6165 Communication and Collaboration, Week 6

This week you read about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Consider the adjourning phase for several of the groups in which you have been involved. Think about which aspects of the groups made for the hardest good-bye. Are high-performing groups hardest to leave? Groups with the clearest established norms? Which of the groups that you participated in was hardest to leave? Why? What sorts of closing rituals have you experienced or wish you had experienced? How do you imagine that you will adjourn from the group of colleagues you have formed while working on your master's degree in this program? Why is adjourning an essential stage of teamwork?

I can definitely say that it has been very difficult to leave high-performing groups, and I still remember all of the emotions that were involved each time.  The most difficult group to leave was the first high-performing group that I was a part of as a teenager, my 4-H club.  I was on the board with a few other teenagers and we worked extremely hard get the club to where it was, and we even started a mentorship program.  We had the club running very productively and recruited more members than any other year.  It was a bittersweet experience because we were ready to move on but unsure if the club would be as successful in the hands of a new board.  Every year we held an event called Achievement Night, where part of the evening was spent saying goodbye to the old board and welcoming the new board.  It gave anyone in the club an opportunity to say thank you, retell a story of a time when someone helped them and what it meant to them, then included a photo montage of the past year.  It was so touching to hear how we helped and impacted others, I have never forgotten it and it was over twenty years ago.

              I would like to keep in touch with the group of colleagues that I have formed through the process of obtaining my master’s degree, and I think that technology allows us to do this successfully.  A blog, email and social media are wonderful, easy tools to utilize for the purpose of staying connected with others.  I still enjoy looking at blogs of previous classmates and commenting, it is a way for me to learn something new and stay connected with other early childhood professionals.  Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it allows for closure, a chance to say goodbye, and an opportunity to celebrate the team’s successes.