Easy concepts made hard in questions - Tuckman's Model & Maslow's Hierarchy

Don't underestimate easy concepts. They can turn sour and bitter at the exam and unnecessarily take points off your final result. Let's have a look at typical two: Tuckman's Model and Maslow's Theory. They might sound easy but don't take them for granted.


First one of them is Tuckman's Model. Pay attention to this model, it's quite popular these days.

There is nothing difficult about remembering the stages:
- Forming
- Storming
- Norming
- Performing
- Adjourning

The difficulty starts when you're required to tell one stage from another because they usually use sneaky ways to ask. Forming, storming, etc although looks easy when you read it, may be quite confusing in questions

Notice key words:
FORMING -> team meets, learns, independent
STORMING -> team begins to address, conflict, chaos, fighting, counterproductive
NORMING -> team begins to work together, adjust, trust, understand, progressing
PERFORMING -> well-organized, smooth, effective, optimum, peak,
ADJOURNING -> team completes, delivers, moves on, released

The second one is Maslow's Theory of Motivation
However easy this model might look, all the more difficult it becomes in real questions. For instance, what is the difference between self-actualization and self-esteem? You 'sort of' know right?
Let's recap the layers:

Self-Actualization
Self-Esteem
Social
Security/Safety
Physical

If you give your staffer an important task to do, on which layer are you? You satisfy their self-esteem.
If somebody feels safe at work -> that's self-explanatory. Security.
If you recognise somebody for their performance -> Esteem
Sometimes the levels might be rephrased, described in similar words, and you need to know in which order the hierarchy is. So don't get the order wrong.