Considering various groups that I have been in involved in over the years and reflecting on the adjourning stage which is stage five of Team Development also known as the "Time to Wrap Up" stage. The aspects of the group that was the hardest to leave was when I worked in Germany at a child development center where we were stationed at Wuerzburg. It was for me because I developed strong trusting bonds with the people that I worked with mainly because I had no family or friends from the states. The people in Germany were my family as well as my co-workers so we relied on each other for support, personally and professionally. When one spouse would deploy the rest of us took care of that family, we even lost some soldiers due to deployment in Afghanistan. I keep in touch with some of my co-workers to this day and just recently one of the teachers I worked with in Germany has transferred to Fort Belvoir! What a reunion we had! Saying good-bye to my Germany family was filled with tears, hugs, and well wishes.
Closing rituals that I have experienced were farewell dinners where staff and their families would gather at a popular restaurant to eat, drink, give gifts, and small speeches were made in honor the person leaving. I have also experienced gathering at dance clubs to enjoy each others company with dancing and getting "wasted" ALL night long!
I imagine that I will adjourn from the group of colleagues I have formed while working on my master's degree in this program by wishing them continued success, meeting them in person for the first time during our graduation where hugs, tears, and laughs will be shared. Maybe I will even network with some of my colleagues for future references.
adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it allows the members to appreciate the efforts of all team members that made the end results successful. It also allows members to reflect and decide if they would be interested in recruiting some of the same team members, or not for future projects based on their personal experience.
Hello Shelita
ReplyDeleteI understand you when you said that it was hard for you to leave your coworkers that were like your family in Germany. When I decided to come to live in the United States, it was very hard for me to leave part of my family and my best friends behind. It was so difficult to say good bye that last night when many of them came to visit me for the last time. However, we have also kept in touch through emails and phone calls. According to O'Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, and Teven (2015) “your family constitutes one primary group to which you belong; your friends are another” (p.245).
Leticia
Reference
O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J. (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New
York: Bedford/St. Martin's.