Manager’s Guide To Navigating The Four Stages Of Team Development

During the Forming stage of team development, team members are usually excited to be part of the team and eager about the work ahead. Members often have high positive expectations for the team experience. At the same time, they may also feel some anxiety, wondering how they will fit in to the team and if their performance will measure up. I’m sure you have heard there are four stages of team development that each team goes through before they perform at a high level. Once their efforts are underway, team members need clarity about their activities and goals, as well as explicit guidance about how they will work independently and collectively.

You will know your team has made it out of the storm and into the norm when the clouds of discontent and conflict have cleared. Relationships should have improved, disagreements caused by differences in behavioral styles clarified and interactions should be respectful. Your team members should be playing to their strengths and showing commitment to the team’s goals.

At this stage, the team goals may already be clear, although its members may have different views on the best ways to achieve them. Managers should help the team consider everyone’s point of view and allow each member to contribute to relevant team discussions. Reaching consensus on each issue that requires a debate is crucial — compromises won’t help in the long term. Frequent and regular team retrospectives are great for discussing and resolving issues at this stage. Because storming can be contentious, members who are averse to conflict will find it unpleasant or even painful. Patience and consideration toward team members and their views go a long way toward avoiding this.

Some teams will never develop past this stage; however, disagreements within the team can make members stronger, more versatile, and able to work more effectively together. Supervisors during this phase may be more accessible, https://globalcloudteam.com/ but tend to remain directive in their guidance of decision-making and professional behaviour. The team members will therefore resolve their differences and members will be able to participate with one another more comfortably.

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There’s an increased chance of reaching the product goal within the timeline originally set during the forming stage. Stage two of five is considered the most critical but also the most difficult to go through. It can be riddled with conflict as the individual personalities and work styles clash within the team.

Interpersonal pain points are all kinds of awkward but they are not the norm. That comes next, if teams are able to communicate productively and find a way to work together. In these cases, it helps to have a little empathy for the shifting experiences of your team, which make it harder to focus on deep work and can feel unsettling from a job security or validation standpoint. Fair warning to team members who don’t like conflict—things will get awkward. But if teams can’t identify the issues, communicate constructively, and work to resolve them, they will get stuck at this stage. According to group development theory, team dynamics play a big part in pushing people past average and into exceptional success.

Where Do forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, And Adjourning Come From?

There is little friction between team members and everyone pitches in to meet the stated goal. ThoughtHub is a collection of knowledge to help you learn more about your favorite topics. Here you’ll find a variety of articles on subjects such as business, ministry, archaeology, communication, psychology, education and many more. Roles and processes form the Norming stage continue, with refinements as needed. Depending on how long the project lasted and the bond that was formed, there is sometimes a ceremonial celebration of the work that was completed and the overall success of the project.

Identifying each of the 4 stages of team development helps you underscore your team’s needs during each one. Team leadership Support managers with the tools and resources they need to lead hybrid & remote teams. As issues are addressed and resolved, the team’s morale begins to increase.

• Because the marketing team successfully completed their objective, they enter into the adjourning stage of group development.
• Do you know where your team falls in the natural progression of team development?
• A fifth stage was later added by Tuckman about ten years later, which is called adjourning.
• In addition to keeping communication flowing, it’s also extremely helpful to ensure that everyone knows what part of the project they are responsible for.
• This way team members can meet from anywhere and share their screen so that everyone can see the project details simultaneously.

The final stage of group development is adjourning, which is when the group disbands following the successful or unsuccessful completion of its goal. Adjourning is used to provide closure and wrap up final group activities. In the Performing stage, the team begins to work individually and together as needed to make progress on planned tasks. The leader’s role in this stage of team building should be less involved if the team has been given clear direction. In moving forward, the team members may realize responsibilities, processes, and/or structures need to be adjusted on the fly, especially in a startup.

Depending on the personalities and experiences of its members, a team may be able to absorb new elements with less friction. Teams can move forward and backward in the group development cycle, and even remain stranded in a less developed stage (yikes!). In the Forming stage, group members are focused on getting to know each other, learning more about what will be involved, and avoiding conflict. At this stage, the group is highly dependent on the leader to answer their questions about the group’s purpose and provide direction. Engineering management, leadership, software architecture, high-performing teams, professional growth.

