forming, storming, norming, performing and...adjourning

During the 16 years I have been optimizing, troubleshooting and developing process, I learnt about the phases a team can go through. I saw it in action as well as in theory.

It actually is quite interesting to see how teams can follow the 4 well known steps - forming, storming, norming and performing. Until recently though, I had never known about the 5th phase - adjourning.

For those of you not familiar with Bruce Tuckman's model, when a team first gets together, people are feeling each other out, trying to figure out what is acceptable and what the team is about. This is known as "forming". It can also be known as the polite phase.

Then the gloves are taken off and along comes the rocky stage or "storming". By this time the team is starting to challenge each other, push the boundaries and start pushing their own perspectives. Sounds scary and even like something you don't want, but it is actually great for getting things out in the open, getting the creative juices flowing and pushing the team. The trick though is getting the team through this phase and out the other side.

The other side is the "norming" phase. Now that the team has worked out some of the issues, there is an understanding of how to work together and the productivity levels start to increase, moral starts to improve and synergies form. Since this is often drawn as a plateau (forming), followed by a downslope (storming) and then a gentle upslope (norming), you can imagine there may be some sliding backward into the valley of storming! But, the recovery can (or should) be a lot quicker.

Eventually (and can be quite fast), the team moves into "performing". Now that the environment has been set and people are working together, conflict is seen as productive, collaborative and respectful. The synergies of the team are creating very powerful results.

And that was all I had been taught. Now I have learned there is another phase; "adjourning" or "mourning". Actually it makes a lot of sense. This assumes that a team is only together for a specific purpose and that purpose has been fulfilled. Now the team needs to get closure and be ready to move on. It is about celebrating success and recognizing growth.

In this day and age where there is so much fluidity in roles and projects though, this should be considered on an individual level as well as the team. Sometimes a person is moved onto a new challenge before the team has completed the old challenge. This can end up with someone feeling in limbo as their work was never quite done. A simple meeting between the team leader and the individual reflecting on contributions can ease this.

On the other hand, new peple can join a team. This can actually put the group all the way to the norming stage depending on the amount of distruption the knew person can bring. Knowing these dynamics, while stressful going through them, can be helpful because you know what comes next and now you can work towards getting to the performing stage!