The Stages of Teaming
Team members need time to set goals
and adjust to each other’s working styles
and abilities.
Teams go through four stages:
• Forming: Strategic Planning
• Storming: Managing Conflicts
• Norming: Determining Team Roles
• Performing: Improving Quality
Forming: Strategic Planning
Members should get to know each other
during the forming stage:
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Step 1: Define project mission and objectives
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Step 2: Identify project outcomes.
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Step 3: Define team member responsibilities
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Step 4: Create a project calendar
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Step 5: Write out a work plan
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Step 6: Agree on how conflicts will be resolved
Storming: Managing Conflict
Team members will need to
negotiate, adapt, and compromise
to achieve the team’s mission.
Conducting effective meetings can
help work through the Storming
Phase.
Storming: Managing Conflict
Use methods discussed during forming and
conflict resolution methods
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Choose a mediator
Ask both sides to state their positions
Identify the issues
Prioritize the issues
Address each issue separately
Write down an agreement
Storming: Managing
Conflict (Cont’d)
Effective Meeting Strategies:
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Choose a meeting facilitator
Set an agenda
Start and end meetings promptly
Address each agenda item separately
Encourage participation
Allow dissent
Reach consensus and move on
Record decisions
Recap each agenda item
Look ahead
Norming: Determining
Team Roles
Here, members begin to accept
responsibilities and their roles in the
project.
During this stage:
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Revise objectives and outcomes
Identify team roles
Use groupware to facilitate work
Help: Virtual Learning
Virtual teaming is teamwork through enetworks, e-mail, instant messaging, and
phones
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Develop a work plan and stick to it
Communicate regularly
Hold teleconferences and videoconferences
Build trust and respect
Keep regular hours
Use groupware to facilitate work
Performing: Improving
Quality
In this stage, members are comfortable
with their project and their roles
They develop quality feedback loops
They regularly review the performance of
team members
Alternative Collaborative Styles
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How you split up the workload is up to you. You are
encouraged to try some different styles so that you
have different perspectives from which to write from
when you do your group reflection.
Recognize these three very important points:
1.
2.
3.
Different rhetorical situations and steps within those
situations lend themselves to certain styles better than
others. Always discuss the rhetorical situation and current
position of the project so that your team can consider the
best approach.
Different personality types will prefer certain styles of
leadership and collaboration. It is important to
communicate your preferences and recognize that others
might have different preferences.
Similar versus Compensatory differences. In their choice of
a teammate, some people prefer similar traits whereas
others prefer compensatory traits. In other words, some
people prefer working in groups where everybody has
similar strengths whereas others prefer working in groups
where everybody has different strengths. Don’t be afraid
to try something new, or step in to ask how to do
something that you don’t know how to do.
Collaborative Styles: Parallel
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A project is split up into various
parts, and each team member
is responsible for that part. One
person writes the introduction,
another person the method,
another person the results.
Advantage: Appeals to INTJ and
structural and analytical
personalities. Everybody gets their
say over their part.
Disadvantage: The project can be
disjointed and unfocused. The lack
of social interaction leads to not
many people learning from the
process. Not good for Social
personality types.
Collaborative Styles: Reciprocal
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A project is worked on by
everybody on the team at
once. Although roles can be
individualized (e.g. one person
types while others offer
sentences), the whole project
gets the input of everybody
Advantage: Everybody gets a say
in the final project, and it can be
more unified than other styles.
Disadvantage: Certain personality
types can take the project over.
Socials, Sanguines, and Extroverts
might not listen to other personality
types, and peoples’ ideas can be
ignored.
Collaborative Styles: Sequential
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One person starts a project or
part and passes it off to the
next person to edit/revise that
part, then it is passed off to the
next person.
Advantage: Everybody gets a say
in the final project, and it is more
unified and reader-centered than
others styles.
Disadvantage: Certain personality
types can take the project over.
