Nominating team members is far easy and little time consuming task for the
management but will the nominated members transform into a team? On the other hand if
the members volunteer for a team, they are willing to adapt themselves so as to make the
team successful. Team building and team performance is a five phased process which
includes the following as described by Robbin & Finly (1995):
- Forming (when the group members learn how to deal with one another)
- Storming (negotiations and discussions among the team members)
- Norming (when values and rules for team operations are developed)
- Performing (when the team gets into action)
- Adjourning
Going through this process keeps the team organized for taking up a task but it
does not ensure the high performance level of the team. While explaining the behavior of
team members Gautham and Bathra say that “team members rely on each other and
collaborate for success and goal achievement” (1993). This can be explained by giving
example of army teams. The army personnel are selected through a well defined process,
trained together and obedience for rules and regulations are inculcated among them in a
manner that they know about their responsibilities and norms of dealing with one another.
Though the rules and norms set for the army teams is not by consensus but their initial
consent to join the army means that they accept the approach adopted there. According to
Sugabthi and Samuel for a team to be effective and sustaining through different
circumstances it is important that three focuses should be present in the team i.e. personal
focus, social focus and professional focus (2005).
Given that the above process is all the same for all army personnel, still when a
similar type of task is assigned to different teams of these personnel, the result is that they
perform differently. One team among them may be identified as a very good team. The
members of such a team not only know how to deal with one another and accommodate
themselves in the team, in fact they also know about each others strengths and
weaknesses. Besides understanding each other Gautham and Bathra highlights that team