The four stages in the growth of a team.

Developing a team of people who cooperate and work well together has been the goal of managers for as far back as you want to look. You absolutely must have a team if you're going to get a big job finished. But you're dealing with people and, as we are well aware, people don't always form into a team without problems surfacing. So how teams come together and become efficient and harmonious is of interest. The businesses or organizations employing them usually have time, money and reputation hanging on how well the team functions.

An academic paper by Bruce Tuckman, published in 1965, has come to be regarded as the best general description of how teams form and work together. In this ground-breaking paper, Tuckman said teams build through four distinct stages which he called forming, storming, norming and performing.

Researchers through the West agree that a team will change if it is together for some time. It seems common-sense that when a group of people first come together they will want to know about the other members, will have to adjust and accommodate other members, could experience conflicts that need to be settled, but eventually may develop into a harmonious, productive unit achieving more together than each could have achieved alone.

Dr Tuckman named the first stage "Forming"

Here the members of the team test their fellow members and the team rules, and learn what they can about the team. Everyone is depending either on each other or the older team members, something that will soon change.

When this occurs the team enters stage two, Storming.

This is something we do as it is common to resist being pushed around by a group you're part of. And Tuckman's term for this second stage is exactly right.

Interestingly, this leads to the next stage, which Tuckman labeled Norming.

Here is a time for people to say how they feel and what they think. The team becomes a solid unit. New norms and standards are adopted.

When this happens Tuckman's final stage flowers. He called it Performing.

This is the time supervisors dream about. Everyone understands the others and now it's easy and natural to work in harness with the others. Members work together to get jobs done, to the extent of doing other people's jobs where that's beneficial. Team leaders are accepted and team members support each other.

Tuckman took his analysis further. He added another and onlookers debated and refined Tuckman's results. But in spite of this, the clarity with which Bruce Tuckman laid bare the literature of the 60s, and his brilliant terms for each stage, have lasted the distance and right up until now are the basis of what we know about how teams work.

Article Source: http://articlesmore.com

Len McGrane has written widely on corporate team building programs and teambuilding ideas. He recommends this team building web site for programs www.teamworx.cc

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