Teamwork

Teamwork

In health care, teamwork is essential.  Unfortunately, teamwork is not easy and it can get messy.  As a result, so many of us often find ourselves saying under our breath, “I would far rather do this myself," while forgetting about all the ideas and data that will be completely missed as a result.  

You may recall the five stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance --  which were introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying.  Well, guess what?  Thanks to psychologist Bruce Tuckman, I have discovered that some of these very same forces play out in the five stages of putting together an effective team.

Forming.  Storming.  Norming. Performing.  Adjourning.  

Tuckman’s model gave me great insight recently when I was working on a team project. Looking back over the initial emails among our team members, we were polite and eager to get on with the task at hand.  Soon, however, conflict arose as we tried to divide the labor and to determine how best to get the job done.  After viewing a short summary of Tuckman’s model online (see link below), I was reassured. I even shared a copy with one of my team members as evidence that we were moving “full speed ahead” through this obviously quite normal developmental process.

Next time you are asked to work with a team, use Tuckman’s model as your road map and save everyone some unnecessary grief as you work through the messy process of becoming an effective team and in getting a “slightly extraordinary” result at the end of the day.  

Link:http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm