Stage 3 - Goal Clarification
What are we doing?
The third stage in the Drexler-Sibbet model is to ensure that all team members clearly understand the mission and the goals of the project so that they have a clear understanding of their purpose and objective. Having a shared vision and goals answers this stage's key question, "What are we doing here?", provides a clear path to meeting the expectations, and serves to ensure that team members are sufficiently motivated to participate in the team activities, contribute creative ideas, and perform at their highest potential.
Shared Mental Models
The common understanding of the objectives and the picture of the end goals can be correlated with shared mental models (SMM). Shared mental models help team members develop a common understanding and visual representation of the desired end state as well as the objectives to gauge success. Without a common operating model, individuals use their individual backgrounds, experience and current knowledge base to assume the group’s destination (Rentsch, & Klimoski, 2001).
SMM in virtual teams. While it is clear that shared mental models assist team performance by depicting a universal vision of the outcomes, research on the specific relevance of SMM to virtual teams has received little attention (Maynard, & Gilson, 2014). Since virtual teams currently have a wide variety of information and communication technologies (ICT) at their disposal and they rely nearly exclusively on that technology rather than face to face interactions, shared mental models could be impacted by different communication techniques.
Sense-making. Weick’s (1985) sense-making model provides the framework for analyzing how different communication methods could create disparate conclusions among team members as they work to develop their shared vision. Weick’s sense-making model includes the steps of contextualization, action, triangulation, deliberation, and affiliation (1985).
During the first three steps, individuals are comparing the current work ahead of them with their own personal contexts and activities and triangulating personal knowledge with the current team project to create a subjective image of the desired team picture. During the deliberation and affiliation stages, individual members are communicating with others to exchange and compare/contrast their personal visions and come to a common understanding of the group’s desired mental model.
Sense-making in virtual teams. Since communication is the vehicle of accomplishing the stages of deliberation and affiliation stages, the use of various ICTs could impact the creation of a shared mental model among virtual team members. The preliminary propositions discussed by Maynard and Gilson (2014) contend that research is needed to determine if there is a correlation between the type and frequency of the use of ICTs and the successful creation of shared mental models among virtual team members. While it is clear that mutual goals and shared mental models are important in virtual teams, specific research to confirm the difference between goal congruity in virtual versus face to face environments is sparse (Maynard, & Gilson, 2014). Additional research is needed in order to validate how the third stage of the Drexler-Sibbet Team Formation model (Sibbet, 2011) of goal clarification is unique in virtual environments as compared to traditional face-to-face team formations.
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Sense-making. Weick’s (1985) sense-making model provides the framework for analyzing how different communication methods could create disparate conclusions among team members as they work to develop their shared vision. Weick’s sense-making model includes the steps of contextualization, action, triangulation, deliberation, and affiliation (1985).
During the first three steps, individuals are comparing the current work ahead of them with their own personal contexts and activities and triangulating personal knowledge with the current team project to create a subjective image of the desired team picture. During the deliberation and affiliation stages, individual members are communicating with others to exchange and compare/contrast their personal visions and come to a common understanding of the group’s desired mental model.
Sense-making in virtual teams. Since communication is the vehicle of accomplishing the stages of deliberation and affiliation stages, the use of various ICTs could impact the creation of a shared mental model among virtual team members. The preliminary propositions discussed by Maynard and Gilson (2014) contend that research is needed to determine if there is a correlation between the type and frequency of the use of ICTs and the successful creation of shared mental models among virtual team members. While it is clear that mutual goals and shared mental models are important in virtual teams, specific research to confirm the difference between goal congruity in virtual versus face to face environments is sparse (Maynard, & Gilson, 2014). Additional research is needed in order to validate how the third stage of the Drexler-Sibbet Team Formation model (Sibbet, 2011) of goal clarification is unique in virtual environments as compared to traditional face-to-face team formations.
If Stage 3, Goal Clarification, is unresolved...
Teams that do not successfully clarify the goals can experience the following risks:
Teams that do not successfully clarify the goals can experience the following risks:
- If members do not understand their mission or goals, they could disengage from the group and could appear apathetic.
- Lack of clear understanding of the goals could also result in members being skeptical of the outcomes and doubt the potential worthiness of the team’s mission.
- When the goals are unclear, members could break away from the group and launch a competitive undertaking that they feel warrants their time and talents.
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