What stage of team development is your team at
By: Adrian Baillargeon
Tags: Leadership, Management, Teamwork, Management And Leadership, Team Development

Check out these signs to know what stage your team is at — and what you can do to help them shine

Should leaders, regardless of their leadership style, consider Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 Team Development model of forming, storming, norming or performing to drive a high-performance culture?

I must admit, I am a confessed junkie on biographies and books about team performance. I love it when I find a book on high performing teams with a publishing date from the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s.

In terms of how we work together, one would think we have evolved from those times in terms of how we work together.

However, I am not convinced we have progressed that much. HBR reported in 2016 that 58% of employees trust strangers more than their boss. In Australia, 91% of workers’ compensation claims involving a mental health condition were linked to work-related stress or mental stress. 58% of those claims were due to work-related harassment, bullying and work pressure. In Canada, it’s not much better. Nearly half (47%) of working Canadians ‘agree’ that their ‘work and place of work is the most stressful part of their day and life (Ipsos Reid, 2013).

Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerhahl once said, “Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” If this is the real definition of progress, then maybe we are doing a good job when it comes to working together.

So what’s the answer then to doing together better?

Let’s check Dr Google. A simple google search of “Characteristics of high performing teams” will provide you with ❤5 MILLION answers. Boom, perfect. With all that information out there, leading a high performing team should be as easy as putting together an IKEA bookshelf, right?

Or let’s look at a model that has been around for over 50 years. Bruce Tuckman’s Team Development Model, penned (or maybe typed…surely they had typewriters in the ’60s?) in 1965 is a great example of what is and what isn’t relevant in our modern world when it comes to team development. The team development model suggests teams go through the phases of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

When teams first come together, they are typically in the forming stage. This stage is characterised by:

Some team members excited to start something new; others may be anxious as they might not be 100% clear on what the team will do.

Most members are positive and polite. Politeness may be superficial as team members get a feel for each other.

Time is spent getting to know each other but with limited personal disclosure. There is a feeling of ‘Will I be accepted?’ and ‘Can I trust them?’

Leaders concentrate on setting direction and ground rules and establishing individual roles.

The team then typically transitions to the storming phase, which includes:

The reality of what needs to happen and when hits home.

People get really busy.

Cliques can start to form, conflicts arise, power struggles emerge and personal agendas surface.

Authority, ways of working and tasks may be questioned.

While others jockey to be in the good books with the leader. Leaders spend their time listening, coaching and building up levels of teamwork.

Once you (thankfully) progress to the norming phase, these are the signs you are there:

Resistance and differences are overcome.

Cohesiveness develops — people start to appreciate individual team members’ strengths, ask each other for feedback, and share more of themselves and their opinions more readily.

Individual agendas are set aside for group goals, and confidence grows.

Leaders challenge the team to avoid groupthink and start to include them in bigger picture decisions.

This doesn’t mean everything is smooth sailing — there may be times when new tasks arise, and the team slips back into Storming, but they can rebound back to Norming sooner.

Then euphoria hits and you reach the performing phase, characterised by:

The structure is set and works well for the team. Roles become flexible and functional.

Members’ confidence is high and channelled to the task, and they can work with minimal supervision.

Members share praise and constructive criticism productively.

Leaders spend their energy delegating, developing team members and aligning activity to emerging trends.

Not all teams get here — it all depends on how they manage conflict.

It’s unavoidable, but eventually, teams change and go through the adjourning phase. Some teams reach this naturally (think of a project with a beginning and end date), while others not so naturally (think restructure or a significant number of members changing teams in a short period of time). This stage needs to be acknowledged — the work and results achieved up to this point. The team needs to realise change is required and to move on from the previous ways of doing things. What worked here may not work in the future.

Has anything changed since 1965?

I would suggest all of these phases apply to today’s definition of teams. I am certain you could look at the definitions above and place your team in one or two of the stages.

What’s not relevant is the pace at which Tuckman originally suggested it should take to get through the phases.

I recently caught up with the CEO of a global sporting event. He has less than 18 months to create a team of up to 60 people (plus hundreds of volunteers). And this team must deliver one of the biggest sporting events ever delivered in the Southern Hemisphere.

Could you imagine this team taking:

3–4 months to get through the forming stage;

Another 6–8 months to get through the storming phase; and

A couple more to transition into the norming…and then hopefully by the end of the year performing?

Bloody hell — I suspect if it took this team 12–14 months to get to the performing stage, there wouldn’t be beer available to buy at the stadiums. The event would be over. Stadiums closed. No beer. Imagine the furore!

Why we need to change the time frames

Think about how consumer and employee expectations have changed. Consider:

47% of consumers expect a website to load in two seconds or less; 40% abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load (courtesy of KISSmetrics)

A recent study discovered that Youtube videos begin losing viewers at a delay of two seconds, and every one second of waiting after that marks a 5.8 per cent increase in the number of people who leave.

Seconds people, we are talking seconds! With your colleagues at work, it’s the same. E-mail/text/WhatsApp/pick your poison, communication etiquette often necessitates a response within hours, sometimes minutes. And depending on your product, it really is about seconds.

What you can do

As a leader, have a look at the Tuckman model. Where is your team at? If it’s not in the performing stage, think about what can be done to accelerate the pace at which you move forward. Or consider looking at some sort of team dynamics assessment to help identify the areas you need to focus on to progress quicker (in case you want one, here’s one I highly recommend. Warning — I am biased as I created it).

If you’ve recently taken over a new team, think about what you can do to accelerate the pace at which you can get your team from forming to performing.