Team Trouble

 

What do you think about Tuckman's assertion that the team needs to experience and resolve conflict before they will perform well as a team?

In general, people only find out how strong they are when they are going through some type of adversity. Not to say that you need hardship in your life, or a team can not perform until they are short staffed, under deadline, or dealing with some other catastrophe. As a team to really come together, they need to have a common goal that binds them and more often than not, those things come to play when there is a problem that needs solving and a deadline to meet.

Another reason that conflict or difficulties bind people as a team unit is because in a work setting we may be unsure of feedback and hold back some of our ideas or skills. When a problem is at hand, all hands and skills are on deck and people are eager to hear solutions. A person’s idea that they may have been too hesitant to bring up when things were going well, may toss it out there now. A person who can do a skill or task that needs to be done quickly, but does it messy, might be just the person the job needs right now.

The biggest example I have is when the teacher and aide seem to work in unison for the classroom goals and flow. I’ve had that and it’s amazing. I am on 100% when kids are in the room and I don’t have additional brain power to manage and adult. When the other staff and I understand how each other work, things get done. The best detailed example that I can think of is when we were making a project and a student asked if I could send the directions home so they could make an additional one at home. I said yes myself or one of the adults could do that but not right now during the activity. By end of day, there were copies of the directions on my desk to send home. When I mentioned to the para, she simply stated, “I heard you say it, knew you would forget to ask or be too busy to do it, so I did it.” Which is 900% true.