Theory of group development and interaction In the corporate context, the transition from the "singular" culture of yesterday to the "team" culture of today has led to a new era of learning, development and innovation. However, this change also brought with it a certain amount of dissatisfaction, conflict and confusion. This article will focus on Tuckman's theory and discuss how Tuckman's five stages of team development and interaction apply to the work environment and leadership effectiveness. Tuckman's Theory Tuckman's theory argues that groups enter four predictable and elementary stages of development and each of these stages contains both activity and maintenance functions. These phases are Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Subsequently, in 1977, Bruce Tuckman, in collaboration with Mary Ann Jensen, updated his model with a fifth phase called “adjourning” (Smith, 2005). To this Tuckman stated: We examined 22 studies that appeared after the model's original publication and that we identified using the Social Sciences Citation Index. These articles, one of which dubbed the phases the "Tuckman hypothesis", tended to support the existence of the four phases, but also suggested a fifth phase for which no perfect rhyme could be found. We called it “updating” (Tuckman 1984). The five phases of developmentTraining. Training consists of orienting team members, testing boundaries between team members, and gathering information about the task and how the team should approach it. Team members are also busy deciding on team organization, roles and schedules. During this phase, individual team members evaluate their acceptance among other team members and avoid any co...... middle of paper ......others and with other subgroups. References Lagace, M. (2004 ). Working knowledge for business leaders. How team leaders show support – or not. Retrieved November 5, 2006, from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4155.html.Mackintosh, A. (2003). The technical manager. Team development stages. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from http://www.performance-am.com/coaching_models.htm.MacLeod, C. (2002). Leadership Tips. 5 Stages of group development. Retrieved November 1, 2006, from http://www.gmu.edu/student/csl/5stages.html.Miami University. (2006). The leadership handout series. Retrieved November 3, 2006, from http://www.units.muohio.edu/saf/sac/handout/stages.html.Smith, M. K. (2005). Bruce W. Tuckman - Forming, storming, norming, and performing in groups. The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from www.infed.org/thinkers/tuckman.htm.