We have all worked in a group or team at some point in our careers. A team is brought together to achieve a common goal. The team needs to have members who have complementary skills and who are committed to a common purpose to achieve performance goals. However, teams don't move immediately toward performing but instead evolve. There are five stages of group and team development:

1. Forming: Getting oriented and getting acquainted. A high degree of uncertainty as members try to figure out who is in charge.
2. Storming: Personalities start to emerge, along with roles and conflicts within the group.
3. Norming: In the third stage, conflicts are resolved, relationships develop, and harmony and unity surface.
4. Performing: Members concentrate on solving problems and completing the assigned task.
5. Adjourning: Members prepare to disband. Some members may be reassigned or terminated from the group, or the group might be dissolved.

Think about a time when you joined a new groupit could be at work, in a family setting, or with a social group.

Respond to the following:

• Which of the five stages was the most challenging for the group to work through, and why?
• How might you have helped the group work through that stage differently, based on what you know now about the five stages of group and team development?