Introduction
The third stage of team development, as elaborated in Susan Wheelan’s “Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for Members and Leaders,” involves a massive shift from conflict resolution to establishing trust and structure within a team. This stage serves as the foundation for the higher-level development of group processes and performance. It occurs when a team’s conflicts are resolved at Stage 2, leading to greater sharing of goals and culture. At this stage, positive trust and a more cohesive relationship between the team members will be the turning point toward a more integrated and effective group dynamic.
Communication
In Stage 3, the communication among members is much more open and task-oriented. This move is critical in transitioning the team from individual territoriality and power to cooperation and collective tasks (Wheelan et al., 2021). Professional territoriality wanes, and members focus more on the task and less on status, control, or influence issues. This stage of team development is characterized by more mature negotiations regarding roles, organization, and procedures. Therefore, negotiations are a pivotal factor in promoting and strengthening positive working relationships and overall team functionality.
Role Change
The other key thing at stage 3 is the change in the kind of role the leader plays. As the team continues to mature, the role of the leader becomes more consultative and less directive, indicating an increase in the team’s autonomy and spirit of collaboration (Wheelan et al., 2021). It is essential to empower the team members to take up joint responsibility. It is important to give the leader flexibility to shift from a directive to a facilitating role in the team’s progress and success in achieving the objective.
Examples
Stage 3, Google demonstrates an application of the practice in developing its teams. It is natural for a developing technology company to face internal conflicts in its early days and to experience competition for influence among team members. A need for balance innovation with operational efficiency characterized this phase.
Admitting these problems, Google took steps to make the collaboration more robust (Burnison, 2019). By using the open communication and conflict resolution strategy, Google has reached the third stage of team development. People changed their attitude toward the team’s goals and began cooperating with greater trust to achieve everyday goals. It led to the creation of more task-oriented teams and lower levels of professional territoriality.
Another good example that can be linked with Wheelan’s model was the changing leadership style at Google during this stage. This has then led to a change in leadership style from directive to consultative. This shift has empowered team members to higher levels of autonomy and encouraged them to be more participative in the decisions they would like to see implemented. Not only did this empower the employees, but it also made the work environment innovative and flexible.
Google’s leaders began to focus more on guiding teams than managing them. By doing so, they created a context in which team members would be more engaged and committed to the group’s objectives (Burnison, 2019). Changing roles and tasks alongside shifting goals increased goal clarity and team consensus. Google’s evolution through this stage of team development underscores the importance of leadership adaptability and, with it, the benefits of cultivating a trust-based, structured, and collaborative team culture, as Susan Wheelan propounds in her work on effective team development.
Conclusion
In Stage 3, as defined by Susan Wheelan, trust and structure would be developed, task-related communication would increase, and the leadership role would become more consultative. The later stage sees greater cohesiveness, clearer goal understanding, and an orientation towards a collective goal over and above individual ambition. The team’s transformation at Google Corporation is a classic example of this phase, demonstrating how the capability to manage it can enhance the team’s performance and success.
References
Burnison, G. (2019). 7 years ago, Google set out to find what makes the “perfect” team — and what they found shocked other researchers. CNBC.
Wheelan, S. A., Akerlund, M., & Jacobsson, C. (2021). Creating effective teams: A guide for members and leaders (6th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.