Transcription
While we're looking at the impact of organizational dynamics on the reflective practice, we need to understand that a group of people working as a team go through different stages of development and functioning, and we can represent these stages diagrammatically.
Here, we can see that the group dynamics of a team go through different levels of functioning. At the initial stage of functioning is something called forming. This is where the group comes together and starts to get to know other members of the group. This is the first stage of team development and essentially sets the tone for how the work occurs within the group.
The next stage of the group is called storming. This is where there can be conflict arising in the group because people have different ideas about how the work of the group should be achieved, and different people could try to lead the group towards achieving those goals, and this can impact on the effectiveness quite severely of the group.
Once the group gets past the storming stage, this point of potential conflict, the group is known to move into a stage called norming. This is where the individual group roles are very clearly defined, and people are undertaking those roles efficiently and effectively, supporting each other in those roles, and this is where the group of people starts to become a functioning team to the point where the team ultimately starts to perform at a high level.
At the performing stage, everybody is supporting each other, working together, and understanding how that work supports the achievement of the goals. In permanent teams, these four stages can be transitioned through backwards and forwards. The group can always go back to storming after it's been performing for some, for different reasons. It could be that a new member joins the group, or there is some change in the functioning of the group, and so it's certainly not a one-way road. It is a journey backwards and forwards potentially that the group goes through.
If it's a temporary group, then there will be a point where the individual members leave the group because the task is completed, and this is known as adjourning stage. At this stage, the group members are leaving each other, the work is completed, and therefore there's no reason for them to see each other or to be involved with one another again.
So, we can see that these stages in terms of group dynamics are quite important. In terms of team norms and the norming stage, we're looking at how the individuals are learning about each other, setting rules for the group, and identifying commonalities in terms of the way they work and the expectations about working together. And at this stage in the group, people are learning to understand the particular frameworks in which other members are working, the values and the assumptions that they have about teaching and learning and about education.
In order to reflect on team norms, then, the reflective practitioner needs to look at these aspects of the group, how the members of the group are interrelating with one another and developing an understanding of how to work efficiently and productively. And the reflective practitioner can look at how the group is supporting itself, how individual members are rewarding other members for the work that they're contributing, and also how the group as a whole is managing with disparate dysfunction and conflict.
The key point for the reflective practitioner here is to look at how the group is moving through these stages and ultimately working towards performing as a team, and how they are dealing with the storming part of the process where conflict is arising, and how the individuals are maintaining the level of performance when they achieve it. So, the reflective practitioner can observe this forwards and backwards movement of the team in which they operate and begin to unpick the ideas which are supporting the team and which are perhaps moving the team back down the cycle towards storming.