In the 1960’s Bruce Tuckman wrote a paper summarising the stages a group goes through when it first comes together and forms. It is one of the most well-known team development models. The stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. According to his theory, Tuckman states that how a group deals with these issues will contribute to how effective the group becomes in achieving its objectives. The model is based on an assumption that a group will follow a linear process as it comes together and the people within the group develop their relationships.
Gary Sheard, author of Leadership Teams: Developing and Sustaining High Performance offers the following perspective on Tuckman’s model, “over a 20 year period, working with and studying groups of managers, we have observed that the vast majority of groups do not pass smoothly through the stages of a linear group development sequence. In practice, individuals opt out, groups regress, and, in many cases disband. “
According to Sheard there are normally two reasons why this happens. The first is because the members within the group become aware of the non-shared assumptions that exist amongst them. At this stage, “not everyone will agree, and some will opt out at this point, visibly, or just switch off. The group may appear functional. However, some group members have no intention of accepting any decision that involves doing anything differently from the way they did in the past”.
The second reason individuals opt-out or groups regress is because senior managers start questioning whether they wish to accept the role that they will need to play within the group.
Another author – Roger Schwarz, who wrote Smart Leaders Smarter Teams – How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results states within most leadership teams there exists people with what he calls a unilateral control mindset. By this, he means members try to get other members within their group to do what they want them to do, based on their own assumptions. Whilst also trying to keep themselves minimally influenced by others. As you can imagine this impacts both the dynamics of the Group and also its performance.
According to Patrick Lencioni in the absence of certain conditions, a group can easily become dysfunctional. In his model, Lencioni presents five dysfunctions of a team that can significantly inhibit the dynamics and relationships within a team, these being, absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability & inattention to results. It is an interrelated model and the existence of any one of the dysfunctions can have a detrimental impact on the team. Given that many of the dysfunctions are largely based on the emotions and self-awareness of the individuals within a team, the fallibility of humans means that certainly in the early days the leader of these teams has a large part to play to create and maintain the conditions for senior managers to operate in.
During these times there is the need for the leader of these teams, normally the CEO, to work at ensuring the top team works, and in doing so it can lead to an improvement in the delivery of the organisation’s strategy.
In today’s high-pressure environment, when the drive to achieve targets or objectives remain the main focus of busy executives, they may not have the time to invest or see the importance of maintaining these conditions. Management teams should periodically assess how they are working, viewing relationships, not individuals as the unit of analysis.
When I have worked with Boards and senior management teams and asked them to discuss their relationships with each other. It normally surfaces a number of issues and beliefs that had remained hidden for months, even years. These insights have helped them to understand what each of them needs to do to improve their relationships with each other.
Another factor in Lencioni’s model that appears to be a theme in senior management group dynamics is trust. Trust is a core relational construct, commonly conceptualised as a psychological state in which individuals make themselves vulnerable in a relationship based upon expectations, assumptions, or beliefs that another’s future behaviours will be positive, beneficial, or favourable.
If managers take time to build trust they are less likely to speculate negatively about each other’s motives and more likely to ask one another about their concerns.
The leaders of these teams play a large part in creating the conditions where trust can be nurtured. Relational leadership nurtures trust among top management teams, this is because leaders’ who display relational leadership play a major role in building positive relationships between members.
Having trust is an important component that needs to be in place to support any leadership team to overcome a fear of conflict. To be able to present a view and have a healthy debate or be challenged, may help some leaders reflect on their assumptions. The purpose of this type of conflict is to identify and implement the best solution for the organisation or team.
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