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Navigating Storming and Norming: Group Transition Period

Learn strategies to overcome conflict, resistance, and anxiety during the group stages of Storming and Norming. Understand peer relationships, resistance forms, and task processing to foster group development effectively.

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Navigating Storming and Norming: Group Transition Period

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  1. Chapter 5 The Transition Period in a Group: Storming and Norming Prepared by: Nathaniel N. Ivers, Wake Forest University

  2. Roadmap • The Group Stage of Storming • Techniques for Overcoming Resistance and Resolving Conflict • The Group Stage of Norming

  3. Storming • Time of conflict and anxiety • When the group moves from primary tension (awkwardness about being in a new situation) to secondary tension (intragroup conflict) (Bormann, 1975) • Group members and leaders struggle with issues related to structure, direction, control, catharsis, and interpersonal relationships (Hershenson et al., 2003; Maples, 1988).

  4. Storming • Each group experiences the storming process differently • A group’s development may be arrested in this stage by either dwelling on conflict or ignoring it • It is essential that group leaders help members recognize and deal with conflict, anxiety, and resistance (Gladding, 1994, Mahler, 1969). • Conflict resolution: Based on premise that conflict is primarily negative • Conflict management: Based on the premise that conflict can be beneficial

  5. Peer Relationships in Storming • Fears of losing control, being misunderstood, looking foolish, or being rejected • Concern for power • Informational power • Influential power • Authoritative power • Trust among peers

  6. Resistance During Storming • Resistance: Any behavior that moves the group away from areas of discomfort, conflict, or potential growth • Resistance appears to increase during the early part of the storming stage (Higgs, 1992) • Unprepared group leader may become defensive when resistance occurs

  7. Common Forms of Resistance • Indirect • Intellectualization • Questioning • Advice Giving • Band-Aiding • Dependency • Monopolizing • Direct • Attacking the group leader

  8. Task Processing in Storming • Ways of accomplishing a specific goal • May regress during storming, as a great deal of attention is placed on personal matters • Regression of task processing may result in scapegoating

  9. Working through Storming • Use a process observer • Use the process of leveling • Acknowledge what is occurring in the group independent of a process observer • Get feedback from members about how they are doing and what they think needs to be done (Greason, 2011; Ponzo, 1991) • Formal feedback • Informal feedback • Use motivational interviewing

  10. Results of Working through Storming • Cultivates a new dimension characterized by members making emotional space for one another and being accommodating • Increases group members’ response range, particularly around conflict management

  11. Conflict Management Orientations • Competing • Accommodating • Collaborating • Avoiding • Compromising

  12. Norms and Norming • Norms • expectations about group members’ behaviors that should or should not take place (Forsyth, 2013) • “Group norms regulate the performance of the group as an organized unit” (Napier & Gershenfeld, 2004, p. 101) • Group Norming • Feeling of “We-Ness,” identity, groupness, or cohesiveness that comes when individuals feel they belong to an association or organization larger than themselves

  13. Peer Relationships During Norming • Peer interactions are manifest through the following: • Identification • Here-and-now experiences • Hope • Cooperation • Collaboration • Cohesion

  14. Task Processes During Norming • Agreement on the establishment of norms, or rules and standards from which to operate the group • Prescriptive Norms • Proscriptive Norms • Commitment to the group as a whole, its rules, and to individual goals

  15. Promoting Norming Can be promoted through actions by either the group leader or group members: • Supporting • Empathizing • Facilitating • Self-Disclosure

  16. Results of Norming • Prepares groups for the working stage of a group • Helps members feel connected with the group and, therefore, allows them to concentrate on being productive • Provides guidelines under which to operate • Helps group members feel good about themselves and the group as a whole

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