Team Dynamics: Synergy in Team
Working in a team is not easy because not all of the team member including ourselves is get used to it. Even if you often working in team, the people and the environment in every team will be different. That is because the people in a team have different characters and mindsets. While it is sound difficult, but maintaining a good teamwork in you team is essential to determining the success of your team project. That is why we must start building a good team dynamics. In this article, i will share with you about how to build a good team dynamics.
What is Team Dynamics?
Team dynamics are some unconscious, psychological forces that will determine the direction of a team’s performance and behavior. Team dynamics are like undercurrents in the sea, we intend to sail to a direction, but the current can carry our boats to different direction than what we intend to.
Team dynamics are unconsciously created by the nature of the team, such as team’s work, the personalities of the people in the team, working relationships of the people with each other, and the environment in which the team is working.
Team dynamics can be good or bad, depends on the nature of that team. For example, with good team dynamics, it can improve overall team performance and can help in bring up the best out of individual team members. On the other hand, bad team dynamics can cause some conflicts in the teams, demotivation of the team members, and also can hinder the team in achieving its goals.
5 Stages of Team Development
Forming
In this stage, the team will get to know about the opportunity and the challenge, and then they start to make the team’s goals and split the task for every member in the team. Every member in the team can work independently, but still as a team together. In this stage, the most important thing is about orientation. Every member will make thinking about their perception in the task given to them and also about other team member. They also will discuss about the boundaries in the task. For the team to be able to advance to the next stage, the team members must be able to discuss and communicate well with other team members, because there is a chance that a conflict will occurs.
Storming
The team then will moves to storming phase. In this phase, each team members start to push against the boundaries that is established at the forming stage. In this stage, the team members can give their opinion about the characteristics and integrity of the other team members. Conflict and incompatibility must be resolved in this phase. Each of the team members must be able to tolerate other team members to some extent in purpose of resolving the conflict.
Everyone has their own working approach, that is why the success of a team is depends on a proper communication and the willingness to compromise. At this stage, the team members will get to know each other better, as well as knowing what is their responsibilities. If there is no clear description about how the team will work, the team members may feel overwhelmed by their workload or maybe will be uncomfortable with some of the working approach. Team members who is working very hard may even more stressed if there is a little support from other.
Norming
If the team succeeded in resolving the conflict and resolving the different in argument, that will make the relationship in the team to get better. That will make the teamwork within the team to get better. In this stage, each of the team members is very aware of their responsibility and will do their best to achieve the team’s goals. They accept each other and will try to cooperate. They also start asking for help or providing constructive feedback to each other. But sometime, someone will not express their opinion to avoid conflict.
Performing
After norming stage, the team will start to develop some work ethic for the team to help them concentrate in achieving the team’s goals. In this phase, the team members have high motivation and understand very well about what they should do. They also know become more competent and can do decision making better. The difference in opinion is tolerable as long as it follows the team’s procedure.
In this phase, the team will make many decisions that is necessary for the team. The team also can do evaluation about what they have done and will revise if the thing can be better. This is the stage with maximum efficiency and productivity in the team and everyone enjoys working together and see their progress towards the team’s goals.
Adjourning
In the end, many teams will reach this stage. This stage is about the end of the responsibility of the team members. For example, some teams maybe only exist for one project, and even if the team is still there, sometime there may be reallocated in the team members. But this also can be temporary if the team will works together again. The team members who afraid to changes or have become close friends with other colleagues may find this stage difficult.
That’s all I can share with you about team dynamics for now. Thank you for reading my article, and I hope this article can help you to build a good team dynamics.
Sources:
https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/team/dynamics/definition/
https://www.intipesan.com/lima-tahapan-dalam-membangun-tim/
https://medium.com/swlh/team-development-stages-51df5606c0a2
