by the speed with which tasks are completed without undue pressure on a single individual or group. In addition, the team will value each other’s worth and will lead to a higher success rate in the exams.

Reference

1.     Working on Teams: Survey: What Stage is our Team in?

http://www.cscaweb.org/EMS/sector_team/support_files/tools_for_the_team/tool_stage.pdf

2.     Performance Coach Training

http://www.performancecoachtraining.com/resources/docs/pdfs2/BruceTuckman_Team_Development_Model.pdf

3.     Tuckman forming storming norming performing model

http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm