Team Development – The Adjourning
Phase
The group
which made for the hardest good-bye for me recently was the one I felt the
greatest connection with. Basically, we were all different. Everyone attending the
training for example, had various levels of education and years of work
experience. We had come from different backgrounds and different locations but
we also connected as well. We were all center directors working in Philadelphia
county and were all committed to the task of learning the best practices we needed
to increase literacy in the classrooms of our various Philadelphia Head Start
locations.
After
introductions were made, as part of the Forming stage of team development, we
eagerly entered the Storming stage by settling down into our repetitious role
of reading, learning, practicing, teaching the teachers at our centers,
journaling the experience and meeting again at the next session to share our
experience in large group, respond and list insights before starting the process
over again with a new strategy and teach. This process continued for ten long weeks
until the final task was completed and the end of both the Norming and
Performing stages were finished. It was at this time, I believe the Adjourning
stage had begun--it was the last day of training and I realized just how
effective our teams had been. We were summarizing our center achievements with
the facilitators when I realized that I knew many of the director’s first names
who were speaking. I knew many of their center names. I remembered many of the
issues and problems we had all helped each other solve while in training and I exchanged
cell numbers with those I felt I had some particular things in common with
before I said my final goodbyes.
Had I not gotten the cell phone numbers of
those I wanted to continue to keep in touch with, I may have felt sadness at the
Adjourning stage instead, I felt energized and excited that I had made some
professional ties that I believe are excellent resources in the field and I
look forward to keeping communication open with them to discuss issues and
problems that I can glean ideas from. I believe it is these types of relationship
building, high performance teams that are the most effective and most
productive and they are not the hardest to leave because people, like myself, come
away from the team connected with people with real industry experience helping
other people in the field. It is these types of high performing teams that have
the clearest norming and performing stages and get things done. These types of
teams are able to focus on the issues and problems at hand rather than the
differences of the team members, for example. These types of teams can be the most
effective at the Adjourning stage because they are the ones that can continue
the connections with the people who are on the front lines and have real-time
experience by phone and by email after the Adjourning time is over. This is why I don’t
believe I will have a difficult time saying goodbye to my colleagues at the end
of my program at Walden because I feel I will be able to continue communicating
with them by phone or email and being able to gather phone numbers and emails
to continue relationships already established is what makes the Adjourning
stage essential.
Reference
Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team
development: A case study. Retrieved
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