40 years of storming: a historical review of Tuckman’s model of small group development By Denise A. Bonebright

This article brings to mind the many advancements and studies in group development by naval officers and/or military departments. The need for consistent and repeatable processes within the military is crucial, as a result in the realm of group development is quite extensive when observing military operations. I have found that military studies and developmental models have served as key fundamental research on grpup processes and development.

In the article it is the widespread use of Tuckman’s model in HRD and management is mentioned and is used to show hows how foundational models can become pillars in fields. This reminds me of similar industries adopting early frameworks simply because they are the only available references at the time. I would be interested in learning more about other models that have been developed after the Tuckman model and how common and accurate they are within teams.

Group dynamics are more complex in the real world than Tuckman’s suggest. The idea of moving linearly from one stage to the next is overly simplistic and ignores external pressures. In reality, teams are deeply influenced by external factors like organizational culture, market conditions, or even global events that dramatically affect team functioning. These external pressures can disrupt group development in ways Tuckman’s model doesn’t account for.

How to Link Personal Values with Team Values by Jaffe, Dennis T. and Scott, Cynthia D.

In this article the focus on aligning personal and team values reminds me of real-world workplace conflicts where misaligned values often cause misunderstandings. This creates tension, leading to conflict, especially when the company’s values aren’t clearly communicated or open to discussion.

This article brings up an interesting point about expectations of values within the workplace. So often have employees entered a workplace and just assumed that the other employees and managers would have similar values. On the opposing side, workplaces often assume employees are aligned with the company’s values, without taking the time to explore individuals’ values. This assumption is detrimental as it allows employees go off of assumptions rather than clearly defined values. Lulling companies and employees into a false sense of security. By not having clear expectations of values including standards on how work should be done, what goals are prioritized, or how success is measured conflicts arise. Additionally, when conflicts arise, team set values can serve as a non-judgmental reference point to resolve them.

The main difference that I could find between this article and the real world is companies focus on understanding individual employees’ values. In the real world companies are much more focused on defining and enforcing corporate values. The text describes organizations that leverage and discuss personal values. Many times corporations will not even speak about corporate or personal values unless a conflict arises. Using the discussion of values as a fire extinguisher instead of a prevention mechanism. In short, the real world often leans more toward reactive conflict resolution based on assumed shared values.

By: Maggie Pohl
This article reminded me of how I view the corporate workplace in today’s society. I have worked in a couple of different environments and the one that affected me the most was a lab space in which ethical leadership was not a top priority. Open-door policy was not followed, and higher up management wasn’t on site at all in my 4 months of working there.
This article brings up a lot of points that I am sure many people have been apart of within the workspace. For me personally I think that making ethical behavior apart of conversations within meetings is important to allow for ethical considerations to be met.
This story does remind me of things that have happened within my own life. My mentor within this workplace was pretty much the sole minority within the company. In meetings he would speak up and give his opinion on policies and decisions that were being made that raised questions of ethics, and time and time again was ignored. Seeing the disappointment on his face after every meeting for over 4 months was enough for me to realize that having an environment in which you can speak about ethical practices and leaders who will use that input to improve the company is so important.

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