LDR 726 Week 2 Team Development and Group Dynamics Example

Stages, Midpoints and Cohesion: How Wind Technician Crews Develop and Why Constant Reshuffling Stalls Them

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

LDR/726: The Dynamics of Group and Team Leadership

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Prairie Gale Wind Services, its crews and its records are composites written for a model paper.

Week 1 examined Prairie Gale Wind Services, a composite company that maintains about 2,100 wind turbines across the southern plains with 70 field crews. Crews with similar tools and training differed sharply in repeat repairs and injuries, and one input stood out: high-performing crews had stable membership, while low-performing crews changed members often. Over the past year, the company reassigned technicians about 180 times to cover vacancies, training absences and urgent jobs, and some crews had four different compositions in twelve months. Vice president of field operations Renee Castillo wants to understand why stability seems to matter. This paper examines team development models and the role of cohesion.

A Classic Sequence

Tuckman (1965) reviewed studies of small groups in therapy, training and laboratory settings and proposed a developmental sequence. Groups first form, testing boundaries and depending on leaders; then storm, with conflict over tasks and roles; then norm, developing cohesion and shared standards; and finally perform, focusing energy on tasks. The model describes both interpersonal relations and task activity and remains widely used.

Punctuated Equilibrium

Gersick (1988) studied eight project teams over their lifespans and found a different pattern. Teams established a framework of behavior in their first meeting and kept it through a first phase of inertia. At almost exactly the midpoint of their allotted time, they underwent a transition, dropping old patterns, engaging outside supervisors and adopting a new approach that carried them to completion. Development was triggered by awareness of time and deadlines rather than gradual stages.

Cohesion and Performance

Beal et al. (2003) conducted a meta-analysis to clarify the relationship between cohesion and performance. They distinguished interpersonal attraction, task commitment and group pride and found that all three related to performance, with task commitment relating most consistently. Cohesion related more strongly to performance behaviors than to performance outcomes and more strongly when work required coordination. The direction of causality runs both ways: cohesive groups perform better, and successful groups become more cohesive.

Crew Histories

Records of crew composition, repeat repairs and injuries over two years, along with interviews from members of eight crews, allowed a look at how crews developed.

Stable Crews

Crews that kept the same members for a year or more showed a pattern consistent with Tuckman's later stages. Members described early disagreements about who did what at the top of the tower, which settled into clear norms: who leads the climb, who handles the rescue kit, how to confirm lockout of electrical systems. By their second season, these crews worked with few words and high trust.

Reshuffled Crews

Crews that changed members often never seemed to leave the early stages. Each new member brought habits from another crew, and the crew repeated debates about procedures that stable crews had settled long ago. A technician on a crew that changed four times said it felt like starting over every few months.

A crew that changes members every quarter keeps paying the cost of forming and storming without ever collecting the benefit of performing.

A Midpoint Pattern

Gersick's model fits another observation. Crews assigned to major component replacement projects, usually lasting six to eight weeks, often changed their approach around the midpoint, typically after a supervisor's site visit and a review of the schedule. Projects where supervisors visited near the midpoint finished on time more often.

Cohesion in the Crews

Survey items on task commitment and interpersonal attraction were highest in stable, high-performing crews. Consistent with Beal et al. (2003), task commitment showed the strongest link to repeat-repair rates. Some low-performing crews reported high interpersonal attraction, members liked one another, but low task commitment, suggesting that friendship alone did not improve work.

Norms That Matter at Height

The norms stable crews develop are not trivial. They include who calls a stop when weather turns, how members confirm that electrical systems are locked out, how tools are tethered and who carries the rescue kit. In crews that change often, these norms must be renegotiated each time, and in the meantime members rely on assumptions that may differ. Two of the year's injuries occurred within a month of a crew change, when members had different expectations about tool tethering.

Roles and Role Clarity

Role clarity also suffers in reshuffled crews. A technician who led climbs on one crew may join another where a different person leads, creating confusion about authority at the top of the tower. Stable crews settle these roles early; reshuffled crews may never fully settle them.

Why Reassignment Happens

Reassignment is driven by real pressures: unexpected resignations, training schedules and urgent turbine failures. Each move solves an immediate problem but imposes a hidden cost on the crews involved.

The Cost of Reassignment

A rough estimate shows the hidden cost. If each reassignment adds two months of reduced performance for the receiving crew, the year's 180 moves produced about 360 crew-months of below-par work. At the gap in repeat-repair rates between stable and reshuffled crews, that translates into roughly 150 additional repeat visits a year, each requiring a crew to drive out and climb again. The cost of a floating pool of six technicians is likely lower than the cost of these repeat visits.

Recommendation 1: Protect Core Crews

Prairie Gale will designate core crews whose membership remains stable for at least a year, using a pool of floating technicians to cover vacancies instead of breaking up core crews.

Recommendation 2: Structured Formation

When a crew forms or adds a member, the lead technician will hold a structured formation session covering roles, procedures and expectations, speeding the move through early stages.

Recommendation 3: Deliberate Midpoints

For long projects, supervisors will schedule a midpoint review to prompt the transition Gersick observed, rather than leaving it to chance.

Recommendation 4: Build Task Commitment

Crews will set quarterly goals for repeat repairs and safety and review them together, building the task commitment most linked to performance.

Supervisors' Role in Development

Regional supervisors can speed development. Supervisors who visited newly formed crews in their first two weeks, joined their briefings and helped settle roles saw those crews reach stable performance faster. Supervisors who assumed new crews would sort things out alone saw longer periods of uneven results. This suggests that supervisors should concentrate attention on crews at formation and at midpoints rather than spreading it evenly.

Limits

The analysis cannot fully separate stability from other differences among crews, such as supervisors' styles. A trial of core crews in one region will test the effect.

Conclusion

Research offers both a stage model of team development and a punctuated model driven by time, and meta-analytic evidence shows that task commitment links cohesion to performance. At Prairie Gale, frequent reassignment keeps some crews cycling through early stages, while stable crews develop norms, trust and commitment. Protecting core crews, structuring formation, scheduling midpoints and building task commitment can help more crews reach high performance.

References

Beal, D. J., Cohen, R. R., Burke, M. J., & McLendon, C. L. (2003). Cohesion and performance in groups: A meta-analytic clarification of construct relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(6), 989-1004. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.6.989

Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31(1), 9-41. https://doi.org/10.5465/256496

Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022100