Managing Sticky Situations at Work

Sticky Situations in Meetings 117what they were saying, and he challenged them to look for ways to gettheir process implemented.Now that Albert has applied the SIJR Model for the European team,he knows he can do so for each of the other four virtual teams. Eachteam will be different and will require a different approach.CONCLUSIONSaying it just right within a group is more complicated than saying itjust right to one person. Groups require an understanding of theunique characteristics of team development. We saw two instanceswhere groups nearly failed because members ignored the team developmentprocess. The design group panicked because one member catapultedthe group into tasks that only a group in the Performing Stagecould accomplish. In the second situation we observed Karl’s groupstruggling because of membership changes. Longer-term membersresisted going backwards and thus left out the new members by developinga strong clique.Typical problems in groups such as constant lateness, tasks not gettingcompleted, or disagreement and strife among members usuallysignal a group in the Storming Stage. Leaders of those groups mustpatiently allow members to organize themselves around the groupmission. Bold and Expressive leaders tend to move too quickly fromstage to stage, as we saw with Karl. Technicals make good team leaderswhen they understand the logic of the team development process aswe saw with Albert. Technicals have the patience to allow the groupto develop in its own way. Sympathetics make good team leaders ifthey can tolerate the natural strife of the Storming Stage.Finally, the last situation demonstrated how difficult it is to managea group you cannot see. Albert had the good sense to select groupmembers. By doing so, he hoped to move more quickly from theForming and Storming Stages into the Norming and PerformingStages. We saw, however, that even with that precaution, Albert faceda group wishing to jump ahead with tasks only groups in the PerformingStage might tackle. He had to backtrack in order to keep the groupmoving.Chapter 8 departs from group sticky situations to an examinationof how office relationships affect our ability to sayitjustright.In