Team Fracture/Failure or Thrive: Tuckman’s Teaming Stages: Stage 2 — The Storming Stage
The Turning Point — Here’s Where Teams Either Fracture, Fail, or Choose to Thrive
This is the fourth post in a series about how teams develop. This Stage of the Team is the departure point for many teams that don’t make it.
Catch the first three posts here:
Article 1: Should You Care About How Your Team Behaves?
Article 2: Team Development — (Bruce Wayne — yes, that was his real name) Tuckman’s Five Stages of Group Development — Overview
Article 3: Team Excitement! Tuckman’s Teaming Stages: Stage 1 — The Forming Stage (this includes the introductory information on our hypothetical team story that we’ll be following)
Our Team Enters the Storming Stage
In the last few weeks, our team suffered some problems. They’d met in high hopes of doing good work for their organization, but as the weeks passed without subsequent meetings, apprehension grew.
Team members began to notice a critical oversight: there was no appointed leader for the team. The CEO, who wasn’t leading the team directly, hadn’t delegated this responsibility, leaving the team in limbo. [Although teams can choose a “Co-Leader” or “Leaderless” model, this only works well after the team’s cohesion in the late Norming Stage.]
The team had its second meeting only after the CEO, frustrated by the lack of progress, urged one of the team members to organize a discussion to get the team back on track. This individual reluctantly became the “de facto” team leader despite lacking what they thought were the necessary qualifications.
Additionally, old conflicts resurfaced among some former team members who are now in this new team, casting doubt on their ability to collaborate effectively.
Confusion also reigned regarding the project’s direction. Each member had a different vision of what they were building, leading to conflicting priorities.
These issues set the stage for the Storming Phase of the team, which is characterized by:
- Behavioral Conflicts: Personality clashes, power struggles, jealousy, and defensiveness
- Lack of Norms: Avoidance of commitment and accountability and lack of trust
- Goal Disagreements: Differing expectations and disorganization regarding the tasks of the team
In this chaotic phase, the team’s initial camaraderie seemed to evaporate. Members became confused and defensive and split into factions vying for control.
Distrust and questioning of each other’s competence lead to disputes over project execution. These clashes often cause disengagement, with some members thinking about leaving the team. Despite what the CEO had planned, they didn’t want to get stuck on a failing project or in a failing team.
Other team members thought they should lead the team, not the person the CEO had asked, so they started challenging the leader that the CEO had chosen. It became a tug-of-war for bragging rights, and a toxic culture for the team became evident.
Team Effectiveness Inside the Storming Stage
Team Effectiveness: When both the team’s interpersonal relationships and its task accomplishments work well together.
The Storming Phase sees a rapid decline in team effectiveness compared to the Forming Stage. More energy and time is spent on internal conflicts and establishing a pecking order or arguing about how to do the project than on actual project work. Unfortunately, some teams linger in this stage for extended periods, sometimes months or years, or indefinitely, hampering their overall effectiveness.
If the team cannot find forward momentum somewhere, this team will likely fail completely. Frustrated team members will leave the team. Some may even leave the organization altogether.
Here, it’s helpful to understand some terminology:
Team Fracture: When the team needs to heal from conflicts and is open to looking at its problems. Much like healing from a broken leg, several methods can be combined to help the team heal, helping it to become stronger afterward. The team can reset itself during the Storming Stage.
Team Failure: When the team has decided to break up completely. Individuals cannot be induced to work with the people inside this team again. The Storming Stage is the end Stage of this team.
However, there is Hope…
Recognizing a project's lack of progress can be a pivotal moment, encouraging the team to prioritize the project over personal conflicts.
This realization can lead to a renewed focus on problem-solving, decision-making, and the establishment of new team norms. Team members begin to reflect on past issues, asking themselves, “What just happened, and how can we prevent it in the future?”
Most teams experience more than one Storming Stage, but because they’ve co-created norms together during this initial Storming Stage, they understand how to get out of Storming while asking the right questions to further their work.
This phase is crucial for setting boundaries regarding acceptable behavior and commitment, paving the way for entering the Norming Stage.
And it is a mistake to try to avoid having a Storming Stage. Teams must go through Storming to break into the Norming Stage.
As the infographic shows, team effectiveness increases as the team prepares to fix its problems.
Our Team
Because our team has committed to the project, the CEO and the organization, they are starting to see that they must come together rather than stay apart or stay at loggerheads with each other.
During the team’s second meeting, our “de facto” leader offered to step into the “real” leader’s spot so that the team could figure out its missing pieces and move forward. Even though this person didn’t feel equipped to do this, the rest of the team said they would help with this if needed but would not fight each other for the leadership position. They will work together with their leader to hammer out all the things they must do together to overcome their problems. This includes:
- Understanding the project better, how it should function when done and the intricate pieces that need to be built inside the application which “talk to one another”
- Understand which employees should provide their specialty skills to each portion of the application build
- Determine if there are others that need to weigh in on decisions that are not a part of the team
- Determine the norms of the team: how they will work together for the duration of the project
With this taken care of, the team has found the will to make changes to the way it needs to work together. Even just these small decisions are enough to lift the team to better team effectiveness.
The new team leader sets the date for the next team meeting, at which they will construct their norms and, later, apprise the CEO of the decisions made.