The last person who worked on the
document has the most power,
and tell-assertive or structural
personality types might make the
project more his/hers than
everybody else who worked on the
project
The Keys to Teaming
Planning
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Clear understanding of the mission and steps is
important.
Communication
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Keep communication lines open.
The keys to understanding
difference
Personality Types
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Personality typing has been around for as long as
rhetoric – 2,400 years.
Today, personality researchers, entrepreneurs, and
English majors still tend to classify people into four
types (even if they call them different things).
Scholars often critique articles/books that “type” a
person be it personality or intelligence because these
“types” lack significant empirical data supporting
them. The important lesson here is not to rely on
these different types but to recognize that people
are different.
The most famous personality typing is Galen’s
typology:
The Four Humors
(circa 190 B.C.)
The Four Humors: Choleric
Cholerics (Lions):
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Natural leaders and fast workers--in fact, they do
everything fast: think, talk, walk, make decisions. Impatient
with too much instruction or details--tend to ask "What's the
point?" or "What's the bottom line?" Quick at grasping
overall concepts. Strong, almost pushy, in their dealings
with others, and can be insensitive to others' feelings. Strong
analytical thinkers, but need to work on their
communication skills.
NEED to be appreciated (not recognition, necessarily). They
often seem so "together" that others forget to acknowledge
what they've done.
Cholerics are task-oriented and especially goal-oriented
and TELL-ASSERTIVE (they will dictate to you, and give
orders as if it is their right--and they probably think it IS!)
The Four Humors: Melancholies
Melancholics (Beavers)
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Very organized people, perfectionists. Love facts and the
more directions the better. Will ask, "What exactly do you
mean?" and "How long does it need to be?" and "When did
you say it was due?" Patient, even painstaking in their
work--feel it is important to "get it right." They speak slowly,
deliberately, very precise, use few or no gestures. Extremely
analytical, but not emotional or expressive. Like to work
alone, don't like to have a time limit. They can be a strong
team-player in the right setting, but under pressure they will
"hide" from authority or from their problems because they're
afraid they can't be perfect or do it "right."
NEED order, perfection, calm environment to perform best.
Melancholics are detail-oriented, task-oriented, and
ASK-ASSERTIVE (they will ask you a million questions to make
sure they know everything they need to do a perfect job.)
The Four Humors: Sanguines
Sanguines (Otters)
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Very creative people, lots of ideas. However, they
are poor on follow-up because they get bored easily
and want to move on before a job is finished.
Fun-loving, spontaneous, casual about relationships
though they don't mean to be unkind. Tend to be
seen as shallow because it is so easy for them to get
excited or enthusiastic and then lose interest just as
quickly. FUN is important to them. They will take risks,
and they hate details. Very verbal and will attack
verbally--and relentlessly--if upset. You'll hear them
say things like,"But this isn't any fun," as if fun is the
point of life (to them, it is). Love people, love
networking, love groups, very friendly.
NEED recognition, constant stimulation.
Sanguines are people-oriented and TELL-ASSERTIVE
will give order.
The Four Humors: Phlegmatics
Phlegmatics (Golden Retrievers)
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Giving, loyal, generous, serving. Tend to be overly
sensitive: take everything personally. Hard time
saying "No,'1 but when they take on too much, they
will finally just shut-down and retreat. Will even hide
rather than face offending you. Want to please
everyone-they are the peacemakers of the world.
Relationships are allimportant to them, and they will
work hard to please you or if they feel you like them.
Do not take pressure well; just want everyone to be
happy and get along. Good at details especially if
they can think of things to make you happy.
NEED peace, harmony, tension-free atmosphere to
perform best.
Phlegmatics are people-oriented and ASK-ASSERTIVE
(they will ask you questions just to make you feel
welcome and to collect information so they won't
hurt your feelings).
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ®
(MBTI)
(circa 1944)
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The most famous of contemporary type indicators.
It is based on Carl Jung’s theory of personality.
Myers-Briggs traits are binaries, in which one
displays one trait or another (e.g. one is either
extroverted or introverted).
