Have you noticed your team’s dynamics have changed over the last few months whether during the lockdown or when your business started to open back up.? It means your team is going through a stage of group development. And you can guide them to become better, more cohesive, and higher performers.
According to Dr. Bruce Tuckman in his “Tuckman’s stages of group development”, teams constantly go through different stages of development and can regress to a less productive stage or advance closer to the desired performing stage.
If a team understands the four stages of team development, they become more adaptable and productive while being resilient and robust to change.
The four stages of group development are forming, storming, norming, and performing.
Stage 1: Forming
During the forming stage, the team members get to know each other. They tend to work independently of each other and are careful not to say things that will cause conflict. The team is not cohesive and is looking towards leadership for team objectives.
Stage 2: Storming
Once the team starts to gel the barriers of communication start to fall and the establishing of the hierarchy of the team begins. In this stage of Storming, conflicts tend to arise where each member is vying for their hierarchical position and pushing their opinions on to the rest of the team.
Many teams never leave this stage, and this is where office politics tends to exacerbate other issues. This is stage team members try to weed each other out of the team. Leadership needs to step in quickly to get the team through this stage.
Stage 3: Norming
As the team gels more, each member understands what is needed of them and starts to accept the team hierarchy. More importantly, they start to accept each member’s working style and idiosyncrasies. During this stage, conflict is reduced but the team is in danger of not communicating properly since there tends to be more of an effort to avoid conflict than resolve pressing issues pertaining to the objective.
Stage 4: Performing
The Performing stage is the ideal stage for the team. Conflicting ideas are encouraged and tolerated since the team now trust each other. They understand the importance that the difference of ideas increases productivity and ensures quality delivery of the objectives. Moreover, during the Performing stage the need for a leader is diminished since members are now knowledgeable of the task at hand, clearly understand their roles, and work towards the benefit of the team. Some teams even have members quickly and automatically step into other roles if a teammate is unable to complete a task due to workload or is unable to perform the task.
In 1977, Bruce Tuckman in coordination with Mary Ann Jensen added a fifth and final stage of a team they coined as Adjourning. This is the stage where the team has completed its task and is being disbanded. The is stage is basically the stage where team members mourn the loss of each other.
Stage Fluidity
Many assume that a team linear progresses through the different stage. However, a team can quickly move from Performing back to Storming when a significant event occurs. Events such as the addition or loss of a team member. Or change in an environment like working from home due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Or worse coming back into the office after the lockdown is over and the team’s cadence has changed.
Importance of understanding stages
Having each team member understand each stage and how to recognize them gives the team ability to correct the situation and get back to the performing stage. Also, when experienced members join other teams, it gives the new teams the ability to go through stages quickly or even skip stages.