Team Development Stages and Organizational Citizenship
Tuckman’s Model of Team Development
The life cycle of a team is used to understand what is going on with a team, to understand what stage they are at, and to better identify why issues within a team are occurring. The team life cycle describes the ways individuals come together to form a team and the stages they go through. Forming a team takes time, and members often go through recognizable stages as they change from being a collection of strangers to a united group with common goals.
Stages of Team Development
1. Forming: Coming Together
- Initial Stage
- Members of teams still act more as individuals than as a cohesive unit
- Individuals are getting to know one another
- Avoid conflict
- There is a lot of uncertainty in this phase because individuals do not know what to expect from one another
2. Storming: Conflict
There is a great deal of interpersonal conflict and jockeying for position and status within the group. There is a struggle to determine who will do what, when, etc.
Schutz’s Theory (Storming Stage)
(Inclusion, Control, Acceptance)
- Inclusion: Am I going to be included?
- Control: Power and position in the hierarchy
- Acceptance: Will I be loved?
These are in order of importance, but they can all play out at the same time.
3. Norming
- Members understand their roles within the group and accept their positions
- There is an agreed-upon goal and a plan for accomplishing the goal
- Establishes how things will work
- Now the team is ready to work in this stage
4. Performing: Cohesive Unit
- Members coordinate their actions and behave as a cohesive, fully functioning unit
- Actions are smooth and coordinated
- Performance is optimal
- Accomplish goals
5. Adjourning
The team is disbanding. Members engage in reflection.
Five Dimensions of Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Definition (O.C.B.): The contribution that employees make to the overall welfare of the organization that goes beyond the required duties of the job.
Five Main Dimensions to Citizenship Behavior
1. Altruism
(Helping behavior) Reflects willfully helping specific people with an organizationally relevant task or problem.
2. Conscientiousness
Refers to being punctual, having attendance better than the group norm, and following company rules, regulations, and procedures.
3. Courtesy
Being mindful and respectful of people’s rights.
4. Sportsmanship
Refers to avoiding complaints, petty grievances, gossiping, and falsely magnifying problems.
5. Civic Virtue
Responsible participation in the political life of the organization. Keeping abreast of current organizational issues, attending meetings, attending to in-house communications, and speaking up on issues. This is the most admirable manifestation of organizational citizenship behavior because it often entails some sacrifice of individual productivity and efficiency.
- Employees who exhibit prosocial behavior are highly valued by their managers.
- Employees who were perceived as exhibiting citizenship behaviors received higher performance evaluations and pay raises and had lower rates of absence compared to those who exhibited less citizenship behavior.
- OCB correlated positively with productivity and cost reduction.