Finally, they should ensure the team can resolve internal conflicts and disagreements. At this stage, the team’s routine and norms become stable and change infrequently. The team may start thinking strategically about their work and balance work on initiatives and process improvements. The roles and boundaries are typically unclear at the Storming stage.

Forming

If the team is focused on their planned tasks, these changes should occur smoothly. However, some teams may not reach this level of interdependence and flexibility. If that is the case, the leader may need to step in to assist the team through these changes. However, generally, the leader is more involved with delegating and overseeing the process during this stage. Note that teams can lapse back into earlier stages when changes occur with personnel or the project itself. Ideally, the end of this phase is the successful completion of the project.

The adjourning stage is an important way of providing closure, and it can help team members successfully move on to the next work project or team with the sense of a job well done. Keep reminding the team to check in with each other regularly in person or via instant chat, but stay out of their way. They will waste time and lose their focus if they have to answer frequent, unscheduled questions about what they’re working on. Encourage team members to develop a schedule filled with large blocks of time that are free from interruptions like meetings or check-ins. In this world of constant notifications, it’s easy for people to get derailed and forget which goals are really important.

Each stage of team development presents its own special challenges to a group of people striving to work together successfully by forming a well-oiled team. By knowing where they’re at, the team and the organization can take specific actions at each stage of team development to support the team’s success in accomplishing the team mission. When teams work in the same space, it’s easy to see what everyone’s doing. Designers are talking to product managers to get direction, or product managers meet with analysts to talk about user data and reports. It’s different for remote marketing teams because you can’t see what people are working on.

Borrow insights from this teamwork theory, and you might finally understand how your team can push past average and unlock a higher level of productivity together. At the Storming Stage, managers should ensure the team members agree on the team norms and keep following them. They need to help them find a way to work together and support struggling team members.

Sales professionals begin to fight for cherry accounts, posture for target rich territories, argue for origination fees and so on. They become more focused on their what are the four stages of group development own stuff and their problems rather than on the company’s goals. You, as the sales manager, now need to utilize leadership and help create a common vision or goal.

Performing

In the performing stage, there’s a sense of focus, purpose, and alignment from everyone on the team, no matter their role. His theory, which is referred to as Tuckman’s Stages, is centered around his research on the dynamics of teams and team building. His common belief of team development that the stages are all necessary for a group to work together as effectively together as possible in order to see success. The next phase, if you overcome the storming stage, is the “coming around” or norming stage. Here your team is developing the skills for task completion, and morale is beginning to rise. Your sales team is being supportive of one another and beginning to be more collaborative rather than self-centered.

Stages Of Group Development

This stage can be difficult for some, but members are encouraged to take what they learn from each group they are part of to aid future groups in the progression towards the performing stage. After a group has completed their task they must dissolve and disband from both the task and group members. During the norming phase, team members begin to work as a cohesive unit again and the strengths of each member are realized. This is when the team first meets each other and is on their best behavior.

Four Stages Of Team Development

Other members in the group began to express motivation towards completing the group goals and now work harder to finish the project ahead of time. The leaders also communicate with their team more regularly, allowing for an increased sense of security, group cohesion, and trust. Group work is often critical to the success of a larger operation or organizational goal within a business. Groups provide a business with multiple levels of insight and excel from the strengths that each member of the group maintains. However, groups are not meant to be completely successful from the time of their conception.

Trust builds, productivity rises and the team begins working together toward the common goal. At this point, the leader should draw out the opinions of all members and leverage the diversity of the team. As conflicts arise, the leader must take quick action to deal with the issue and maintain the positive climate. During the Norming stage, members shift their energy to the team’s goals and show an increase in productivity, in both individual and collective work. The team may find that this is an appropriate time for an evaluation of team processes and productivity.

School leadership team embraces the roles and processes created by the design team, refining as needed. Teams in this stage are transitioning from the design team to the school leadership team that will run the school. Not all members of the design team go on to be members of the school leadership team. Unity is upon everyone and a consensus develops around who the leaders are, what everyone’s role is, and what comes next.

Some groups may avoid the phase altogether, but for those who do not, the duration, intensity and destructiveness of the “storms” can be varied. Tolerance of each team member and their differences should be emphasized; without tolerance and patience the team will fail. This phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation if allowed to get out of control.