Ever found yourself feeling frustrated and a little let down not so long after you’ve hired a new team member who you thought was going to be great? The team used to really get along, but now suddenly it seems awkward and a little uncomfortable. What is that all about?!
Bruce Tuckman in 1965 identified this challenge and gave it a structure. He called it forming, storming, norming and then performing, all stages of group development. There have been iterations of this initial structure, but the core remains mostly unchanged.
So what does it mean for you and how can you use this knowledge to get your team to perform again and more quickly? We’ll break down a few key variables to get your team thriving once again.
Forming - with the forming stage the team members appear to be finding their way as individuals. They are often unsure of where their boundaries end and where others begin. Your role as their team leader is to help guide them to know the new boundaries, and to get the team focused on what the common goals are. Here are some ways you can do this:
👍 Engage each employee in what the organisational goals are
👍 Share what your team goals are but then include the team in deciding the best path forward.
👍 Bring up topics that have the possibility to cause conflict, but in a safe environment to push you through to storming.
Then comes the Storming! This is where you feel the group tension growing, sometimes rapidly. You’ve outlined the goals with them, and now team members who were once happy start showing signs of edginess and irritation. This phase is all about the team learning to trust each other but they may need to test the limits first.
So how do you get past this stage?
⛈️ Find ways to develop trust between team members, highlight each other’s strengths to get them to rely on each other in a positive way
⛈️ Know that it’s normal and support them to also see this is a normal part of team development by talking about it openly and productively
⛈️ As a leader make it safe for them to come to you as the source of knowledge and ultimately the one who needs to make those final decisions.
From this point you begin to start Norming. This can be a great time, everyone is doing their jobs, they know their boundaries and the frustrations and irritations are starting to wain. You can stay in norming for quite some time, and if you bring on a new team member, may even slip back to forming and storming. I urge you to have some patience, your team members who’ve been through it before may even become a resource for you to get through it again to norming more quickly this time.
Finally, your team has normed, they know their roles well and you’re really starting to hit some of those goals you set out in the beginning, this is when you’re Performing! How exciting!! Now is the time to take advantage of the good will you’ve created and push the team towards bigger, loftier and more exciting challenges, congratulations!
There’s no perfect solution to getting through the phases, but I encourage you to be honest with your team, confront the challenges you face in a productive way and involve your team in getting through them together. The more they trust and respect each other, the more quickly you’ll find yourselves performing again.
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