How do you manage your team as a leader? Oftentimes,we might encounter difficulties working in a small or large group. If we do not capture the problems in time attentively or being conscientious to guide open and effective discussions, the goals will not likely to be met or even reach ideal status. In this case, we need to take proactive steps. With the next landing journey on Tuchman’s 5 stages, I hope this could enhance team management skills for who needed to handle similar scenarios, especially for team managers.
Effective Team Development in 5 Stages
According to Tuckman’s observations and insights, the process of building a cohesive team can be broken down into five distinct stages. As time progresses, the key to achieving the group’s objectives lies in accurately identifying the characteristics and challenges of each stage and whether the leader at each stage can effectively adapt and respond. In the following discussion, I’ll delve further into the details of these five stages:
- Stage1:Forming — It’s like assembling a team from scratch! This is the initial gathering of your squad, akin to when people from diverse backgrounds or chosen based on specific criteria come together for a common mission. Think of it as the first day of school, where you find yourself in a classroom with a bunch of strangers. You greet and introduce yourself to each other, but there’s still a lack of deep familiarity. For leaders, a vital task here is to begin acquainting themselves with each team member. After breaking the initial awkwardness, it’s time to set out the team’s game plan, essentially a set of rules and future objectives everyone agrees to follow. This helps each person get a preliminary sense of the role and tasks they can undertake to achieve those goals.
- Stage 2 :Storming — It’s inevitable, there’s going to be conflict. As time marches on, team members are bound to clash over different issues due to their personal differences. They’ll find each other’s quirks annoying and start pushing each other’s boundaries. As a leader, it’s crucial to thoroughly understand each team member’s unique traits. The key here is to actively help resolve internal conflicts, so that there are no lingering grudges among team members and mutual trust can flourish. Often, a powerful communication tool in this stage is employing nonviolent communication — this involves observing and describing facts, expressing genuine feelings, stating needs, and making requests (with a critical emphasis on avoiding hasty judgments).
To transition to the next stage successfully, leaders need to switch up their leadership approach accordingly. This means aligning with various team dynamics, being open to ideas, resolving conflicts, all while keeping the team motivated. It’s crucial to regularly remind team members of their shared objectives and offer timely feedback to everyone.
- Stage 3: Norming — Finding the rhythm. As the minor frictions get smoothed out, team members gradually increase their understanding of one another through ongoing communication. Trust starts to build, and everyone becomes well-acquainted with the rules of engagement. In more optimistic scenarios, team members begin to unite, each recognizing their individual strengths without the need for a leader to mediate. During this phase, the team leader should ensure that members keep contributing towards the team’s objectives to prevent any regression back to the previous stage of turbulence.
- Stage 4: Performing — High-performance is the name of the game. In the diagram above, this is also the pinnacle of team performance. When everyone shares a common goal, the team begins to produce results through smart delegation of tasks. Everyone works together harmoniously, achieving their objectives and entering autopilot mode where team efficiency is at its peak. However, leaders should remain vigilant, continuously motivating and keeping an eye out for potential conflicts and emerging issues.
- Stage 5 :Adjourning — Success! You made it. This marks a significant milestone in achieving the overall goal of this phase. If the team hasn’t been successfully built up until this point, it tends to get stuck in the preceding three stages and struggles to advance to the fourth stage. Even if they manage to reach the fourth stage, the outcomes often fall short of expectations.
Highlights for Team Manager:
Nothing worth achieving happens overnight, and that includes honing leadership skills. Within a team, you often find a diverse array of members. Imagine a captain lacking experience and wisdom: they might not only steer the ship onto the wrong course but also had hard time struggling to resolve conflicts among the crew, not mention to find ways to effectively mediate and achieve common goals. Therefore, to recognize the challenges that may arise in a work environment, as leaders, we need to:
- Guiding the communication among team members is absolutely crucial, and leaders should go all out to foster a harmonious and efficient atmosphere, meaning leaders must be clear about their own leadership style. It is also helpful to provide as clear guidance as you could and set well-defined task objectives, and strive to integrate and minimize bias. Meanwhile, learn how to actively employ the nonviolent communication model to express their feelings.
- It’s worth noting that the transitions between these five stages may not always be clear-cut. Even if a team reaches the next stage, various events can cause them to revert to a previous stage. Managers must accurately identify the team’s current state and then make adjustments to steer the team towards a more ideal state, gradually moving closer to their objectives.