Part I: Group Development

All teams go through a series of stages in its life cycle. Forming is the first stage and the
group has passed this stage because by now they have gotten to know each other, touched basis
with what is considered acceptable behavior, made clear what task they are facing and how to divide
up the workload. This is evident by Christine telling us about each members main attributes, Mike
testing the groups limits by saying no way!!! to having very early meetings, them having elected
Christine as the leader and divided up what everyone needs to do. Although it seems like Mike is
missing a lot of meetings and therefore he missed big parts of the important forming stage. This
makes him feel that he is not part of the group and on top of that they have had two incidences were
all members except Mike enjoyed each others company and Mike got there later making him feel
even more left out and making him withdrawing from the group.
Part of the forming stage is about founding out what can the group offer me and what will
I be asked to contribute, but Mike missed those important things with his lack of presence
(Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, & Uhl-Bien, 2010). Christine is the leader and by knowing the
importance of everyones presence in the forming stage, she should have made sure that everyone
was present every time they met. Mike expressed his avoidance to the group in the cafeteria and at
that time Christine should have told him the importance of his presence in order to maximize the
teams performance by his added value. The storming stage includes tension among group members
and Mike has clearly expressed his tension against the other group members. Mikes lack of presence
in the forming stage seems to create a clique of the rest of the group enjoying each other company
and further bonding without him. Nonetheless membership expectations tend to be clarified, and
the attention shifts toward obstacles standing in the way of team goals (Schermerhorn, Hunt,
Osborn, & Uhl-Bien, 2010). In this case it is Mikes lack of performance that is the problem because
they need everyones inputs and he has not handed in his part. Mikes lack of performance is due to
him missing the forming stage and Christine taking action by including everybody in the beginning
could probably have prevented this.
Part II: Problem Identification
It is important when a group is formed that the person that is responsible for
coordinating task for each group member gives a clear understanding of what role each
group member will play. Normally the process of coordinating the team takes place in the
norming stage, where team members begin to work as a unit. During this stage team
members have already undergone trough the storming stage, where all tension, and
pressures are address and shift focus towards the team goals. Nevertheless, in The
Forgotten Group Member, Christine was elected as the Team Coordinator, but failed to
establish the role that each team member will have to undertake in order to complete the
assignment. In order to achieve effective teams, the team coordinator should made it clear
that each individuals should be held accountable for their performance,(Schermerhorn,
Hunt, Osborn, & Uhl-Bien, 2010).
In regards to daily task performance, Christine had difficulties addressing one of team
members task performances when it came towards completing the assignment. All of the
team members had done their part as far as the assignment is concern except for one. The
team member was too busy dealing with his personal issues, and only handed in a rough
draft of his work, rather then the completed part that was assigned to him. This type of team
problem is known as social loafing, where one group member may work less hard in a group
when others are doing most of their part. Also the member was mostly absent and Christine
did not made him aware of the meeting schedules and task assignment that needed to be
submitted when they all met. That is why this particular group member felt excluded, and
withdrawn from participating due to the uncertainty of the task or battles about goals or
competing vision (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, & Uhl-Bien, 2010).

Works Cited
Schermerhorn, J. R., Hunt, J. G., Osborn, R. N., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2010). Organizational Behavior (11th
Edition ed.). United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.