cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The underpinning theoryPerformingThe final stage of team development is performing. The team has successfullytraversed the three previous stages and therefore has clarity aroundits purpose, its structure and its roles. It has engaged in a rigorous processof working out how it should work and relate together, and is comfortablewith the team norms it has established. Not only has the team workedthese things through, but it has embodied them as a way of working. It hasdeveloped a capacity to change and develop, and has learnt how to learn.The team can quite fruitfully get on with the task in hand and attend toindividual and team needs at the same time.AdjourningA fifth stage was later added which acknowledged that teams do not lastfor ever. This stage represents the period when the team’s task has beencompleted and team members disperse. Some practitioners call this stagemourning, highlighting the emotional component. Others call it transformingas team members develop other ways of working.THE LEADERSHIP ISSUES IN TEAM CHANGEFOOD FOR THOUGHTRalph Stacey, in his book Strategic Management and OrganisationalDynamics (1993), describes what happens when a group is broughttogether to study the experience of being in a group, without any furthertask and without an appointed leader. Known as a Group RelationsConference and run by the Tavistock Institute in London, this processinvolves a consultant who forms part of the group to offer views on thegroup process but otherwise takes no conscious part in the activity. This:always provokes high levels of anxiety in the participants… which… findexpression in all manner of strange behaviours. Group discussions take on amanic form with asinine comments and hysterical laughter… the participantsattack the visiting consultant… becoming incredibly rude…Members try to replace the non-functioning consultant… but they rarelyseem to be successful in this endeavour. They begin to pick on an individual,82