CTC Team Dynamics & Group Development 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A team coach is working with a high-performing team that has become overly insular and rejects all external input. Which risk does this MOST represent?
- Social loafing
- Group polarization
- Insularity and groupthink (Correct answer)
- Over-norming
Correct answer: Insularity and groupthink
When a cohesive team rejects outside perspectives and becomes self-referential, it is exhibiting insularity often combined with groupthink tendencies.
Question 2: According to Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model, which question must a team answer FIRST to move through the model?
- Why are we doing this?
- Who are you? (Correct answer)
- What are we doing?
- How will we do it?
Correct answer: Who are you?
The first stage of the Drexler/Sibbet model is Orientation, anchored by the question 'Who are you?' as team members establish identity and belonging.
Question 3: A team coach uses Wilfred Bion's work to explain why a team keeps seeking a savior leader rather than doing their own work. Which Bion concept applies?
- Work group mentality
- Dependency basic assumption (Correct answer)
- Pairing assumption
- Fight-flight assumption
Correct answer: Dependency basic assumption
Bion's 'Dependency' basic assumption describes a group that behaves as if it exists to be protected and sustained by an omnipotent leader.
Question 4: A team has clear goals and trusts each other but consistently underperforms because members don't leverage each other's strengths. Which team coaching focus is MOST needed?
- Clarifying roles and interdependencies (Correct answer)
- Rebuilding psychological safety
- Revisiting the team charter
- Addressing interpersonal conflict
Correct answer: Clarifying roles and interdependencies
When trust and goals are in place but performance lags, clarifying how roles interconnect and how strengths complement each other is the key lever.
Question 5: In team development, 'norming' is BEST characterized by which behavior?
- Members compete for status and challenge the leader's authority
- Members establish rules, resolve conflict, and develop cohesion (Correct answer)
- Members focus solely on task execution with minimal interpersonal friction
- Members orient themselves and test boundaries cautiously
Correct answer: Members establish rules, resolve conflict, and develop cohesion
Norming involves the emergence of group cohesion, agreed-upon norms, and resolution of earlier conflicts from the Storming stage.
Question 6: A team coach is asked to facilitate a session on the team's 'shadow side.' What does this term MOST refer to?
- Unofficial networks, unspoken rules, and hidden agendas that influence team behavior (Correct answer)
- The negative emotions team members experience during conflict
- The gap between stated team values and actual behavior
- Unconscious biases that individual team members hold
Correct answer: Unofficial networks, unspoken rules, and hidden agendas that influence team behavior
The 'shadow side' of a team refers to the informal, covert dynamics — unspoken norms, hidden agendas, and unofficial power structures — that shape behavior beneath the surface.
Question 7: Which team coaching stance BEST supports a team moving through Tuckman's Storming stage productively?
- Reducing coach presence to let conflict resolve naturally
- Directing the team toward consensus quickly to minimize disruption
- Holding space for conflict while helping the team develop productive dialogue norms (Correct answer)
- Separating conflicting members for individual coaching
Correct answer: Holding space for conflict while helping the team develop productive dialogue norms
Effective coaching during Storming means tolerating and working with conflict rather than suppressing it, while building the team's capacity to handle disagreement constructively.
CTC Team Dynamics & Group Development 3
A team coach is working with a high-performing team that has become overly insular and rejects all external input.
Which risk does this MOST represent?