MBTI fully expects people to change over time.
Although there are eight designations, a person’s
personality is classified by four dominant traits
(There are 16 different personality types). Thus, an
ENFP is a Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving.
Note the Trademark. Career Centers all over the
U.S. send CPP, Inc. money to tell students what
their type is.
MBTI
Extroverted (E)
Introverted (I)
outward-focused
inward-focused
Sensing (S)
Intuition (N)
perceive through senses
Thinking (T)
decide via true-false,
objective
Judging (J)
planned and organized
perceive through insight,
patterns
Feeling (F)
decide via better-worse,
subjective
Perceiving (P)
Spontaneous and flexible
Emergenetics®
(circa 2005)
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The newest “personality types” to enter the
arena. Because school focuses so much on
only two of the types, people can often feel
as if they don’t belong.
We all have a bit of these traits, but some are
more dominant. One has both a dominant
thinking pattern (4 types) and a behavioral
pattern (3 types)
Note the Trademark. Geil Browning makes
lots of money telling people what their
personality type is. If only Galen had the
foresight…
Emergenetics: Thinking Types
Emergentics: Behavioral Types
Management by Strengths
(MBS)
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A business oriented “typing” in which one of four
communication styles is dominant. In
understanding employees communication and
collaborative styles, a manager can better put
together and lead better teams, or so the
company line goes.
Note, the colors are different than Emergenetics.
Also, in MBS, traits can be below the threshold, so
that instead of having a bit of all, a person can be
negative in a trait.
No Trademark, but MBS charges the same amount
as every other personality test, so it is all the same.
MBS
 Directness
(Red) – self-confident,
authoritative, problem-solvers, project
people, decisive
 Extroversion (Green) – Like teamwork,
work through others, optimistic, peopleoriented
 Pace (Blue) – Organized, easy-going,
schedule-oriented, methodical
 Structure (Yellow) – fact-oriented,
structured, perfectionist, organized
Multiple Intelligences
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Howard Gardner’s landmark theory of multiple
intelligences also helps “define” people. For
Gardner, “intelligence is an ability to solve a problem
or fashion a product that members of many different
cultures would value.”
In the U.S., intelligence is usually recognized and
measured in two areas: Linguistic ability and
Logical/Mathematical ability. This bias, according to
Gardner, is reflected in our schools and prevents
some students from receiving a well-balanced
education on the basis that they are not recognized
as being intelligent. Gardner and his colleagues
suggest that besides the two abilities valued by
Eurocentric cultures, our schools and educators
should also be aware that intelligence can be
manifested in six additional ways. He believes that
"most social purposes require a combination of
intelligences for successful performances"
(Smagorinsky 3).
The Seven Eight Multiple
Intelligences
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Linguistic: sensitivity to words--their sounds, meanings,
rhythms
Logical/Mathematical: sensitivity to and ability to generate
logical and numerical patterns and long chains of
reasoning
Musical: ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch,
timbre and the forms of musical expression
Spatial: ability to perceive the visual/spatial world
accurately and perform transformations on one's
perceptions
Bodily/kinesthetic: ability to use the body to solve problems
or fashion products
Interpersonal: ability to discern and respond appropriately
to the moods, temperaments, motivations, desires of other
people
Intrapersonal: ability to achieve self-knowledge
Nature: ability to recognize patterns and synergism of
natural ecosystems and their inhabitants
Leadership Styles
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The academic journal The Leadership
Quarterly (ScienceDirect) has more about
leadership styles than you can possibly
imagine.
For the purposes of group projects, recognize
that some people respond better to having
leaders (ask-assertive) whereas others
respond well to being leaders (tell-assertive).
In any case, it is important that there be a
consensus as to who needs to be consulted
before significant decisions are made.
Basics of Leadership Style
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Tannenbaum and Schmidt's landmark "How to choose a
leadership pattern“ in Harvard Business Review (1958)
shows the simplest way of considering leadership and the
agent/power relationship